WILL DANIEL BRYAN EVER RETURN TO THE RING?

Will Daniel Bryan ever return to the ring?

Current on-screen general manager of Smackdown Live Daniel Bryan has continually shown his desire to get back into the ring and wrestle again. As one of the most popular wrestlers in the WWE when he was active, fans are buzzing at the thought of seeing Bryan do battle again, but he has many obstacles to overcome first.

Daniel Bryan had to retire

Source: Ali Khan Afridi, via Twitter

Bryan retired from professional wrestling in 2016 due to suffering concussion-induced seizures. Having sustained many concussions over his career in the sport, the fan-favorite wrestler wasn’t new to dealing with head injuries, but when he started to suffer seizures, he was forced to retire from the ring.

Concussions have come to fore in the world of sports, with every sports industry bringing in stringent protocols to check for and recover from head injuries. Because of the severity of Daniel Bryan’s injury, despite claiming to have been cleared by many doctors to partake in competitive wrestling again, the WWE is against allowing Bryan back in the ring without undergoing very thorough, very stringent testing.

Fans getting excited

Source: Twitter

Winner of the WWE Championship three times and former World Heavyweight champion Daniel Bryan has always been able to win over WWE fans. Seen as a regular, down to earth person, the fans were very quick to take to him. The more hardcore fans quickly took to his immaculate technical abilities, which some have likened to that of Ric Flair. Able to pull new and highly-skilled moves out of nowhere, Bryan was as entertaining in his persona as he was doing the work in the ring.

Fan appeal is a major factor in the WWE, which is why there has been such a divide in the fan base concerning the current poster boy of the company, Roman Reigns, rising to the top. Should Daniel Bryan prove that he is fit to wrestle again, he could be the perfect wrestler to challenge Reigns; he certainly has the technical ability to do so. The fact that a number of sportsbooks have the 36-year-old as evens to return to action prior to, or during, WrestleMania this year in the betting goes to show there's still a glimmer of hope for one more run for DB.

Bryan may return to wrestling, but not the WWE

Source: Rolling Stone, via Twitter

Having been very successful in the WWE as well as professional wrestling organizations in Japan, Daniel Bryan certainly has options when his current WWE contract expires. Linked with a fight against IWGP champion Kazuchika Okada in Japan, Bryan believesthat there’s an 85 percent chance that he’ll wrestle again, but only a 20 percent chance that the WWE will clear him. This was reaffirmed by beast of the ring Mark Henry, who can’t envision Vince McMahon letting Bryan back in the ring unless there’s definitive proof that he can take a pounding.

The WWE’s Executive Vice President of Talent, Triple H, has also played down a potential return of the former fan-favorite to the ring, knowing that concussions are a very difficult injury to deal with, especially at the grade Daniel Bryan suffered them. Triple H firmly stated that there are no exceptions to the WWE medical policy and that “we serve the human being first.”

So, until Daniel Bryan can be deemed 100 percent fit to wrestle, and every possible check has produced a positive result, there’s very little chance that he will return to the WWE ring. However, he’s sounded intent on wrestling again now that he has the backing of some specialists so he may ply his trade elsewhere. 

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