Daniel Bryan is back in the WWE ring as a full-time competitor - but he was very close to walking away from the company and resuming his professional wrestling career elsewhere.
Bryan has suffered from over 20 concussion-related injuries over the past several years, which includes a lesion on his brain as well as two seizures.
After this, WWE decided it would be best not to clear him to wrestle again for the company.
While Bryan made every attempt to get WWE to change their mind, including getting cleared by specialists from around the country, the company didn't seem to want to budge on the issue.
It was then that Bryan declared that if WWE didn't clear him to compete by WrestleMania then he'd likely leave after his contract with the company expires in order to go continue his professional wrestling career elsewhere.
This sounded like a terrible loss for WWE fans, however, hardcore professional wrestling fans were foaming at the mouth thinking of the possibility that Bryan could return to wrestling for the likes of Ring Of Honor (ROH) or New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW).
There are plenty of talents out there that would put on extraordinary matches against Bryan, like Kenny Omega or Cody Rhodes just to name a few.
With that being said, WWE eventually cleared Bryan after he was medically cleared by a few specialists recommended by the company.
He competed at WrestleMania 34 when he teamed up with Shane McMahon to defeat Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn.
Bryan recently appeared on Chris Jericho's podcast, Talk Is Jericho, to talk about his long road back to the WWE ring. He also discussed his preparation to leave WWE and return to the indies.
The former WWE World Heavyweight Champion then revealed an epic plan to make his return - starting a rivalry with The Bullet Club over in NJPW who are arguably the biggest faction in professional wrestling today (quotes via IWNerd):
“I wanted to go to New Japan, Ring of Honor and CMLL.
"I’ve done a little bit in Mexico, but I always wanted to do – even though there’s no money there, like in comparison, I wanted to do like mask and hair matches and all that kind of stuff.
"… so Bullet Club is very hot, but they need somebody to go against… something that would draw money and interest and bring independent wrestling to another level, I thought – that’s it.
"And then you [Jericho] came in and just did it [both laugh]… so that’s what I was thinking, a long-term thing. We could do that for a couple years.”
What are your thoughts on Bryan's idea to have a feud with The Bullet Club had he returned to the indies? Do you think that this is bigger than anything he can do in WWE? And do you think Bryan will ever return to the indy scene? Let us know your thoughts on the matter in the comments section below!
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