Daniel Bryan’s comments about returning to independent wrestling were probably one of the reasons why WWE turned their decision back in a surprising manner just a few weeks before WrestleMania and cleared him to return.
During his recent appearance on Talk Is Jericho, Bryan talked about how he hated his job of being the SmackDown General Manager as it meant staying close to the ring but not being able to wrestle.
Later in the episode, Daniel discussed how he aimed to return to NJPW and ROH if WWE had not cleared him and revealed that he was planning to have a long-term feud with the notorious Bullet Club:
“…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… so that’s what I was thinking, a long-term thing. We could do that for a couple years.”
Prior to being cleared, Daniel Bryan had talked openly about wanting to wrestle again and on multiple occasions, he had said that he would consider a return to Independent Circuit if the company does not clear him by WrestleMania 34.
Many consider this to be one of the reasons why the Officials agreed to evaluate the former SmackDown General Manager again just weeks before Mania which resulted in him being cleared for an in-ring return.
It’s worth mentioning here that during the same episode, the host Chris Jericho also revealed an interesting story about how he almost replaced Shane McMahon as Daniel Bryan’s partner at the Show of Shows which you can check out here.
