Daniel Bryan: “when my [WWE] contract is up I would wrestle elsewhere if WWE would not clear me”

The former WWE Champion and the current General Manager of SmackDown talks about not being able to fight again in the company despite having a medical discharge and affirms that, if the situation remains the same at the end of his contract, he will look for another company.

Courtesy: WWE.com

“He is still not cleared to wrestle by WWE, supposedly on account of WWE’s position that Bryan has had too many concussions, Bryan Said.”

“I’ve worked with some of the best people in the country. I’ve been cleared by specialists at UCLA that I did not choose, right? WWE sent them to me because they’re the best. A whole team of people who work with concussions on a daily basis and they said to me, ‘you are fine to wrestle.’ And we’re also at this stage where all my brain EEGs, my MRIs, my neuropsychological tests [have been positive].”

Regarding his current position as General Manager of SmackDown, Bryan admits that he includes everything he does not like about professional wrestling:

“I love [professional] wrestling, but I don’t love all of it, right? The hard part of wrestling is the travel and going here and there and being away from your family. The part that I love is being in the ring and wrestling. Yeah, being in there and doing it. So now, I’ve got the job that’s the part of wrestling that I don’t like.’

“I am very appreciative of WWE giving me this something to do, but I think some people still think, ‘oh, you’re in wrestling still and you’re getting a paycheck – you should be happy.”

Bryan also talked about his wife, Brie Bella, who is being her biggest support right now: 

“So Brie, and you’d think that this would be the opposite, she’s fully supportive of me wrestling again and one of the reasons why is she has been in some of these doctors meetings with the doctors that cleared me.”

Regarding his possible return to the ring, Bryan was emphatic and said:

“If I get a bad test somewhere along the line, I won’t wrestle. But I also, will probably, when my contract is up, I’d probably, if I’m still General Manager at that point, I’d probably step away from that part of it because just being around it, I love it a little too much and I need to transition. I need to get this focused because I’m very good at focusing on one thing, right? But then, I need to switch that laser focus to something else like saving the starving polar bears. So yeah, assuming everything continues as it has been going, when my [WWE] contract is up I would wrestle elsewhere if WWE would not clear me.”