Just about every professional wrestling fan shed some tears on Monday. Daniel Bryan’s retirement announcement hit us hard, even if it was just the end result of the other shoe finally landing. Fans have either been suspecting or fearing Bryan’s career might be over for almost two years. Now we finally have official word. It was a day of sadness and reflection. The one person we loved to watch the most in the ring, we’ll never see wrestle again.
Be happy for Daniel Bryan, the pro wrestler who won
Daniel Bryan’s retirement devastated wrestling fans around the world. But it’s not often we get to see a true hero ride off into the sunset.
Bill Hanstock is a writer, author and Emmy Award-winning producer. He began writing for SB Nation in 2011.
It’s OK to be sad. It’s normal. But we should take a moment to appreciate how rarely we, as wrestling fans, get a chance to say goodbye to someone who is still young, happy and able-bodied. Even rarer is that individual who has accomplished everything a person can in the business, but is walking away at age 34.
That’s not to say he’s necessarily walking away on his own terms. He’s made it quite clear -- even in his retirement speech -- that he would give anything to be able to continue being a professional wrestler. But I can count the number of wrestlers who have walked away on their own terms on one hand. And one of them is The Rock. And he came back.
Which is part of the reason so many fans are having trouble coming to grips with Bryan’s retirement. Nothing is ever “forever” in wrestling. The past, oh, 40 or 50 years of wrestling history have made that clear.
Calling It a Career
Calling It a Career
Ric Flair had one of the most reverent retirement storylines and send-offs in history, but he still went over to TNA and went to Australia with Hulk Hogan and had more matches. Hogan himself campaigns for one last WrestleMania match every year. Mick Foley had a few matches in TNA after his retirement. Jerry Lawler and Terry Funk are still throwing fireballs at each other in civic auditoriums. We’re used to wrestlers never really going away, until one day there’s an “in memoriam” tribute at the top of RAW.
Much of Monday was spent with ESPN’s Jonathan Coachman and the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer trying to convince fans, no, this isn’t a work. When that wasn’t enough, fans took to Twitter and message boards and comment sections to try to convince others (but mostly themselves) that it had to be a work. Just had to be.
But it isn’t. For now, at least, Daniel Bryan is retired. But we got to watch him do it all. Literally accomplish everything. We got to see a guy that we, as fans, at least partially willed into household-name recognition. It’s natural that we feel some ownership, some entitlement. But as RAW reminds us most weeks, we’re never owed anything.
On Monday, we were confronted with something we never, ever get to see as wrestling fans: the long game. Wrestling, just like a soap opera, churns on and on and on ceaselessly. There’s no offseason, so season finale, so things move at a glacial pace. As David Shoemaker pointed out, we’re not used to someone saying, “This is the end of the story.”
It’s sad that our guy, one of the few people from the past 20 years who appeared to fundamentally get pro wrestling on a whole other level, will no longer ply his trade for us to enjoy. But we had our time with him. Now it’s time to be happy for him.
And it’s easy to be happy for him. Because we love him and are grateful for everything he gave to us.
The long game tends to sneak up on you. Chris Jericho was the guy that Internet fans complained for a decade would never be used correctly. Then they woke up one day and he was a canonical all-time great. Daniel Bryan was the guy who could be so good if they would just give him a chance. He stepped into the ring on Monday a Grand Slam champion. A four-time world champion. The guy who headlined what might be the greatest WrestleMania of all time ... and won.
He won. That’s the end of the Daniel Bryan story. The dude won. He reached the absolute top of the mountain, did it all, met and married the love of his life, captured every fan’s heart, because of his drive and his dedication to the sport (and the business) of professional wrestling. The American Dragon, Bryan Danielson, won.
That’s an ending.
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