Daniel Bryan: ‘My First Preference Is To Be Cleared By WWE’
The potential in-ring future of Daniel Bryan remains a hot topic in the world of wrestling but, if Bryan had his preference, any future matches inside the squared circle would take place in WWE.
"To be 100 percent honest, my first preference is to be cleared by WWE. The other stuff is if WWE doesn't clear me," Bryan told Sam Roberts on the latest episode of the Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast.
Bryan, who retired from wrestling a year and a half ago after suffering multiple concussions, remains a fixture on WWE programming as the on-camera general manager of Smackdown. In another recent interview, he shared that he still was trying to get cleared for a WWE return but that the potential liability issue for such a big corporation was one of the main hurdles. Bryan went on to tell Roberts he thinks "there's an 85 percent chance that I would wrestle again. … I would put it at a very low percentile of WWE being able to clear me to wrestle."
Meanwhile, Ring Of Honor has outright said it would welcome Bryan — a longtime star for the promotion and former world champion — back into the ring. There even was a bit of a tease of a match via Twitter between Bryan and current ROH champ and WWE expatriate Cody Rhodes.
Bryan noted that, while continuing in a non-physical role for WWE, he also has been approached about doing talks for kids and high-school athletes warning about the potential long-term danger of concussions.
"One of the big problems with this whole thing about me getting cleared is my own fault about me not owning up and being honest about my concussions," Bryan said. "That's like a huge thing. And your doctors, wherever you're at, they have to be able to trust you. To be like, hey, if the WWE doctors don't trust me to say, 'Hey man, my head's feeling something, with my history, they shouldn't put me out there."
Bryan likened his situation to that of a high-school football player aspiring to play on the next level who gets concussed and thinks that reporting it might hinder his ability to get a scholarship.
"The reality is that's not the case," he said. "If you go and you say, hey, I got a concussion, you might miss a couple of practices, you might miss a game but will depend on the symptoms and how long the symptoms last. All you have to do is let your brain heal and if you let it heal fully, you'll be ready to go."
Meanwhile WWE continues to shy away from any chance of Bryan getting back in the ring, even quashing the posting of a video that showed him taking a bump.
