On Wednesday, a rumor that WWE was planning on releasing Daniel Bryan at some point next week began to get quite a bit of attention. The rumor was originally reported on Scott Keith’s Blog of Doom. The blog claimed to have spoken to someone who was in the human resources department at WWE .
It said that one of their co-workers of the person in question had told them that they just processed a release which would be effective next week, and that release was for Daniel Bryan, who has been out of action for roughly nine months.
“This is going to be hard to believe and you probably get a lot of nutjobs writing every day – but I work in WWE HR. I’m not high up the totem pole by any means though.
So on Friday one of my co-workers had to process a release – and that release was for Daniel Bryan.
Monday, January 18th is the date that is listed for when the deal is processed. Not sure exactly why – my coworker was very quiet about the whole thing other than letting a few people know.”
The blog then speculates that maybe WWE, who is against letting Daniel Bryan wrestle again due to his history of concussions, is willing to let Bryan go due to the fact that they just signed four of New Japan Pro Wrestling’s biggest stars. Basically, if they released Bryan, and he went to New Japan, they’d look at it as a talent trade.
After the Daniel Bryan release rumor picked up some steam, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer was asked about it on Twitter, and he responded by saying that WWE has told him that they’re not planning on releasing Daniel Bryan, so the rumors are, in fact, false.
Furthermore, both Wrestling Inc and PW Insider have provided the same info as Meltzer, saying that their sources within WWE are telling them that the rumor isn’t true.
Now, WWE has denied rumors surrounding Daniel Bryan in the past that turned out to be true. For example, when Bryan was injured last spring, WWE refused to tell anyone outside of WWE what the injury was, and when rumors began going around that Bryan had suffered a concussion, they completely denied it. But, as we all know now, that’s exactly what it was.
As of this writing, Daniel Bryan himself hasn’t commented on the rumor of his release. In fact, the last public statement by Bryan regarding his in-ring future with WWE was a bit of a tease that he would be returning to the ring at some point in the near future.
If the rumor that WWE is planning on releasing Daniel Bryan does turn out to be true, then we’ll know by next Monday, which is only four short days away.
