Kemo
05-20-2018, 01:38 PM
WWE Superstar Daniel Bryan recently did an interview on Chris Jericho’s podcast, Talk Is Jericho, where they discussed his return to the squared circle in WWE. Bryan first discussed working as the SmackDown Live General Manager when he was unable to compete, and how he grew to hate the job:
“Then they brought me back as GM, and I still have to do a bunch of traveling with that. I have to sit around for a bunch of matches It hurt and it also was like, ‘What am I doing?’ This is the part of me where I’m like, ‘What a sissy I am!’ Lots of people go to their jobs that they don’t like and make way less money than me being the GM of SmackDown, but I could not get out of this mental state where I hate being here,” Bryan said.
“I really disliked going to work every week, and there would be times where I would fly in and get the script to the show, I would try to get as many people as I could to get in the shoot so I can leave that night and just get out of there. That was when I really started to say that I wouldn’t accept this anymore, I’m going to come back.”
Bryan then had a serious conversation with Vince McMahon about coming back to the ring. It was there that he presented an interesting idea to The Chairman Of The Board that would allow him to wrestle again:
“I had a conversation with Vince McMahon. He was pushing the hard questions about what would happen if I would get another concussion? I had answers for him and laid it out. I would have different concussion protocols than everyone else, and one of my pitches to him is that this happens in every sport, when guys get a concussion and a trainer goes over to him and they are asked if they are okay, and the guy would say that he is fine.
“They would ask if he has a concussion, and the guy would say no, he’s fine. Myself included would say that. So, stop that because that has been an issue with me before. In the past, when I would have a concussion I would just walk it off,” Bryan said. “My proposal would be that after every match I have to go to the trainer’s room and they have to do their checks, and if I don’t do it maybe I get a fine, or something like that. After every match now I get checked.
“Not even thanking my opponents, after WrestleMania, I walked to Gorilla. No thank you’s to anybody, just walked straight to the Doctor’s and then I get checked. They do basic neurological stuff, and we are revising that as we go because it is new to them too.”
McMahon then told him to send his proposal to WWE’s medical director Dr. Maroon, and the rest is history:
“He told me to type it up and put it in an email to Doctor Maroon and say this. I give Doctor Maroon a lot of credit because it is hard to reverse your decision regarding clearing me. I have a lot of respect for him because he said, okay, my opinion might not be right for this. He sent me to three Neurologists that he thought were the best Neurologists. He could have easily sent me to Neurologists that backed his opinion.
“He sent me to people that had the latest, up to date research on concussion,” he said. “He wanted to get to the right answer. I have a lot of respect to him for that. If I get hurt, it goes to Doctor Maroon because he is the Head of Medical in WWE. That was the beginning of the process.
“He said that if we do clear you, what is your schedule going to look like? Turns out, we haven’t talked about the schedule much because they pretty much have thrown me in live events, so now, I am on that full European tour, so it’s back to the full-time stuff.”
“Then they brought me back as GM, and I still have to do a bunch of traveling with that. I have to sit around for a bunch of matches It hurt and it also was like, ‘What am I doing?’ This is the part of me where I’m like, ‘What a sissy I am!’ Lots of people go to their jobs that they don’t like and make way less money than me being the GM of SmackDown, but I could not get out of this mental state where I hate being here,” Bryan said.
“I really disliked going to work every week, and there would be times where I would fly in and get the script to the show, I would try to get as many people as I could to get in the shoot so I can leave that night and just get out of there. That was when I really started to say that I wouldn’t accept this anymore, I’m going to come back.”
Bryan then had a serious conversation with Vince McMahon about coming back to the ring. It was there that he presented an interesting idea to The Chairman Of The Board that would allow him to wrestle again:
“I had a conversation with Vince McMahon. He was pushing the hard questions about what would happen if I would get another concussion? I had answers for him and laid it out. I would have different concussion protocols than everyone else, and one of my pitches to him is that this happens in every sport, when guys get a concussion and a trainer goes over to him and they are asked if they are okay, and the guy would say that he is fine.
“They would ask if he has a concussion, and the guy would say no, he’s fine. Myself included would say that. So, stop that because that has been an issue with me before. In the past, when I would have a concussion I would just walk it off,” Bryan said. “My proposal would be that after every match I have to go to the trainer’s room and they have to do their checks, and if I don’t do it maybe I get a fine, or something like that. After every match now I get checked.
“Not even thanking my opponents, after WrestleMania, I walked to Gorilla. No thank you’s to anybody, just walked straight to the Doctor’s and then I get checked. They do basic neurological stuff, and we are revising that as we go because it is new to them too.”
McMahon then told him to send his proposal to WWE’s medical director Dr. Maroon, and the rest is history:
“He told me to type it up and put it in an email to Doctor Maroon and say this. I give Doctor Maroon a lot of credit because it is hard to reverse your decision regarding clearing me. I have a lot of respect for him because he said, okay, my opinion might not be right for this. He sent me to three Neurologists that he thought were the best Neurologists. He could have easily sent me to Neurologists that backed his opinion.
“He sent me to people that had the latest, up to date research on concussion,” he said. “He wanted to get to the right answer. I have a lot of respect to him for that. If I get hurt, it goes to Doctor Maroon because he is the Head of Medical in WWE. That was the beginning of the process.
“He said that if we do clear you, what is your schedule going to look like? Turns out, we haven’t talked about the schedule much because they pretty much have thrown me in live events, so now, I am on that full European tour, so it’s back to the full-time stuff.”