Current ROH Pure Champion Josh Woods signed a contract with WWE at the end of 2014 and trained at the WWE Performance Center. He appeared on a few episodes participating in battle royals and on house shows. He was released in 2016 from the company. During his time in the black-and-yellow brand, he found out that he was going to train with Daniel Bryan, who was making his return at the time.

Woods was told by Coach Matt Bloom that he’d be fired if he hurt Daniel Bryan by injuring him. Speaking to Inside the Ropes, Woods recalled the intense moment:

“When I was in NXT, Bryan was coming back from a neck injury and they do a lot of rehab for the WWE guys there and he was coming in and rolling around,” Woods stated. “I don’t remember how this conversation got started, but Matt Bloom was the coach or my coach at the time, and I was like, Yeah, I’ll get in and I’ll go with them as I have like a jujitsu background because Bryan’s a really big jujitsu guy and he’s pretty good.

“So I’m like, all right, cool. Yeah, I’m taking my shoes off because you don’t wear shoes and like, this fricking awesome and Matt goes, hey, man, he’s coming off a neck injury. If you hurt him, you’re fired. I’m just like, I don’t want to get in there anymore because I’m scared because like, I’m a little bit bigger than Brian. I’m like, Oh s***, this is Bryan Danielson. Like, Well, oh god, I’m like, s***. It’s like, I get in there and it was pretty cool and It was so fun.”

Woods also stated that he it is not impossible for him to defend his ROH Pure title against Bryan Danielson in AEW.