To the joy of many fans around the world, Daniel Bryan announced his in-ring return after shocking the wrestling community in 2016 with his retirement due to a series of concussions. After a lukewarm start to his in-ring return, Bryan has been arguably one of the most compelling acts in the company ever since his heel turn and WWE title win late last year.
The former WWE champion has previously stated that he would love to wrestle until he was 70; however, don’t expect Bryan to wrestle full time for long, as the Smackdown Tag Team champion revealed on
Jimmy Jacob’s podcast that once his contract is set to end, he won't be wrestling full-time (transcript courtesy of wrestletalk):
“That’s the journey I’m on right now, I’m looking in a couple years when I’m no longer a full-time wrestle. I’ll always wrestle a little bit because I love doing it. After my contract is up, I don’t want to be a full-time wrestler anymore. So, diving into [climate change and other issues] has been really important.”
It is not known exactly when Bryan’s current deal expires, but he did state that once he is done with wrestling on a full-time basis, he wants to leave a positive impact on the world and use his status to assist important causes like climate change. Bryan has been wrestling since 1999 with various promotions such as Ring of Honor and EVOLVE before transitioning into the WWE in 2010.