Daniel Bryan on “Royal Rumble” Reaction, When He Was Cleared

Former WWE World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan recently chatted with Turnbuckle Weekly about what he’s been up to in WWE since he made his return to television. Below are some of the highlights.

He spoke on the reaction Roman Reigns got at the “Royal Rumble” pay-per-view, which was overwhelmingly negative:

“I think a lot of people (blamed) it on the Royal Rumble being in Philadelphia this year but that’s not entirely true,” Bryan said. “What happens is a lot of people fly in to see the Royal Rumble. It’s one of the top pay-per-views of the year. It’s the start of WrestleMania season.”

Bryan himself competed in the Rumble match, but little known to the WWE Universe, he had barely been cleared to do that:

“I feel really, really good. Obviously they threw me right into the fire as soon as I came back. It’s funny, I got cleared on a Monday and then the next Tuesday I was wrestling. For my first match, it was on SmackDown and they ended up putting me in two matches that night, and it’s been off to the races ever since.”

“It’s funny because I went down to the Performance Center down in Orlando that weekend right before I made that announcement. I was getting strength back and I met the measurements that they needed me to meet as far as strength requirements to coming back. Then as soon as that happened that following weekend I went down to NXT in Orlando and trained at the Center there just to see if I could get back to see if I would be held up there. Actually, when I made the announcement I wasn’t officially cleared. It was one of those things where it was a 90-percent chance but if something happened they were going to give it another week before just to make sure nothing happened after I had gone down to train at the Performance Center. Everything was good. So I legitimately got cleared the day before my first match back.”

Bryan and Reigns will main event the upcoming “Fastlane” pay-per-view, where the winner will go on to face Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania. The most recent reports have the match slated as a triple-threat match.

More from the interview can be found here.

Editor’s Note

Crazy how fast he came back. There were rumors he wouldn’t at all, then, bam.

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