Daniel Bryan & Shane McMahon vs. Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn is now official for WrestleMania 34.
Bryan announced the match on tonight’s SmackDown. If Shane and Bryan win, Sami and Owens will remain fired from SmackDown. Sami and Owens will be reinstated to the blue brand if they can get the win.
WrestleMania 34 is on April 8th in New Orleans at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
Newsweek recently spoke with one of the neurosurgeons that cleared Daniel Bryan for his WWE ring return. Dr. Robert Cantu cleared Bryan along with Dr. Javier Cárdenas and Dr. Jeffrey Kutcher, according to WWE’s announcement issued last week.
Cantu evaluated Bryan’s medical records in February and said he found no sign of concussion-related injuries that would prevent a ring return.
“I evaluated Bryan for a neurological opinion on return to WWE on February 26, 2018. Included in his medical records were multiple evaluations by renowned concussion clinicians,” Cantu told Newsweek. “I determined that Bryan is currently asymptomatic, has a normal detailed neurological and cognitive neuropsychological examination, normal EEG, and an MRI that showed no definite evidence of a prior brain injury. It is my medical opinion that there is no absolute contraindication to his return to in-ring action in WWE.”
Cantu is a leading concussion expert and one of the foremost experts in CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy. He was one of three neurological experts who diagnosed what is believed to be the first case of CTE in pro wrestling with Chris Benoit. Cantu runs his own concussion treatment center at Emerson Hospital in Concord, MA and he also works with teams in the NFL, NBA and NHL.
Source: WrestlingINC
Daniel Bryan revealed in an interview with WWE this week that he was cleared to return to in-ring competition by WWE on Monday. While he was cleared on Monday, the decision wasn’t finalized until very shortly before WWE made the public announcement of his return on Tuesday, according to Dave Meltzer in the latest edition of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Bryan hasn’t wrestled since April of 2015, shortly after he won the WWE Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania 31. He retired the following February after an EEG test revealed slowing of brain activity and a small lesion in an area of his brain that causes seizures. Bryan had reportedly suffered two seizures and over 20 concussions in his career. Bryan was later told by his doctors that retiring was premature, and that the lesion is a vague thing. He had gotten cleared by several doctors since then, and has said that he would wrestle elsewhere when his WWE contract expires in September if he were healthy and WWE would not clear him.
WWE sent Bryan to get tested by several neurologists chosen by WWE Medical Director Dr. Joseph Maroon over the past two months. After they cleared him, Meltzer noted that Maroon was scheduled to test Bryan next week to clear him, however it was changed to this past Monday so that WWE could start building the WrestleMania angle this week. The script for SmackDown this past Tuesday was re-written after he was cleared. Bryan is expected to team with Shane McMahon to face Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn at WrestleMania. There were backup plans of having McMahon get a different partner if Bryan wasn’t cleared, or to have the WrestleManiamatch be a three-way with McMahon, Owens and Zayn with Bryan as special referee.
Bryan got physical for the first time since 2015 on SmackDown this past Tuesday. Bryan fired Zayn and Owens for attacking Shane McMahon last week, which caused Zayn and Owens to attack him. Bryan fought back and looked like he hadn’t lost a step, hitting both men with Yes Kicks and running dropkicks into the corner, while also hitting a German suplex on Zayn. Eventually Owens and Zayn were able to take control, which ended with Zayn hitting Bryan with a Helluva Kick, followed by Owens hitting him with a powerbomb onto the apron on the outside of the ring. The show ended with Bryan being stretchered to the back by paramedics.
It was noted in the Observer that as part of his agreement with WWE to get cleared, he will go to WWE doctors backstage after every match and get Impact testing and a neuropsychological evaluation done until WWE is comfortable that he’s okay.
Not much else has been decided upon other than his WrestleMania match. His schedule will be determined, although Bryan indicated during an appearance on the Edge & Christian podcast last August that he might not be interested in wrestling full-time.
“There’s no reason why I can’t return to doing what I love [wrestling],” Bryan said. “It may never be full-time and it may never be this idea of ‘I’m going to go in and be the guy who main events every live event and stuff. I’m not even sure I want that. Now that I have a child, I don’t want to be away from her that much. But to say that I can’t wrestle say 50 to 100 matches a year or to say that I can’t do Jerry Lawler and Terry Funk are still doing in their 60s. I also want to give the caveat of this: if at any point along with all of this if somebody said there’s a real indication that I should not be wrestling, I don’t want to wrestle. My health is 100% more important than coming back to wrestling. Being a good father is more important than going out there and expounding on my belief that doing more hammerlocks in wrestling is good for the business!”
Source: WrestlingINC
Daniel Bryan didn’t waste anytime getting physical in the ring after finally being medically cleared.
Daniel called Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn out to the ring. Daniel fired them for their attack of Shane McMahon last week. Owens & Zayn then assaulted Daniel.
