When Daniel Bryan was cleared to return to the ring before WrestleMania 34, fans weren’t sure if he would be wrestling a full time schedule, or only a few matches here and there.
But Bryan has been wrestling consistently on SmackDown Live and pay-per-views, and he’s been busy traveling on the road with WWE.
The former WWE World Heavyweight Champion recently opened up about his schedule when he spoke to Gorilla Position, and he noted that the busy schedule has become harder to deal with now that he has a daughter (via Wrestling Inc).
“Actually, the biggest thing is that I don’t want to be on the road as much. Like, that’s one of the big things.” Bryan explained, “you don’t realize how long you’re away until you’re away because we never had to think about it before. Like, when I was gone before or when Brie was gone before, I’d miss her, but we can FaceTime and we can talk, so it’s nice. But when you’re away from your baby, it’s a completely different thing and it hurts your heart. And she… so I will be home for a span of three days out of a month because it was like 10 days for the Saudi trip, 18 days here [on Europe], and only home three days, so that’s 31 days and I’m home for three-and-a-half days. A baby grows a lot in a month. Like, she’ll do things when I get back that she wasn’t doing when I left. And some things that she was doing, she’ll no longer be doing. And that kind of stuff makes me sad.”
Bryan added that when he was first cleared, Vince McMahon told him to send a letter to Dr. Maroon and have it say “for a limited schedule” and “revised concussion protocol for a limited schedule” so he wasn’t expecting to wrestle as much as he is now.
He also noted that he’s been talking to WWE about possibly working a lighter schedule because he doesn’t want to be away from home as much.
Daniel Bryan’s WWE contract is set to expire in September, and as of this writing he has yet to sign a new deal with the company.