Daniel Bryan Reveals When He Told WWE He Was Planning To Retire

Daniel Bryan has made no secret over the fact he is planning to stop wrestling in the relatively near future. He’s been very open about how much he loves being a dad, and how wrestling would always come second to looking after his family.

While it seems he still wants to be at least part-time for many years to come, his time as a full-time performer is clearly coming to an end.

Speaking to Joseph Staszewski of the New York Post, Bryan revealed that it was at Elimination Chamber 2020 that he informed WWE of his plans to slowly wind down his career.

“It really started entering my mind at the end of 2019. We had done three or four months in a row on international tours. I was gone for 14 days at a time. Plus, you leave your kids for that long, you leave your wife [Brie Bella] for that long and all that kind of stuff and it just gets to be a little much,” he said. “I love wrestling. Wrestling has been my favorite thing for a long time, but I don’t love wrestling nearly as much as I love being a dad. There’s nothing harder than your daughter telling you, ‘Daddy please don’t go.’ It was around that time that I started to talk to the head people in WWE, like I don’t know if I’m going to be doing this full-time for that much longer.”

Bryan admitted that he did question his decision from time to time, and wondered whether he was doing himself a disservice.

“There was a moment where I was a little disappointed in myself and I was just like, ‘ugh, did I make the wrong choice going down that road. I had expressed that thought to maybe the wrong person, who brought it up to other people [higher up]. I don’t know if that [conversation] played any part in why I’m now in this [main event] because I didn’t bring it up to anybody else and here we go.”

Bryan will be in the main event of WrestleMania 37 Night Two this weekend, when he faces off against Edge and Universal Champion Roman Reigns in a Triple Threat match.

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