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WWE’s Daniel Bryan Announces Retirement Due to Concussions: My ‘Brain Isn’t as OK As I Thought’

Daniel Bryan
WWE Star Daniel Bryan

Taking precautions. WWE star Daniel Bryan announced in Seattle on Monday, Feb. 8, that he’s retiring from wrestling.

“Due to medical reasons, effective immediately, I am announcing my retirement,” Bryan, 34, tweeted to his more than 2 million followers. “Tonight on Raw, I’ll have a chance to elaborate. #gratitude.”

Bryan stuck to his promise. Hours later, the athlete stood in the ring during WWE Monday Night RAW to discuss his decision to the live audience.

“The truth is, I’ve been wrestling since I was 18 years old, and within the first five months of my wrestling career, I’d already had three concussions. For years after that, I would get a concussion here and there and then it gets to the point when you’ve been wrestling for 16 years, that adds up to a lot of concussions,” he said in a tearful speech. “It gets to a point where they tell you that you can’t wrestle anymore. For a long time, I fought that, because I’d gotten EEGs and brain MRIs and neuropsychological evaluations, and all of them said this: I was fine, and I could come back and wrestle.”

Daniel Bryan

That all changed, though, when Bryan went for another test last week. Without going into detail, he said that maybe his “brain isn’t as OK as I thought it was.”

“I have a family to think about; my wife [WWE Diva Brie Bella] and I want to start having kids soon,” he continued. “Because of wrestling, I got to meet the most wonderful woman in the world. She’s beautiful, she’s smart and she completes me in a way I didn’t even think was possible. And that’s because of wrestling. I am grateful.”

Brie Bella and Daniel Bryan
WWE Diva Brie Bella and WWE Superstar Daniel Bryan attend FOX’s 2014 Teen Choice Awards.

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