WWE announced today that it has cleared Daniel Bryan to return to in-ring action. We will have continuing coverage of this developing story.
It will be interesting to see if WrestleMania 34 plans for SmackDown General Manager Daniel Bryan are announced on tonight’s show.
The blue brand currently has Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn announced for WrestleMania but there’s speculation on Shane McMahon being added to the match to make it a Handicap Match or a Triple Threat. There’s also speculation on Bryan being added to the match as a special referee, but there’s also speculation that Bryan will be able to finally make his return to the ring in New Orleans.
Dave Meltzer noted on Wrestling Observer Radio that there has been movement in the last month or so as Bryan has worked very hard to get cleared. Bryan has seen more doctors and even though it’s hard to get cleared, more doctors have cleared him to return.
Bryan has been undergoing hyperbaric treatments for just under a year now and he was told when he began the treatment that he would start feeling a lot better after 50 treatments. These treatments are still experimental but other athletes have done them. There appears to be something to the treatments as Bryan is said to be doing a lot better in his tests. Meltzer noted that if Bryan’s condition was really bad then doctors wouldn’t be clearing him, but getting cleared for a WWE ring return comes down to WWE doctors clearing him and they are also out to protect the company.
Bryan suggested over the weekend that competing at WrestleMania 34 was a possibility. He spoke with The National while in the Middle East this past week and commented on possibly teaming with Shane at WrestleMania to face Sami and Owens.
“I don’t know and I don’t think they know. I think it all depends on whether or not I get cleared. As of this moment, as of today, I am not cleared by WWE. I have done everything in my power. Everything they have asked me to and I have gone above and beyond as far as ‘Okay, what doctors do you need me to see. Send me to any doctor you want, any doctor that you want and lets get their feedback on what is going on with me.’ So far every doctor has cleared me that they have sent me too and so there is a chance. I used to think that the percentage of the WWE ever clearing me was low. I think with the stuff that I have done it has gone a little higher but I don’t know how much higher. With how everything is there is one day to go if I don’t get cleared [storyline wise] and then there is another way to go if I am cleared. I am hoping to be cleared but I don’t know which way it goes.”
Bryan has stated in the past that he would wrestle elsewhere when his contract expires in September if he were healthy and WWE would not clear him.
Source: WrestlingINC
Daniel Bryan’s odds of winning the men’s Royal Rumble match have been skyrocketing over the past few weeks.
Bryan went from not being in the top 10 of the most favored participants in late December to being tied as the sixth biggest favorite in the match earlier this week. The latest odds from PaddyPower now have Bryan tied with Dolph Ziggler as the third biggest favorite at 4/1. Shinsuke Nakamura remains the biggest favorite for the match at 6/4, followed by Roman Reigns at 5/2.
It should be noted that the smart money is clearly not in right now. Before last year’s Rumble, eventual winner Randy Orton was the fourth biggest favorite days before the show, while The Undertaker, Goldberg and Braun Strowman were the top three, in that order. Once the smart money came in before the show, Orton became an overwhelming favorite.
Here are the current top 10 favored wrestlers for this year’s men’s Royal Royal match:
1) Shinsuke Nakamura (6/4)
2) Roman Reigns (5/2)
3) Daniel Bryan & Dolph Ziggler (4/1)
5) John Cena (9/2)
6) Braun Strowman (11/2)
7) Finn Balor (7/1)
8) Randy Orton & Baron Corbin (10/1)
10) Seth Rollins (16/1)
Source: WrestlingINC
Daniel Bryan recently spoke with Sports Illustrated and commented on his WWE future and possibly returning to the ring at WrestleMania 34.
“I assume that if I don’t wrestle by WrestleMania, I probably won’t be wrestling with WWE at all,” said Bryan. “That’s my assumption.”
Bryan acknowledged that getting cleared to return to the WWE ring is complicated.
“It’s not a black and white answer,” said Bryan. “There are a lot of issues with me getting cleared by WWE. They have a very strict protocol, which is a good thing, but the timeline of all that happening was not the best for me. It’s an interesting situation that will develop.”
Source: WrestlingINC
Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer talks about Daniel Bryan burying Byron Saxton on commentary during SmackDown Live. Have a listen to the audio on wrestling observer radio at wrestlingobserver.com:
The 10,000 seat event Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks are planning to self-finance in 2018 has now been confirmed by all parties and the ROH champ has an ideal main event in mind.
Cody appeared on Sirius XM‘s Busted Open today and revealed that his dream opponent for the main event is Daniel Bryan, whose WWE contract will expire next summer.
Rhodes said he can’t reveal too much until the location is locked down, but reiterated that they are “swinging for the damn fences.”
As we previously reported, the trio are in talks with multiple venues to put on a 10K seat event with Chicago, London, San Francisco and Ontario (CA) being the location front-runners.
When host Bully Ray asked why they’re doing this, Cody said it’s because they want to leave the wrestling business better than when they found it.
Source: Pro Wrestling Sheet
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