pro wrasslin'

Bryan deciding to wrestle Blue Panther every few months for the rest of his career would probably be the best course of action, but I doubt that would be enough for him.

In New Japan… jeez, he’d have a chance at getting by as a grappling specialist in terms of offense but even ZSJ who basically does that there still has to eat all of his opponent’s offense. Like Mike Elgin isn’t gonna not try to fit all his shit in matched up against such a high caliber opponent. WWE is bad about this too now but I would legit fear for his health if he entered the G1 and that is exactly the kind of challenge that would excite him.

Except it’s literally what Bryan himself said. Listen to him on Cheap Heat like two months ago. He talked about the seizures, but then also talked about all the shit he has done with doctors and how they believe he is good to go, but he can’t prove it to the WWE docs. Like he said this. In his voice.

One can talk about how maybe he isn’t in the best place to judge things, sure, but you can’t phrase this as some crazy notion people have when the dude literally keeps telling it to people.

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I didn’t hear that interview but in the past he was open about doctors offering up conflicting diagnoses. He was also saying this shit when he had the neck injury in 2014. "Yeah, I have zero grip strength in my hand, but these doctors say…"Like, Bryan seems to be one of the few relatively honest wrestlers but as you said I’m not sure he’s the best judge of all this stuff.

There was definitely a vocal (and insane) contingent in 2014-2015 that claimed WWE refused to clear him because he’d detract from Roman’s push. I imagine their numbers have only grown since.

Anyway the True Galaxy Brain take is WWE cleared him now so they can bury him before he departs or so he can injure himself on his way out.

(That take is my take.)

(Also still betting that Vince pulls a George Lucas before he dies, Steph and Hunter end up getting booted by the new owners, and the whole company dies before I do. Who wanna put down some money on this.)

My take is that they cleared him and will try to get him to re-sign for three years, at which point he may find himself deactivated again.

Also if I’ve learned anything from all the interviews Bryan has done since the initial major neck injury it is that he seems to be an absolutely wonderful person who is about one step away from believing that vaccinations cause more harm than good. I’m sure in his mind he believes he cured a likely degenerative brain disease via living in an oxygen tent or drinking vitamin water but WWE not being sold isn’t a case of their doctors being unrealistic.

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Bryan will almost certainly be smart enough not to sign anything longer than a 1-year contract in case they just pull that shit again once he re-signs

Who watched Smackdown? Do you remember what it feels like to believe in a WWE babyface? It sure has been awhile.

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I mean, you really should listen to the episode (direct DL from ESPN here it’s like halfway through as I recall, though it has been a bit; also CW there is a chat with Enzo Amore on there, so yeaaaah, ugh) because he talks a lot about how concussions as a whole are this big medical question mark (and I have heard other people talk about this) because they haven’t been taken seriously for so long, or studied that much at all. He does bring a some minor possibly quackery in there (the part about the testing on dead people for CTE testing for the same chemical the body produces as part of steriod use, possibly, though could be legit as well, I’m no expert), but he is also up front about how he was lying to people about the seizures, about how Brie basically saw him have one and made him fess up, and then how both he and WWE didn’t know how to handle it, which I think is what led to the whole confusion over what injury he actually had being announced originally.

I mean, I think (possible contract foolery aside, if you think he has been OK all along and could have left to go to Japan) that WWE has been pretty decent in their handling of concussion stuff over the past few years. Corey Graves whole career as an announcer got going because his concussion issues, for example. Could they be better? Oh most definitely. If they suddenly decided Bryan is no longer good after Mania and then keep in under contract and such, that will be a big inidcator of bullshit on their part, and I will be more than happy to call them on it.

And yeah, Bryan will only sign a 1 year contract at most because if dude genuinely feels he was fucked over by management (and still wants the WWE involvement), he’s gonna give himself that out clause.

literally I don’t think any living human person’s brain has been studied and tested more stringently than Daniel Bryan’s (and that’s from Dave Meltzer). he’s been cleared by everybody, now—including Maroon, who was the only hold-out for the past two years.

we’ll see what happens—but let’s not act like the only reason he’s going to be wrestling is because of some delusion that “he cured a likely degenerative brain disease” which he never had—that’s fiction.

I mean, he seems to be under the impression that his brain lesion is either no big deal or actually cured, that may not technically qualify for an actual diagnosed degenerative brain disease but it’s on the continuum. While I work in a medical field it is far enough away that I can’t really speak on it with any kind of authority, but given that his brain injuries are the type that are usually asymptomatic until legit damage is done… and he has already shown to be symptomatic… you can do the math.

In the future looking back the tragedy is less likely that Daniel Bryan lost two years of his career, and more likely that diagnostic technology wasn’t to the point where it could prevent him from further damage. I’m just hoping that SD this week won’t end up being this generation’s ending of WM XX.

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well actually it’s his team of top-notch brain specialists’ impression, not ‘his’. you seem to think he invented the whole treatment and diagnosed himself all alone in his vegetable garden.

OK so CTE is a thing right. Like, NFL kickers have had it.

Do you not believe in it or do you just think this dude who spent 15+ years taking bumps somehow avoided having his noggin scrambled.

uhhh no I’m saying that

Dr Robert Cantu, a well-known concussion expert and the Co-Founder of the CTE Center at the Boston University School of Medicine

&

Dr Javier Cardenas, the first doctor who cleared him back in 2015, and the first doctor who told him in 2016 that he had no reason to retire if he didn’t want to, who created the Barrow Concussion and Brain Injury Center, which is the national’s most comprehensive concussion prevention, treatment and education program (he’s also on the NFL’s Head, Neck and Spine Committee)

&

Dr. Jeffrey Kutcher, the National Director of the Sports Neurology Clinic and Team Neurologist for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association and Team Neurologist for the U.S. team in both the 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics

all say he’s Good to Go.

