Daniel Bryan 'Likely' Signing New Contract With WWE in Coming Weeks

Daniel Bryan addressed his future in professional wrestling on a recent episode of the Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast, and had good news for his WWE fan base.

"I think at this point it's 90, 90-plus percent..." Bryan said. "I would say it's likely I will sign with WWE."

Bryan's contract with the company was reportedly set to expire on September 1, and speculation had been swarming for months over whether or not he'd stay with the WWE rather than return to the independent wrestling scene.

"The reality is that's the probability," Bryan said. "I have not signed, I have not re-signed yet. But it could happen as soon as the end of this week. It might be a couple more weeks or whatever it is. It's very likely."

The former WWE World Heavyweight Champion originally retired in 2016 due to numerous concussions he had suffered throughout his career, but remained under a WWE contract as the SmackDown Live general manager. After nearly two full years away from wrestling, Bryan as able to pass physical evaluations from three independent neurosurgeons and returned to in-ring competition back in March. His first match took place at WrestleMania 34 in April when he teamed with Shane McMahon to defeat Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn.

Bryan is scheduled to face his long-time rival The Miz at SummerSlam on Sunday night. He gave his thoughts on the match in his interview with Roberts.

"That's beyond my control, so I try not think about it too much," Bryan said when asked if SummerSlam was the right stage for this feud to culminate at. "I've had people say to me 'Aww, it needs to be saved for WrestleMania.' Okay, I could see where you would want it at WrestleMania, but SummerSlam is also a really big event. (laughs)"

"When you say, 'Okay, what are the biggest events WWE runs in a year?' The three biggest ones by far are SummerSlam, Royal Rumble and WrestleMania," Bryan said."Those are the three people have the most interest in. So us doing it at SummerSlam in no way, shape or form is like 'Oh, I think it should have been done like this' or whatever. But it's also beyond my control."

Bryan was also asked what his ideal opponent would be for WrestleMania 35, the one-year anniversary of his return.

"Gosh, no, I haven't really even thought about it from that perspective," Bryan said. "I think one of things that's always weird around me is my experience with Royal Rumbles, just my experience and then what happens because of my experience in Royal Rumbles is just an interesting topic to me. People bring it up to me all the time. So I think that's one of the things that I haven't accomplished is winning a Royal Rumble. So that would be something that would be an interesting thing is winning a Royal Rumble and then going on to be in a championship match at WrestleMania. But there's a reality that there's a lot of things that happen in WWE and things change, what fans want changes. And it's not all about me."

SummerSlam takes place on Sunday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.