Daniel Bryan would have been just fine with retirement. If it wasn't for those meddling McMahon's.
Speaking to Booker T on Heated Conversations, Bryan stated that he was satisfied with his retirement and ready to move on with his life, but WWE pulled him back in.
“The weirdest thing about it is I probably would have been satisfied and just accepted my retirement if they hadn’t brought me back to be GM," said Bryan. "It was so soon after I retired and I had signed up for school, I had signed up for ASU, I was doing a permaculture design course, I was doing all kinds of stuff. Okay, I’m going to transition my life into a more of a home life, that sort of thing."
Bryan continued, "They brought me back and it was only a couple of months after I was forced to retire and I’m sitting at ringside for a Dean Ambrose and AJ Styles match. I’m sitting there, I got a great reaction coming out. I’m sitting there watching the match and they’re getting great reactions. I wasn’t wrestling when AJ Styles got brought in to WWE and I’m sitting there thinking, ‘What am I doing? I should be in there. I shouldn’t be sitting here.'”
Bryan announced his retirement on February 8, 2016. He was appointed SmackDown Live General Manager on July 18. Bryan came out of retirement on March 20, 2018 and officially returned to the ring at WrestleMania 34.
