Late last month we shared the rumor that Daniel Bryan’s position on the WrestleMania 31 card was due to concerns about his health, and I guess that’s a rumor that we’re going to keep running into versions of from now on.
According to an update from SEScoops, Bryan’s health has been a topic of concern during WWE’s ongoing European tour, so much so that it caused a major change in the booking of last night’s Raw. The story (take it how you’d like) is that Bryan was supposed to be John Cena’s opponent, and that the two were supposed to have a long, back-and-forth “Intercontinental Champion vs. United States Champion” exhibition match for the UK crowd. The stuff with Rusev jumping Cena after the match to set up a Russian chain match for Extreme Rules was there and remained unchanged, but as you know if you watched the episode, Bad News Barrett was Cena’s opponent.
While Daniel Bryan is still performing on the European tour, WWE is keeping his physicality limited. The talk backstage is that he’s either hurting or has an injury that could take him out of action soon. Bryan will undergo a thorough medical evaluation when he gets back to the United States.
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Bryan is telling people he’s not injured and is just hurting, but WWE is playing it safe until they get more conclusive information.
If you’re like me, you watch every Daniel Bryan match with a concerned look on your face and flinch every time he gets hit hard, hits the ground and starts holding his neck. Part of that’s the magic of context and “getting worked” by a great performer who understands the reality of his life and uses his body as an instrument to play to a crowd, and part of it’s a guy who’s career could be over in an instant going through instant and instant in front of us. It’s scary, and I can imagine that if he was working hurt at this stage in his career (after a long layover, and a month after ANOTHER WrestleMania title win) he’d try to keep it to himself.
If this turns out to be true, I hope the solution is “Bryan’s taking a few weeks off and might not wrestle at every show,” and not “Bryan’s career is over, sorry everybody.”
h/t to Jeff Massey
