Daniel Bryan: ‘I Had A Mental Breakdown After My Retirement’, & More

Daniel Bryan spoke with The Kingston Whig-Standard promoting SummerSlam. Some highlights are below:

On his fight to return to the ring before he retired: “It’s hard because I was cleared by concussions specialists in Phoenix and cleared by concussion specialists at UCLA, like a team of doctors. And I kept trying to go to different places to try to get more and more people to clear me so that all of the evidence would be on my side.”

On retiring: “When I told them that I was taking this test in New York City, they said, ‘OK, well let us know the result.’ Well, the test hasn’t been peer reviewed, and I’m not saying it’s a bad test, all I’m saying is this is not something that they’re using the standard medical facilities. Alas, something showed up in the testing that WWE didn’t like. It showed a little something and then that becomes the automatic no and I’m just like ‘uhhh’….It’s this heart-wrenching thing. It’s tough because we all get just this one life, right? And when you find something that you love as much as I love wrestling and then they tell you that you can’t do it anymore, it becomes really, really tough. And then it becomes really, really tough when now you’re around it every week. It’s just seeing your friends be able to go out there and do it and then you still can’t do it. It’s one of those things. I guess I kind of accept it, but I have a certain amount of melancholy with it.”

On how he reacted to his retirement: “I had to go out to Florida (to shoot Total Divas) and we’re in John Cena’s house for four weeks or whatever and there’s cameras just on you all the time. I just had this horrible mental breakdown.”

On how he coped with it: “I needed to get away from all of that and just get out to be by some trees. It’s hard for me. I don’t do really well in cities, which is crazy given that we’re flying in and out of these major cities every week. Brie describes it as anxiety. And she would be accurate. I get this anxiety in cities and places like that. When you grow up in kind of a small town and when you grow up around a lot of green and trees and nature and that sort of thing, sometimes I think it’s a little mentally disconcerting to be around this concrete.”

On whether he’s come to terms with his retirement: “It’s interesting because I guess the real answer is no, but it’s weird. I don’t necessarily agree that there’s something wrong with me, right. The whole issue with concussions is so subjective.”

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