With SummerSlam coming up this weekend, we’re finally going to get the long-awaited match (or quite possibly the first in a series of matches) between Daniel Bryan and The Miz. Old NXT rivalries aside, the build to that match began when Bryan retired from wrestling, and from the moment he came out of retirement this year with a match at WrestleMania 34, this has been one of the feuds for which everyone’s been clamoring.
Questions have lingered, though, about what comes next for the beloved bearded superstar. Will he stay with WWE for the long haul, and just how long can he really keep wrestling with all of the health problems in his past? According to a new interview with ESPN.com, Bryan thinks he’s destined to do this for a few more decades.
After he’s done with The Miz, Bryan would love to face current WWE Champion AJ Styles. He also names other WWE superstars with whom he wants to get into the ring, including Johnny Gargano, Roderick Strong, Shinsuke Nakamura, and particularly Andrade “Cien” Almas, who Bryan calls “a true luchador.”
Throughout the interview, Bryan comes off as the happiest he’s seemed in a long time, both because he’s become a father and because he’s back doing the thing he love most. As far as his future is concerned, Bryan doesn’t think he’ll need to retire again anytime soon. In fact, he plans to be stepping into the squared circle even when he has a long gray wizard beard.
Realistically, I want to wrestle until I’m 70. That’s a goal to people that sounds insane, but there’s a MMA trainer, Firas Zahabi, he trains Georges St-Pierre and he was on Joe Rogan’s podcast and I love what he said because this is how I envision my life. He said, “I want to be grappling and doing jiu-jitsu the day before I die.” He wants to live to be 90 years old, but he loves doing this so much he wants to physically be capable of doing it until the day before he dies because it brings him joy and that’s how I feel about wrestling. For me, my goal is to enjoy this moment that I have in the WWE spotlight because that doesn’t last forever. That really has taken hold since I was forced to retire. You have to appreciate every moment of this, but I also have to transition my style in a way that I could still be wrestling when I’m 70 years old. I want to transition my style slowly to something that’s a little bit easier on my body.
Bryan seems quite serious about changing his style to enable more longevity. He acknowledges that when he first returned to the ring, fans were surprised to see him doing the same high-risk maneuvers he was doing before. He insists, however, that he has a plan.
When I came back at WrestleMania, people wanted to make sure that the old Daniel Bryan could still be there. The guy that that they loved. I gradually and slowly want to phase some of those things out and incorporate new things. Like I started doing the heel hook, which automatically incorporates working someone’s leg more and that’s more ground based and not as much flying around. Since I’ve comeback I’ve done very few dives through the ropes, so I’m slowly phasing things out so people don’t miss it anymore. It’s not like I came back and I’m this completely different guy that the fans don’t recognize. It’s slowly phasing that out into something that they enjoy and is still exciting to watch.
I admit, it’s hard to imagine a Daniel Bryan who doesn’t jump off of things head-first, but he’s obviously given this a lot of thought and seems to take seriously the fact that his already-damaged body is only going to get older and more worn from here.
