Daniel Bryan was forced to retire from in ring competition last year, but a few months later he returned to WWE to work as the General Manager of SmackDown Live. Bryan has been working the job ever since, and after taking a few weeks off to be with his wife and newborn baby, he returned on this week’s episode of SmackDown Live.
Bryan can’t wrestle right now, but he noted in a recent interview with SI that he’s “working on” returning to the ring.
“I’m working on it,” said Bryan. “Wrestling is more of a creative outlet, and especially for somebody like me, I view it as my creative outlet. Not all WWE superstars and not all wrestlers view it that way, but that’s how I view it and that’s one of the ways my mind works creatively.”
Dave Meltzer recently noted on Wrestling Observer Live that Daniel Bryan’s contract is up in a year, and Bryan also reportedly had some tests done in April, which may have been what he meant when he said he was “working on” returning.
“I don’t think it’s 100%. It wasn’t 100% as of a couple months ago. He had some tests done in April, and I don’t know how the tests went, maybe that encouraged him, based on that.”
Meltzer added that WWE Medical Director Joseph Maroon is adamant that Daniel Bryan remains retired, and it’s highly unlikely that he will change his mind on the subject. It was also noted that it would be a disaster for Vince McMahon to go against his head doctor’s advice.
A few months ago Bryan was asked in an interview what he plans to do when his contract expires, and he said that he wants to wrestle, but it all depends on his health.
“It all depends on how I feel my health is, and how my wife feels my health is. If we feel my health is good — I love to wrestle, I’m going to wrestle. But if we think that at that point that it’s not good then we’ll see what happens.”
On this week’s episode of Still Real Radio we’re talking about the fallout from the Money in the Bank pay-per-view, James Ellsworth handing the briefcase to Carmella, the possibility of Samoa Joe becoming Universal Champion and more. You can subscribe to Still Real Radio on iTunes and you can also check out the latest episode below.
[…] Bryan said in an interview that he is “working on” returning to the ring, and it was recently reported that he had some testing done in […]