Bryan Danielson worked for years to make it to the top of WWE, but when he finally reached the pinnacle of his success his momentum was halted due to injury. In February of 2016 the former WWE Champion was forced to retire from in-ring competition until he was eventually cleared to return in 2018.
Danielson opened up about his early retirement while speaking with wdel.com and he explained that he had to build up trust with WWE after he lied about his medical history.
“I legitimately thought I was healthy and still think that I’m healthy. One of the reasons I was forced to retire was not because of the concussions, but because I lied about that. You have to understand, from WWE’s point of view, I had been wrestling for them for six years but then all of a sudden, they opened this Pandora’s box about ‘lying about his medical history and now we can’t trust him.’ A lot of that was building the trust back, but they were also legitimately looking after my health. I was going to see doctor after doctor and doing everything that I could to improve brain function to show, above and beyond, that my brain was healthy.
“It’s also my love of wrestling. It felt like I wasn’t really to be done yet, I still needed to come back. I also think there’s a lot left on concussion research to be done, and when you’re seeing the top doctors in the country and they’re all clearing you to do what you love to do, I think you should be able to do that.”
Bryan Danielson officially made his AEW debut at the All Out pay-per-view last month, and he will be competing this week on Dynamite when he faces Bobby Fish.
