Daniel Bryan was recently a guest on Chris Jericho’s podcast: Talk is Jericho. During the interview, Bryan explained how he convinced Vince McMahon to let him wrestle again for WWE.
Here is what Bryan said (h/t to Wrestling INC for the quotes):
“I had a conversation with Vince McMahon. He was pushing the hard questions about what would happen if I would get another concussion? I had answers for him and laid it out. I would have different concussion protocols than everyone else, and one of my pitches to him is that this happens in every sport, when guys get a concussion and a trainer goes over to him and they are asked if they are okay, and the guy would say that he is fine.
“They would ask if he has a concussion, and the guy would say no, he’s fine. Myself included would say that. So, stop that because that has been an issue with me before. In the past, when I would have a concussion I would just walk it off. My proposal would be that after every match I have to go to the trainer’s room and they have to do their checks, and if I don’t do it maybe I get a fine, or something like that. After every match now I get checked.
“Not even thanking my opponents, after WrestleMania, I walked to Gorilla. No thank you’s to anybody, just walked straight to the Doctor’s and then I get checked. They do basic neurological stuff, and we are revising that as we go because it is new to them too.”
Bryan continued:
“He told me to type it up and put it in an email to Doctor Maroon and say this. I give Doctor Maroon a lot of credit because it is hard to reverse your decision regarding clearing me. I have a lot of respect for him because he said, okay, my opinion might not be right for this. He sent me to three Neurologists that he thought were the best Neurologists. He could have easily sent me to Neurologists that backed his opinion.
“He sent me to people that had the latest, up to date research on concussion. He wanted to get the right answer. I have a lot of respect for him for that. If I get hurt, it goes to Doctor Maroon because he is the Head of Medical in WWE. That was the beginning of the process.
“He said that if we do clear you, what is your schedule going to look like? Turns out, we haven’t talked about the schedule much because they pretty much have thrown me in live events, so now, I am on that full European tour, so it’s back to the full-time stuff.”
