Daniel Bryan Says WWE May Never Clear Him For Action While Under Contract, but He Will Wrestle Again

In a recent interview with “BustedOpenRadio,” former WWE World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan says WWE may never clear him for action while under contract, but he will wrestle again somewhere. As previously reported, Bryan has recently started to openly discuss the injury that has kept him out-of-action for almost four months.

Bryan recently confirmed that his time out of the ring was due to a severe concussion, and that he’s had a bad string of concussion related injuries throughout his career. He was recently cleared to return to WWE competition by a neurologist in Phoenix, Arizona, the same doctor that was on hand working the 2015 Super Bowl. However, WWE has not yet allowed Bryan to work matches for them, which is primarily because they do not want to be liable for him if he suffers another concussion.

During the recent “BustedOpenRadio” interview, Bryan says the following,

“Yes, there is that chance [that WWE may never clear him to compete for them again while contracted to the company]. But I told them, regardless of them, if they won’t clear me … we’re independent contractors, in theory … and I WILL wrestle again. I am cleared by the neurologist in Phoenix that I’ve been going to see.

It’s not like he’s a quack doctor. He was the neurologist for the Super Bowl … who has no problems in clearing me with no limitations. But you also have to understand that WWE is not only looking out for my best interest, but they have to look out for their company as well, and I understand all of that too.

There is nothing vindictive or anything there’s just a lot of hurdles to go through at this point with getting cleared by WWE. I had a sit-down with Vince and Hunter about this and said, ‘Hey, this is my passion. I understand why you guys wouldn’t clear me but we only get, as far as we know, one life. And you’re not going to let me do my passion?'”

He also went into more detail about the injury that he’s been dealing with, saying,

“Well it’s actually not a neck issue, my neck is completely fine. It’s more of a concussion issue. And Brie was very hesitant about this whole thing and that’s why WWE is very protective over me too.

Everyone is more aware of concussions and that’s why, with WWE, I don’t see what they’re doing, as far as making me go through all these hurdles, I don’t see that as a negative. They’re protecting me and especially in this era of concussion awareness.

Brie at first was like, “Hmm, I’m not sure, given your history.” But when we met with the neurologist in Phoenix and we went through all the testing and he said: ‘Ok, all of my testing is not just coming back good, it’s coming back excellent.’

As far as my brain right now, it’s at a level above most people who have never had a concussion my age. When you are looking at scores of like: Bad, poor, fair, good, great, excellent — it’s at those great-excellent levels.

So all of that to say, she had gone from being very skeptical about it to being very supportive of me being able to wrestle again. And she is someone who will flat out say, ‘I’m not just interested in what happens to him 2 years from now or 5 years from now,’ and she doesn’t care about the money or anything like that, she is interested of where I’m at 20 years from now.

The deal with my arm, they told me this because I waited so long to get the surgery, my right arm might never get back to full strength of my left arm. So right now, it’s about 85% and it hasn’t improved much in a while. But because the nerve had been cut off for so long, there is a very good chance that that will never come back.

But, it’s not like I’m feeble with my right arm. My left hand, and we’re going mostly by grip strength because my triceps strength and all that kind of stuff is equal on both sides. My grip strength on my left hand is about 150 pounds of pressure and my grip strength in my right hand is about 130 pounds of pressure. The average male my age is about 100 pounds of pressure. So it’s not like I’m, ‘ugh, poor me!'”

You can listen to the interview below.

Editor’s Note:

Good to hear he’s in such good shape. Sounds like he’s trying to convince WWE to put him back in the ring by talking about this as much as possible now. TURN THE VOLUME UP, WWE! LET HIM WRESTLE!