On February 8th of this year, Daniel Bryan officially announced his retirement from in-ring competition in an emotional speech on Raw. Since then, however, the former WWE World Heavyweight Champion has hinted that he is not content to simply roll over and accept WWE's decision to stop him from competing inside the squared circle.
In an interview given to dailyprogress.com, Bryan - who has suffered ten documented concussions and four post-concussion seizures - said that he is confident that he is in good enough physical condition to wrestle and may indeed step back between the ropes one day. When asked whether or not he was fine to wrestle, Bryan said that he was, before adding that 'all the real concussion specialists who deal with concussions every day, all of them think I am fine'.
The Yes Man cited a team of concussion specialists at UCLA which were, incidentally, recommended to him by WWE. While Bryan wants to get back in the ring and compete, he understands WWE's position, saying:
'You can see it from their point of view. If something happens to me... and then they let me back in the ring, and something happens to me, even if these other doctors say I'm cleared, they're not the ones who the media will blame. Because concussions are such a hot topic issue and everyone's afraid of that sort of thing, that's one of the reasons why I wasn't cleared'.
When asked to comment, WWE simply stated that they 'determined it is not in the best interest of Bryan Danielson (aka Daniel Bryan) to continue as an in-ring performer'. Bryan, who is under contract with WWE, revealed that he sometimes gets so frustrated with WWE's decision that he often considers calling them and asking for a release, something the company obviously wouldn't be keen to do, since he's current GM of Smackdown and one of their most popular performers.
Byran said that if it wasn't for him and wife Brie Bella trying to have kids, he might look at wrestling outside of WWE and that he 'might even be wearing a mask at an independent show next week dressed up as Star Man. Because it's what I love to do'.
It's clear from Bryan's words that he's frustrated about not being able to wrestle, frustration that is compounded by his angle with The Miz and WWE.com running a poll asking who Bryan should face in a hypothetical comeback match, even though their are no plans for a comeback.
It remains to be seen whether Bryan will ever wrestle again but, if he does, it clearly won't be in a WWE ring.
