Return of the Dragon<\/p>\n
Last week on the 20th<\/sup> of March in the year 2018 came some of the best news that this wrestling fan has ever heard.\u00a0 Daniel Bryan (Bryan Danielson) has been cleared by the WWE to wrestle.\u00a0 The former Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling Guerilla, WWE Heavyweight Champion, and WWE Champion has finally been given the green light to get back in the squared circle and do what he loves to do.\u00a0 It has been a long and arduous journey for Bryan when at the absolute peak of his wrestling career had to forcibly retire from in-ring competition.\u00a0 He won the big one at WrestleMania 30 defeating not only HHH in the opening contest, by later defeating Randy Orton, and Batista in a triple threat match main event to win the undisputed WWE Championship.\u00a0 He only defended the title the following month at Extreme Rules against Kane in a completely forgettable match, then announced on the May 12th<\/sup> episode of RAW that he would have to undergo neck surgery and was kayfabe attacked by Kane to explain his absence.\u00a0 Three days later he underwent a successful neck surgery, with a cervical foraminotomy to decompress the pressure on the nerves in his neck.\u00a0 This procedure is usually done to relieve the symptoms of nerve root compression where the foramen is being compressed by bone, disc, scar tissue, or excessive ligament damage.\u00a0 Honestly, it wouldn\u2019t surprise me at all if Bryan was suffering from all of these symptoms, because Bryan was a bump taking machine.<\/p>\n We all know what happened next, since he would not be able to compete at the Money in the Bank PPV to defend his title, the Authority stripped him of his title on the June 9th<\/sup> episode of RAW.\u00a0 Many months after his surgery long after he was expected to recover his strength hadn\u2019t returned to him, and he declined a second surgery instead he went to Denver, CO and took part in a Muscle Activation Technique program which finally restored the strength to his right arm.<\/p>\n 29 December 2014 he announced he would be returning to in-ring competition and he would be competing in the infamous 2015 Royal Rumble match.\u00a0 The 2015 Royal Rumble started off ok, the great tag team of Cesaro and Tyson Kidd defeated the New Day, The WWE Championship match was outstanding w\/ Lesnar defeating Rollins and Cena.\u00a0 Then the Rumble match itself happened.\u00a0 Everyone in Philadelphia was so excited when Bryan entered the ring, he got an elimination and the crowd popped\u2026then\u2026he was quickly eliminated.\u00a0 Done.\u00a0 The WWE lost the Philly crowd that night for good.\u00a0 Chants of Daniel Bryan echoed throughout the arena for the remainder of the match, as well as CM Punk and other chants.\u00a0 When the eventual winner Roman Reigns won\u2026the crowd erupted in anger, because the company\u2019s chosen one went over instead of the audience\u2019s chosen one.\u00a0 #Cancelthenetwork was trending immediately on Twitter following the Rumble because so many people were outraged at the fact that Daniel Bryan had such a disappointing run in the Rumble.\u00a0 The next month WWE gave Bryan a chance to get to the WrestleMania main event against Brock Lesnar by facing the winner of the Royal Rumble Roman Reigns.\u00a0 Needless to say, Bryan was unsuccessful in a pretty good match against Reigns, and Reigns went on to Mania to face Lesnar.\u00a0 Daniel Bryan would compete in an Intercontinental Championship ladder match at WrestleMania that he would go on to win.\u00a0 But much like the year before, he would have one title defense against Dolph Ziggler the next night on RAW and due to his injuries was pulled from the next PPV and the European tour.\u00a0 After about a month off television on the 11 May episode of RAW he announced to the WWE Universe that he didn\u2019t know when he would be able to compete again and he would be out for an undisclosed period of time and he relinquished the IC title.<\/p>\n We didn\u2019t see or hear from Daniel Bryan basically for the remainder of the 2015 calendar year and he returned to television on 8 February 2016 on RAW which was emanating from his home state of Washington in which he announced his retirement from professional wrestling.\u00a0 Due to at least ten concussions he suffered in his career and a small subacute lesion in his brain\u2019s temporoparietal region and concussion related seizures his retirement seemed like an indefinite thing.\u00a0 Now, reported by Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer, Bryan was cleared in the spring of 2016 by the head doctor of the Arizona Cardinals football team (Bryan and Brie currently reside in AZ) and also passed a concussion test at UCLA with flying colors, but was still not cleared by Dr. Joseph Maroon who is the current medical director of WWE.<\/p>\n Initially, he asked for an early release from his contract but was denied his release by Vince McMahon, and then he asked for a different role within the company.\u00a0 Once the brand extension returned, Daniel Bryan became the SmackDown Live General Manager under Commissioner Shane McMahon.\u00a0 He was a regular on the awesome but now cancelled show \u201cTalking Smack\u201d and if you could read between the lines he often expressed his disdain for the company, and his growing frustrations of not being able to perform.\u00a0 It made for great television and it was personally a show that I wouldn\u2019t miss, so of course the WWE Network cancelled it.\u00a0 This seemed to be his fate at least until his WWE contract expires until late summer of 2018, but\u2026he started getting involved in the feud between Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, and Commissioner Shane McMahon.\u00a0 At the Clash of Champions PPV, Owens and Zayn were facing Randy Orton and Shinsuke Nakamura in a tag match and Shane and Bryan acted as the two referee\u2019s for the match.\u00a0 Constantly during the match, Shane and Bryan were arguing due to Shane\u2019s blatant bias towards Owens and Zayn (two of Bryan\u2019s friends from PWG and ROH).\u00a0 Shane intentionally stopped at the count of two when Sami had Randy Orton pinned, and it set off an argument between the GM and the Commissioner and Bryan actually shoved McMahon.\u00a0 The finish comes when Daniel Bryan uses a blatant fast count giving Owens and Zayn the win.<\/p>\n All of this brings us back to the 20th<\/sup> of March 2018 when news broke early in the day that Bryan was finally cleared to wrestle again for WWE and on that night\u2019s edition of SmackDown Live Daniel Bryan addressed the WWE Universe once again and delivered a great speech, I wouldn\u2019t even call it a promo, as it was something from the heart, and it was real, and we all could feel it.\u00a0 You could feel his anger, and his gratefulness, and his bitterness, and his eventual relief that after all these years and all these medical tests WWE finally cleared him to enter the squared circle once again.\u00a0 Later in the night, he had to Kayfabe fire Owens and Zayn and they attacked him for it, which of course led us to the 27 March edition of SmackDown Live when the challenge was issued, Daniel Bryan Shane McMahon vs Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn at WrestleMania.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been going back quite a bit this year even before his being medically cleared was even a thing, and watching some of his performances from early in his career.\u00a0 His outstanding reign as Ring of Honor Champion, and his matches w\/ Nigel McGuiness, Morishima, Austin Aries, AJ Styles among others. \u00a0I\u2019ve checked out his PWG stuff, when he had memorable matches w\/ Chris Hero, and El Generico and Kevin Steen.\u00a0 Once thing is for sure, the world of professional wrestling has been given a shot in the arm with the return of the American Dragon, the best in the world, the leader of the YES Movement, the return of Daniel Bryan.\u00a0 As fans, we all we should literally be saying at this point, is YES YES YES!!!!!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Return of the Dragon Last week on the 20th of March in the year 2018 came some of the best news that this wrestling fan has ever heard.\u00a0 Daniel Bryan 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