10 Ups & 7 Downs For Daniel Bryan’s WWE Career
7. Bungled Comeback
On March 20, 2018, WWE announced Daniel Bryan’s medical clearance.
What a story this was, but again, WWE actively tried to bury the lede. For two years, Bryan, to an extent that threatened to become delusional, sad even, sought medical clearance from collected high-end experts in the field of neuroscience. Whether Bryan’s time spent under experimental oxygen therapy was indeed incidental to said clearance or not, WWE eventually, euphorically, arrived at the same conclusion: Bryan could go.
And Bryan could still go; crashing into Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn with no sign whatsoever of ring rust—fitting for a man who was never part of any machine—Bryan recaptured the magic instantly.
WWE then pissed that magic away.
Relegating Bryan to a supporting role in his comeback movie, a cute connection moved WWE to programme him with Big Cass, who had received clearance to no fanfare on the exact same day, everything subsequent to that disastrous development was a grim echo of previous developments. Team Hell No’s reunion was a joke, and not the hilarious routine of old, while WWE made a nightmarish hash of a dream Miz feud that wrote itself.
A glorified Mixed Match Challenge sequel to an underwhelming SummerSlam bout, the whole thing ended with a “fluke” small package. Bryan’s broad underdog bit felt old. His stifled, dispassionate work appeared devoid of imagination, of love.
He needed to do something New.