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Is Daniel Bryan Nearing The End Of The Road?


Fantastic

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From WWE via PWInsider

 

 

 

"Daniel Bryan has been pulled from the remainder of the UK tour as a precautionary measure."

 

Not looking good. More surgery on the horizon? Even if he buys some time in his wrestling career via surgery, it seems like WWE may not be keen on running with him in any prominent position from here on out, given their usual perceptions in these scenarios that a performer is "fragile".

 

I have to say that Bryan Danielson's luck after working his ass off to get to the top has been awful.

 

Thoughts?

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They already said he was going to be on SmackDown! almost exclusively because of him breaking down.

 

He might be one of those cases where the injuries that have built up over the years just cascade quickly. The alternative process to his neck issue was a mistake. He hasn't tried to work a different style, really. I don't think he's done, but at this point, I can only see him breaking down, getting surgery for whatever, taking his time on the shelf, and then coming back as a special attraction-type guy.

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There was a large "he should just retire!" crowd on the initial injury so I expect even more of it this time around. As a notoriously fickle person even I don't understand the extreme shifts from "he should win the Rumble and main event WrestleMania!" to "he should retire because he's injured!"

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As someone watching Masahiro Tanaka currently trying to be the outlier for Tommy John surgery when his stuff has diminished while everyone and their brothers are getting the procedure done after tearing his UCL, I'm just a bit off about a guy who decided not to get a procedure done in favor of alternative processes that delay the inevitable because he wanted to get back in the ring quicker. Lost in all this seems to be the fact that there were plenty of questions about whether or not he was even ready to come back when he did.

 

The issues that came up with his neck were all pointing towards getting the invasive surgery and being out for a year. But this talk about taking off the rest of the tour for precautionary reasons is most likely a cascade from that decision not to get surgery done (unless KrisZ's conspiracy theory is founded, in which case, WWE is just straight up stupid). If that's the case and his body's even more worse for wear than it was when the diagnosis was first done, that's a mistake. There's a calculated risk in making the decision and he's been a guy who's been open to trying a lot of different health options over the years, but this looks like it was a mistake.

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This might be the reason why he is happy with putting people over now and not getting pushed to the top. He arguably reached the highest possible point in his career last year. I also think he knows he might not have much longer as an active wrestler and since he is kinda old school he wants to put over as many guys as possible. Until injuries force him to retire. Which might be this year, might be 5, might be 10. We will see.

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He's dealing with nerve issues which sound to be more severe than others who have had disk issues. It only makes sense for WWE to hold back on him since his return, and it looks like they were right.

 

The thing I don't get is why he didn't modify his style at all. Hopefully he gets healed up and keeps wrestling as he is, hands down, the best wrestler of the past 15 years.

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If it IS the nerve issue then there really isn't anything WWE could or should have done differently. I know in the rush to somehow bash WWE for this a lot of people are saying they rushed his return, but Bryan himself said that when he went to WWE and said he was ready to come back they put him through a whole litany of tests before clearing him.

 

We don't know what's causing the nerve problem so you can't just assume "oh well he should have had the spinal fusion like Austin/Edge" because there's no telling. Carson Palmer spent a large portion of large season lingering between "he could play next week if the nerve wakes up/he might never play again because we don't know if the nerve will wake up" and I guarantee he had better medical attention and saw more doctors than Daniel Bryan.

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The issues that came up with his neck were all pointing towards getting the invasive surgery and being out for a year. But this talk about taking off the rest of the tour for precautionary reasons is most likely a cascade from that decision not to get surgery done (unless KrisZ's conspiracy theory is founded, in which case, WWE is just straight up stupid). If that's the case and his body's even more worse for wear than it was when the diagnosis was first done, that's a mistake. There's a calculated risk in making the decision and he's been a guy who's been open to trying a lot of different health options over the years, but this looks like it was a mistake.

 

Bryan worked almost a year with a bulging disc in his neck. The mistakes came a lot earlier than last summer.

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If (and I do mean if) all of this talk is founded in reality and Bryan is on the way out, we at the very least got to see him get his moment in the sun at WM last year. I doubt there's a more deserving guy on the roster and I imagine he will put as many guys over as he can on the way out. Not that it will matter once they get re-buried in their subsequent feuds to keep the parity.

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When he was on the indies, the best things in his act were his heel work, his matwork/MMA influence, selling, and getting small packages and abdominal stretches over. He had some very stiff matches in those years, but his best stuff was rooted in character. He had the intelligence and athletic prowess to understand what was getting over. If anything he was a model for how to work a safe, long-term style.

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When he was on the indies, the best things in his act were his heel work, his matwork/MMA influence, selling, and getting small packages and abdominal stretches over. He had some very stiff matches in those years, but his best stuff was rooted in character. He had the intelligence and athletic prowess to understand what was getting over. If anything he was a model for how to work a safe, long-term style.

Yeah, but he also got hurt a lot and worked injured for years in the Indies despite that.
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I don't know if I really buy that he worked safer in the indies just because he didn't necessarily do a dive or a diving headbutt in all of them. Some of the stuff with headbutts that he and Nigel did were REALLY stupid. I am pretty sure he said he lost count of how many concussions he had on the indies.

 

I also seem to remember there being talk way before he even signed with WWE about him being beat up and wanting to stop wrestling and do Greenpeace while he was still healthy.

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Wow, if he's having troubles after a concussion then I think it's even worse than if this was arm strength related. The way he told the story on his interview with Jericho, it seemed that Muscle Activation Therapy wasn't a one-and-done type of deal so it wouldn't shock me if he needs to go back and get some treatment done again.

 

Being sent back home a week after a concussion sounds more scary.

 

It does make more sense considering Meltzer said the match with Sheamus on SD! was probably the cause of DB's problems and that Fella reportedly got in trouble after that match.

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If it IS the nerve issue then there really isn't anything WWE could or should have done differently. I know in the rush to somehow bash WWE for this a lot of people are saying they rushed his return, but Bryan himself said that when he went to WWE and said he was ready to come back they put him through a whole litany of tests before clearing him.

 

We don't know what's causing the nerve problem so you can't just assume "oh well he should have had the spinal fusion like Austin/Edge" because there's no telling. Carson Palmer spent a large portion of large season lingering between "he could play next week if the nerve wakes up/he might never play again because we don't know if the nerve will wake up" and I guarantee he had better medical attention and saw more doctors than Daniel Bryan.

 

The doctor in Denver who "fixed" him was one of Carson Palmer's doctors, recommended to him by one of the doctors he was seeing in AZ. Bryan went to a half dozen different doctors and got 2nd, 3rd, 4th opinions trying to avoid life/career altering invasive surgery

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This helps their case of not wanting to push him as the main guy

 

This right here is all that matters......they clearly didnt want him as the guy for 2 years now.....now they have reasons (even just a concussion this time), they have their ammo....

 

Shame...concusssions are no jokes either...has he had many?

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This helps their case of not wanting to push him as the main guy

 

This right here is all that matters......they clearly didnt want him as the guy for 2 years now.....now they have reasons (even just a concussion this time), they have their ammo....

 

Shame...concusssions are no jokes either...has he had many?

Would guess he has had a ton of them. Especially from his ROH days. If anyone is a slam dunk to have CTE, Daniel Bryan would be at or near the top of the list.
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