Rumor Killer On Daniel Bryan Having Seizure During Last WWE Singles TV Match, His Last Seizure
As reported earlier, Daniel Bryan discussed his retirement this past Tuesday on ESPN SportsCenter with Jonathan Coachman. During the interview, Bryan said that while undergoing testing a couple of weeks ago in New York, an EEG test revealed slowing of brain activity and a "small, subacute lesion" in an area of his brain that causes seizures.
"I have had post-concussion seizures that I have hid, for a long time," Bryan said. "There was never any evidence to see why I would have these seizures, but then finally we found some."
There was speculation online that Daniel Bryan suffered a seizure during his final televised singles WWE match last April with Sheamus. As seen in the video above at the 2:20 mark, Bryan started convulsing after being hit with a Bullhammer by Wade Barrett. However, Dave Meltzer stated on Wrestling Observer Radio that while Bryan has had post-concussion seizures, the last one was four years ago. He added that while Bryan admitted to hiding the seizures, he told every doctor that he met with about them, which would include the ones that cleared him.
"The last time he [Bryan] had a seizure was four years ago," Meltzer said. "Obviously I don't know who he hid it from and who he didn't hide it from, but what I can tell you factually is that every single doctor that he talked with knew about it. He didn't hide that from any doctors."
As noted, Bryan admitted that he was cleared by a doctor last summer who was the neurologist for a Super Bowl. He was cleared again recently by concussion specialists at UCLA, however ultimately decided to retire after the last medical examination in New York.
During the ESPN appearance, Bryan offered some advice to aspiring young athletes.
"I think for every sport it's going to be different, but it's to be cognizant of it," Bryan said. "If you get a concussion you need to record it, because one of the worst things that you can do is get a concussion and then go back to doing a contact sport before your brain is fully healed. That's especially true for younger people. There's this mentality within sports, and especially within sports like football, with wrestling, with fighting, with all that kind of stuff is that, 'No, I'm going to tough it out, oh it's just a ding'. If you're a competitor you have that in you to feel that, but you have a responsibility to yourself, your family, to your friends to report it, just to protect yourself."
Andy contributed to this article.