Jim Ross Blogs On Daniel Bryan’s Retirement On Monday’s RAW

During my tenure as EVP of Talent Relations in WWE, dealing with injuries was a ongoing occurrence in my office. How those matters were handed continued to be refined over the years all the while keeping the talent’s health in mind as always being our number one priority. When a decision to return someone to the ring who had been away for injury issues, those decisions had to be made carefully and always erring on the side of caution each and every time out. In essence, we had to do our best to often times protect the talents from themselves.

At the same time, unfortunately, some talents have been known to ‘milk’ an injury to be able to sit home and collect a pay check.

In Daniel Bryan’s case, that latter issue was never in question as he’s a man of integrity and professionalism who would never attempt to work the system. Having said that, I feel that WWE would be best served here to keep Bryan Danielson on the staff and put him in a position to help young talents adjust to life in the WWE not only from an in ring standpoint but from life away from the ring as well.

No company can ever have enough people the quality of Bryan Danielson helping develop their brand and, most importantly, their young talents who I feel will respond in a big way to the coaching of one of the great overachievers ever in the business.

From what I understand, the WWE was informed of DB’s decision after they arrived in Seattle today where Monday Night Raw will emanate on the USA Network.

Although it is a sad day for Bryan and his fans with him not being able to safely wrestle in the future, I’d say that the ‘YES!! Man’ came out of this ordeal a very lucky man.

I don’t know of another wresting company that protects their athletes as thoroughly as WWE does their talents. Thank goodness that WWE did do all the extensive testing on Bryan’s injury and that they did not bend to the pressures of the talent or his fans to return hm to the ring. If DB had been wrestling for another company, any company, would he have received the care that he needed to determine the actual severity of the concussion issue?

In the proverbial, ‘good old days’ the concussion issue would have been largely ignored and the talent would have been returned to the ring as quickly as possible.