OK. Glad all those people are encouraging him to return to a career that turns people’s brains into Swiss cheese then.

I guess we should just make pro wrestling illegal then?

Wouldn’t be the worst thing really.

Like I’m glad you’re real pumped to give fascists $9.99 a month so you can watch Danielson work 4th from the top against the Miz but it doesn’t change the fact that CTE is real, the dude likely already has it, that even if CTE wasn’t a thing pro-wrestling is pretty fuckin’ dangerous, and his return greatly increases the likelihood that he meets one of the freakishly unhappy ends that are incredibly common among pro-wrestlers.

I like pro-wrestling a lot. I’m not comfortable with its human cost. I stopped following it for a long time because of that. I came back cuz shows were good again and I thought things maybe got a little better. The physiques weren’t quite as freaky, head dropping seemed a little less prevalent, chairshots to the head were almost non-existant, dudes weren’t bleeding every night of the week, it was possible to make a living outside of WWE, and most of the great wrestlers of my generation hadn’t dropped dead yet. But things have been ratcheting back up and I’m pretty sure if dudes my age start dying prematurely I’m fuckin’ done again.

Danielson’s the best wrestler of his generation. Probably top 5 all time. Maybe best ever, since he’s seemingly a decent fellow and nearly every other person who’s ever worked a wrestling match was human garbage. He has nothing left to prove and I’m not sure how much fun I’d have watching him bump knowing his medical history. Especially not after he already wrote a fuckin’ autobiography that ended with him saying “Yeah, I’m not sure all this pro-wrestling shit was worth it.” Sorry for playing armchair doctor here but, like, spent most of my time as a fan watching my favs die off so…hard not to.

Anyway let’s stop being glum and have some fun. How do you think Danielson’s career is going to end? Please pick a number from 1-7:

  1. The First Pro-Wrestler To Ever Retire Happy And Healthy
  2. Bret Hart-style (Concussion and paralyzing stroke followed by years of justifiably bitter ranting)
  3. Dynamite Kid-style (Quadriplegic living in poverty)
  4. Eddy-style (Dead in a hotel bathroom on the eve of winning a world title)
  5. Misawa-style (Virtually decapitated in the ring)
  6. Benoit-style (Uh)
  7. Danielson’s career will end in some never-before-seen horrifying way (Nuked by a hadoken in Reseda, crippled by a wacky lucha submission gone wrong, shot to death while campaigning for Glenn Jacobs’ senate run, ???)

oh hey i keep making my dumb axe threads and keep forgetting this is here

when i first got back into things, it was Daniel Bryan’s rise from NXT graduate to WM30 that really made me feel some part of that old childish joy i felt watching WWF as a kid, and catching up on past shows and PPVs, already knowing that he’d be forced to retire due to injuries made everything that much more heart wrenchingly tragic. and even hearing the initial news before the last Smackdown aired, i was happy but a little jaded. but when he started tearing up about finally being able to return, i certainly marked the hell out.

i can’t lie, i’m sort of with HOBO on this. later in that episode, bouncing off the crowd energy from his pretty sincere intro, he went on to get power bombed by Kevin Owens into the corner of the canvas, and when he hit, i (and the rest of the crowd) winced harder because of it, and for some reason it feels…i guess icky, that they’re generating this kind of heat into the storyline. using legit wrestling injuries into plots is nothing new of course, but somehow, knowing what we know of CTE and how big a deal they made his injury breaks and forced retirement on TV…i dunno, i just hope he’s not shelved again after a year.

it’s also sort of weird when i’m reminded that he had such a similar storyline arc as Benoit. obviously that’s another situation with a completely different person entirely, but their intense and somewhat insane dedication to working and taking such dramatic bumps, despite the heavy body cost…eh it just sort of looms on the whole thing for some reason. that’s just me i guess.

and being on a mid card with the Miz is only a punishment because the Miz should be pushed way the fuck higher (considering some of his best promo work was yelling at Bryan for being too much of a coward to go to another promotion after his injuries)

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anyways, speaking of Kevin Owens, i’ve been doing a deep dive of him and Sami Zayn’s old life in Ring of Honor as Steen and El Generico but in the process i came across this blog that tells that story in a series of lengthy, gif filled essays that really dig to a certain emotional core that appeals to me.

i’d almost even describe it as, uh, New Games Journalism-esque, i guess

I respect the desire to not want people to die (I find it very hard to watch Sasha Banks for this reason). However Bryan is a grown ass man and can do what he likes, as is everyone who wants to be a pro wrestler. It is literally an insane thing to do, and that’s obviously part of why it holds the appeal that it does. There’s no more inherent risk in watching him wrestle now than there is for any other wrestler—no other wrestler has been subjected to the level of scrutiny that Bryan was. I’d love to see Jeff Hardy sent through the same series of tests, or Matt, or Suzuki, or Omega, or Tanahashi, etc. But nobody seems to think they should retire. It’s also worth noting that Bryan is the most fanatically health conscious and drug free person to ever make this a career, so there goes the Eddie and Dynamite (and Benoit imo) scenarios out the window. Plus he’s going to be tested for damage after every match he has. So I’d say that all leaves either freak accident and a happy (or crushing) retirement, either of which I will accept as I would anybody who gets into the ring (or the octagon for that matter).

honestly they could give the dude a helmet and the fans would still Yes! chant the roof off. he might be the most intensely over wrestler since Austin.

is Sasha Banks bad to work with? i think i heard on some podcast that she takes pretty bad bumps that make her coworkers nervous, but i can’t remember exactly

She routinely takes bumps that look more like suicide attempts than wrestling moves. She’s more a danger to herself than her opponent though.

Great instincts, but she goes for too much a lot of the time, or she’s just sloppy.