Daniel Bryan on a Return to the Ring: “I’m Trying to Get Cleared as We Speak”

“Smackdown Live” General Manager Daniel Bryan recently spoke to The Trentonian to promote an upcoming show at the Prudential Center on December 19, as well as attend the New Jersey Devils’ “WWE Night.” He discussed a number of topics; most notably were the rumors surrounding a return to in-ring competition.

Below are some highlights from the interview:

On his love of hockey:

“I love the live experience of hockey, I think it’s so much fun,” he told The Trentonian in a 1-on-1 interview. “I love the live experience of sports in general. The only sports that I’m really a big fan of is MMA and football, but I only follow the Seahawks. I don’t really follow the rest of the NFL, it’s just, ‘How are the Seahawks doing?’”

On the similarities between hockey players and professional wrestlers:

“There’s a fascinating cross-culture or an intersection between hockey fans and wrestling fans, because I think what draws people to hockey is the same thing that draws people to wrestling,” he said.

“The hockey players are a lot larger than life, right? You meet them, it’s like, ‘Whoa.’ It’s the same thing with wrestling, with the exception of people like me (Bryan is billed at 5 foot-10 inches tall), but it’s just the physicality of it and being able to root on your team to win. It goes across sports boundaries.”

Daniel Bryan bids farewell to the WWE Universe: Raw, February 8, 2016

On being cleared to return to the ring:

“I’m trying to get cleared as we speak,” Bryan said. “All my tests have come back fantastic, better than people who have never had any concussion-type stuff. But it’s a weird thing. We’re in a weird situation politically with the climate around concussions; right now, it’s very difficult. WWE would love to have me back, but is that the smart thing for me as a business to bring me back? If I was to come back, and they let me back, would they get a lot of flak for it? They have a ton of stockholders that they’re responsible for. It’s more than just, ‘Is he healthy to do it?’

“There’s more than that to the whole situation. All the concussion doctors think that I’m healthy enough to do it, and that I should be able to do it — well, I don’t want to say all of them, I’m sure there’s somebody out there who doesn’t think that — but there’s a lot more than goes into it than just that. That’s the unfortunate situation with giant corporations and big business in the United States.”

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