Daniel Bryan announces retirement
[February 8th, 2016]
Earlier today on Twitter, shocking news spread like wildfire that former WWE World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan has announced his retirement. Bryan tweeted the following:
Due to medical reasons, effective immediately, I am announcing my retirement. Tonight on Raw, I’ll have a chance to elaborate. #gratitude
In addition to the many cries of “no!” from fans around the world, Dave Meltzer has reported that Bryan attempted to give a notice to the WWE and was told that he did not have the right to give notice“. The notice, allegedly, was for Bryan to be leaving the company so that he could return to the indies and start to wrestle again. This is highly reminiscent of Rey Mysterio, who attempted to leave the company but was told that he couldn’t due to contractual obligations. Apparently, Bryan’s contract has been frozen since his injury, which means that his time on injury doesn’t count toward his contractually obligated time in the company.
Again, this is all speculation. Obviously, nothing has been set in stone or formally announced by either Bryan or the WWE.
Bryan will be appearing tonight on Raw to address his retirement, and will be appearing tomorrow on WWE - ESPN with Jonathan Coachman. Rolling Stone has posted a great retrospective on Bryan’s career:
Within minutes of Daniel Bryan announcing his apparent retirement via Twitter this afternoon, it vaulted to the top tier of the national trending topics, not to mention generated bittersweet headlines by outlets ranging from TMZ to Forbes. With one simple social-media statement, an icon of modern wrestling and deserving pop-culture phenom said goodbye to the sport he loved and labored for half of his life – the 34-year-old Washington native first enrolled in wrestling classes in 1999, at just 17 – and set about living as Bryan Danielson.
As indicated in Bryan’s tweet, more will be revealed on the big stage of Raw tonight, amid his presumed final appearance as a semi-active competitor (and that will be duly recovered in my weekly recap of the show). But anyone who’s been following his ups and downs over the past several years knows the gist: He’s been knocked around, battered, bruised, concussed and operated on to the point where there was a choice he had to make, a crossroads familiar to so many of his peers: Keep performing at your own peril, or put health and longevity first and see what family and the future have to offer. And anyone who knows anything about Daniel Bryan knows that his body likely weighed in some months ago, but his heart and mind needed time to reconcile.
Whether with the slew of indies where he plied his trade as an interdisciplinary grappler or in WWE as an eccentric firebrand who galvanized millions with two index fingers and three simple letters (don’t forget the exclamation point), Bryan committed himself physically, emotionally and unselfishly. It’s why fans loved him, and probably why wife and WWE Diva Brie Bella loves him, even as his lengthy mane and unwieldy beard grow to Biblical lengths. Now, he has an opportunity to apply that loyalty and tenacity to being a father, husband and relentless advocate for – and example of – living simply and sustainably, which have become as central to Bryan’s ethos as giving 100 percent in the ring.
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