This week, only a couple months away from his 35th birthday, Daniel Bryan had to announce his retirement from wrestling for suffering one concussion too many. In his retirement speech, Bryan had said he had suffered numerous concussions throughout his career, and this final one he suffered (in a match against Sheamus last year), may have led to a serious condition with his brain which would force him to stop wrestling. Bryan had waited for nearly a year to try and get cleared by WWE to come back to wrestle. Bryan trained like he was expecting the call any minute to come back, and even lobbied on social media for WWE to clear him, after hearing that AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura were coming to WWE. Aside from a separated shoulder in 2006 and a detached retina in 2007, Bryan had remained relatively injury free his entire career, which is pretty remarkable considering his style of wrestling where he was balls-to-the-wall (which he had to be, considering his size). Its unfortunate that in the latter stages of his career, just after he had achieved ultimate success, that two major injuries cost him the final two years of his career, and ultimately his career as a whole. Bryans career was marked by circumstances beyond his control and a few lucky breaks, but its a testament to Bryans ability that he saw the door cracked open a little bit for him, and he kicked it wide open. Bryan is a unique, once-in-a-generation wrestler with a genuine connection with the fans, and his absence will definitely be felt in the professional wrestling community. Thoughts on this column and on Bryans career? Comment below or tweet me @PocketSeagull.
