Since retiring from in-ring competition in early 2016, although he’s come pretty close, Daniel Bryan hasn’t flat out said he’ll wrestle again.
His wife pretty much did it for him on an episode of the podcast From The Top Rope which was released today, however.
Brie Bella revealed Bryan has spent the past two years, roughly since another concussion forced him to vacate the Intercontinental championship in 2015, “doing every kind of testing to every kind of experiment you can imagine for the brain.”
He eventually found Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT). Described as “the use of high pressure oxygen as a drug to treat basic pathophysiologic processes and their diseases,” the doctors using it say they’ve used it as treatment for “more than 70 different cerebral disorders, including stroke, dementia, autism and traumatic brain injury.”
Brie says Bryan has been treated 40 times, and she supports his returning to the ring if doctors clear him as a result of HBOT:
“...I told Bryan, ‘You do have a daughter, so always remember that. But if the doctors finally give you the green light,’ I go, ‘Go! This is your dream and passion. You have one life to live and I will never hold you back.'
Because I love to wrestle, and I would hate if someone told me you can’t do it. And if WWE doesn’t allow it, then I said, ‘Go somewhere else. It’s all on you.’ Obviously he would love to be able to get back in that WWE ring, but I know for a fact my husband is going to find his way back to the ring. He honestly is.”
Would WWE clear him after making him the centerpiece of their press on how they now handle brain injuries? If not, where might the former WWE World champ head when his contract is up - believed to be in 2018?
These questions have been out there for a while, but they just got a lot more interesting.
Stay tuned.
H/T: Pro Wrestling Sheet