Daniel Bryan Talks Physical Therapist Angle on “Raw” and More

Former WWE World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan was recently interviewed by IGN in order to promote the upcoming “WWE 2K15” video game. He discussed a number of topics in regards to being out of the ring, in addition to Brie Bella facing Stephanie McMahon at “SummerSlam.”

Right off the bat, Bryan was asked about his health status. He revealed he had a second surgery scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 12, but it was postponed:

“Right, yeah. I don’t know how things are going. For example, I was supposed to have a second surgery scheduled for Tuesday, but they postponed it to do some more testing — and this has been the frustrating part for me. The nervous system is very complex. So there’s been debate about, “Okay, does he need a second surgery? Does he not need a second surgery?” And people have kind of been going back and forth on it. Then finally we decided, “Okay, he needs the surgery.” We’re going to go get the surgery — no, wait, nope! We’re going to go do some more tests. So I would obviously prefer to not get the surgery, but if I’m going to do it, I want to do it as soon as possible, because the sooner I do it, the sooner I get back. The surgery they’re talking about doing is a three-month recovery. I’ve already been out three months, so that’s another three months. So you’d like to get that done as soon as you can — if it needs to be done. If it doesn’t need to be done, let’s not do it! What they want to do is they want to take the nerve from down a along my elbow and then move it over, and then put it under my forearm muscle there [pointing at arm]. So it’s, like, rewiring me. [Laughs] I don’t like that at all.”

“The Beard” also discussed his wife, Brie Bella, getting a marquee feud with Stephanie McMahon:

“Oh my gosh, I’m so proud of her. Her and Stephanie – the main event to RAW, two weeks in a row! That hasn’t happened with Divas in years. Now she’s in what’s, in my mind, the second-biggest match in SummerSlam, and Divas just don’t get that opportunity very often. So I’m really happy for her, really proud of her. She’s worked really hard. A lot of people don’t understand how hard the girls on Total Divas work. They’re on the road, the same as the rest of us, and then when they get home, they’ve got to be filming this whole time. So it’s a very hard life with very few days off, and she’s finally getting rewarded for that, so that’s really nice.”

Bryan had an interesting take on the Megan Miller physical therapist angle on the Aug. 11 “Monday Night Raw.” The angle saw Miller claim that she had an “affair” with Daniel Bryan.

First, IGN asked, “so, I have to ask… You got brought into the Brie and Stephanie story the other day on RAW in a very interesting way.”

Bryan simply said:

“Wait, by ‘interesting,’ do you mean stupid?” [Laughs]

When asked to elaborate, Bryan stated:

“Yeah, to me, it’s groan-worthy. I don’t think it added anything to the story. It was just like, “Ugh!” But, you know, they do what they do, and you just gotta roll with the punches. It’s funny, because I feel like sometimes you just have to overcome these things more so than anything else. Like, Brie and Stephanie have to overcome that flaw. To me, that was a flaw in the story. The story was so good, and then here’s this flaw in it. But it’s whatever. It doesn’t hurt my feelings or anything, you know? It’s entertainment. It’s not real, so okay.”

Read the interview, in its entirety, here.

Editor’s Note

What kind of “groan?”