Daniel Bryan has not wrestled for nearly two full years, but he has not ruled out a potential return to the squared circle one day.
Bryan addressed any potential in-ring future during a recent appearance on The Gorilla Position podcast.
A former four-time WWE Champion, Bryan retired last February 8, citing at least 10 documented concussions he had suffered, as well as a brain lesion. His official announcement of retirement came after being out of the ring for almost a year. His last matches occurred in April of 2015 on a WWE tour of the United Kingdom.
Since retiring from the ring, Bryan has remained a fixture on WWE programming, both as the on-screen general manager for the SmackDown brand and a color commentator for last summer's Cruiserweight Classic tournament. As Smackdown GM, Bryan has been part of an ongoing war of words with The Miz, which has included Bryan criticizing The Miz's wrestling style and Miz taunting Bryan for being unable to wrestle and even incorporating some of Bryan's signature moves into his current in-ring style.
When asked about the possibility of his rivalry with The Miz becoming physical, Bryan said the following:
"As far as I know, no. You know the one thing about this, in any form of entertainment, or fighting, or sport, is, never say, never. Right? I keep going to different things and I keep working on the doctor standpoint of it, 'OK, is there anything that I can do more to get cleared?' and right now I've done everything I can possibly do, and so, but I still look at different things and still look at this and that. You know, It's- ...I don't know, it's an unfortunate scenario to me, but at the same time, I'm very grateful for the amount of time that I had being able to do this."
This is not the first time Bryan has expressed a desire to return to the ring. As part of this interview, though, he observed that as far as a return to wrestling, "if you were to ask the WWE, the answer would be no."
Bryan received independent clearance from doctors at UCLA to return to active wrestling. However, WWE doctors did not give that clearance.
Past reports by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter have stated that Bryan is currently under WWE contract until 2018.
