In a new interview with wdel.com, AEW’s Bryan Danielson opened up his forced retirement from WWE.
While the belief was due to it being him suffering several concussions throughout his career including in WWE, Danielson noted that it actually came down to trust because he had previously lied to WWE about the concussions. Years later, he was finally cleared to work again.
“I legitimately thought I was healthy and still think that I’m healthy. One of the reasons I was forced to retire was not because of the concussions, but because I lied about that. You have to understand, from WWE’s point of view, I had been wrestling for them for six years but then all of a sudden, they opened this Pandora’s box about ‘lying about his medical history and now we can’t trust him.’ A lot of that was building the trust back, but they were also legitimately looking after my health. I was going to see doctor after doctor and doing everything that I could to improve brain function to show, above and beyond, that my brain was healthy.
“It’s also my love of wrestling,” Bryan added. “It felt like I wasn’t really to be done yet, I still needed to come back. I also think there’s a lot left on concussion research to be done, and when you’re seeing the top doctors in the country and they’re all clearing you to do what you love to do, I think you should be able to do that.”