Daniel Bryan Teases A Bullet Club Feud On Twitter, Once Again Signaling A Return To The Ring

This is the third time in my tenure as Barstool’s WWE writer that I’ve covered Daniel Bryan’s return to the ring after his WWE contract expires. It’s been well documented that he’s my favorite wrestler of all time (by far) and that I don’t want him back in the squared circle because I’m concerned about his health. If you’re unaware, he was forced to retire by the WWE last February due to a history of concussions. He’s been able to document 10 over his career, but assured everyone there were more than that, and they caused him to have seizures. I thought, if the WWE isn’t clearing him to return to the ring, there is obviously a medical reason…until he went on Edge and Christian’s podcast and explained the situation. Shoutout to Reddit user Sweggeh for breaking it down:

So his story starts with the time of his last concussion. He gets cleared by his own doctors, but that isn’t enough for WWE. First WWE and Vince in particular force him to see their hand picked experts to get testing done on his brain. So they sent him to these doctors (that aren’t his own doctors which already cleared him), first of which was a concussion specialist in Phoenix. They cleared him. That wasn’t enough for WWE, and he asked WWE what more they want him to do. He said he would go get a 3rd opinion. So he went to UCLA to get testing from a team of concussion specialists who had him run a lot of different tests. They cleared him.

He comes back to WWE, and yet again they say no you are not cleared to go, even though 3 independent institutions had already cleared him, 2 of which were doctors WWE chose. So they send him to go get some experimental stuff done. Testing that isn’t even FDA approved. They do some kind of reflex or impact testing, so they hook stuff up to his brain and test that and whatever. So he does that, and they tell him he has a lesion in a certain region on his brain. So he calls Vince, and he tells him he has this lesion on his brain. He says he was crying when he got off the phone because his career was done. And the next week Vince calls him and tells him to come to RAW in Seattle and give a retirement speech. Initially he didn’t want to do it but he became convinced it was for the best.

Then after everything dies down, he gets a call from one of the doctors who originally cleared him and he asks him what happened that made him retire. He tells the doctor that they found a lesion on his brain. And then the doctor tells him that in medical terminology, a lesion does not mean what it usually means. Bryan thought it meant he had a cut on his brain, but the doctor says that in medical terminology, a lesion is a very vague term. It just means that something is there. Not necessarily a cut or anything like that. Then that doctor looks at the report that said he had a lesion. And what he found was that Daniel’s brain reflexes in that region were slower than they expected. Thats why in the report they wrote it in as a lesion.

Now here is the really messed up part. That region of his brain had a slow reflex compared to MMA fighters and football players and athletes that they usually test at that facility. It did NOT have any reflex that is slower than what you would expect in a normal human being. And since Bryan is a performer and not really a sports person, obviously you would expect his reflex time to be closer to an average persons, not a high level sports athlete.

In addition to that, they didnt have a baseline for how fast the reflex in that part of his brain used to be. So they had no way of even knowing if there was actually any damage there, or if that was just the normal speed at which that region of his brain functioned. He went to this Joe Namath institute to get more tests done and they said his brain is no different from a run of the mill college football player. He has had some concussions, but he is not a person at risk of brain damage.

If that wall of text is too long for you, here’s what happened: After Daniel Bryan’s last concussion, they made him get testing to return to the ring. He was cleared, and they said try another doctor. He was cleared again, and they said try another doctor. He was cleared a third time, and they said try another doctor, this time, the WWE’s doctor. The third (WWE) doctor found a lesion on Bryan’s brain, and they pressured him into retiring the next day. He found out later that the “lesion” was a pretty vague term, and he’s not at high risk to brain damage, so he’s returning.

Brie Bella, Bryan’s wife, came on our podcast to discuss this, and was in full support of her husband to lace up his boots again (he doesn’t wear boots but it’s a phrase, deal with it). He’s been privately training in the ring with her and taking bumps, although he’s not allowed to post videos of that. So now I’m stuck between Dwayne Johnson and a hard place. I didn’t want Bryan to wrestle again because all signs were pointing to long term health damage, but now all signs point to some kind of WWE fuckery, and he’s for sure returning to the ring. When he does, I’d prefer it to be WWE, because that is still my favorite style of wrestling when it’s at it’s best, but I’m highly doubtful they’d admit said fuckery due to the PR shitstorm that would follow. Bryan’s in for the PR shitstorm no matter what, because he went on SportsCenter to talk about his concussion-induced seizures, but it’ll probably blow over fairly quickly for him if he goes to Japan or Mexico.

So you know what? Fuck it, I guess. I can’t stop him. We’re gonna see Bryan Danielson, the American Dragon, dismantle the Bullet Club. If anyone could do it, it’s him, and it’s the FI-NAL COUNT-DOWN!