Daniel Bryan recently spoke with Doug Mortman and Dave LeGreca on Busted Open to promote his new book. You can hear Busted Open on SiriusXM 92 and on the SiriusXM app or at BustedOpenNation.com. Below are highlights:
The chance that WWE won’t clear him to wrestle:
“Yes, there is that chance. But I told them, regardless of them, if they won’t clear me … we’re independent contractors, in theory … and I WILL wrestle again. I am cleared by the neurologist in Phoenix that I’ve been going to see. It’s not like he’s a quack doctor. He was the neurologist for the Super Bowl … who has no problems in clearing me with no limitations. But you also have to understand that WWE is not only looking out for my best interest, but they have to look out for their company as well, and I understand all of that too. There is nothing vindictive or anything there’s just a lot of hurdles to go through at this point with getting cleared by WWE. I had a sit-down with Vince and Hunter about this and said, “Hey, this is my passion. I understand why you guys wouldn’t clear me but we only get, as far as we know, one life. And you’re not going to let me do my passion?”
The specifics of his injuries:
“Well, it’s actually not a neck issue, my neck is completely fine. It’s more of a concussion issue. And Brie was very hesitant about this whole thing and that’s why WWE is very protective over me too. Everyone is more aware of concussions and that’s why, with WWE, I don’t see what they’re doing, as far as making me go through all these hurdles, I don’t see that as a negative. They’re protecting me and especially in this era of concussion awareness. Brie at first was like, ‘Hmm, I’m not sure, given your history.’ But when we met with the neurologist in Phoenix and we went through all the testing and he said: ‘Ok, all of my testing is not just coming back good, it’s coming back excellent.’ As far as my brain right now, it’s at a level above most people who have never had a concussion my age.
“When you are looking at scores of like: Bad, poor, fair, good, great, excellent — it’s at those great-excellent levels. So all of that to say, she had gone from being very skeptical about it to being very supportive of me being able to wrestle again. And she is someone who will flat out say, ‘I’m not just interested in what happens to him 2 years from now or five years from now’ and she doesn’t care about the money or anything like that, she is interested of where I’m at 20 years from now. The deal with my arm, they told me this because I waited so long to get the surgery, my right arm might never get back to full strength of my left arm. So right now, it’s about 85 percent and it hasn’t improved much in a while. But because the nerve had been cut off for so long, there is a very good chance that that will never come back. But, it’s not like I’m feeble with my right arm. My left hand, and we’re going mostly by grip strength because my triceps strength and all that kind of stuff is equal on both sides. My grip strength on my left hand is about 150 pounds of pressure and my grip strength in my right hand is about 130 pounds of pressure. The average male my age is about 100 pounds of pressure. So it’s not like I’m ‘arrrggghhhhh poor me!'”
