Daniel Bryan Reflects on His WrestleMania 37 Match

Daniel Bryan walked into WrestleMania 37 hyping it up as likely the last time he’ll compete in the show’s main event. The former world champion wound up taking a Con-Chair-To from Edge late in the bout, only for Roman Reigns to eventually gain the advantage, knock the “Rated-R Supestar” out and stack him on top of Bryan before pinning both men. Bryan was absent from last week’s SmackDown, but did get a chance to reflect on the match in a new interview with BT Sport this week.

“It was really bizarre. Just really, really bizarre…,” Bryan said (h/t Cageside Seats). “It’s taken me, it’s been nine days now since it happened, and it’s taken me time to fully process what the experience was like because it wasn’t like a normal thing. It was really weird. I felt very – like out of body in it. It was so weird.

“When I’m wrestling, I feel everything and I feel like I’m really enjoying it,” he continued. “Like I’m out there and I’m like ‘Gosh,’ having fun. This was weird, I was out there and it was almost like I felt like I was detached. And I was out there, and it was so strange, in fact, that before the match started, I got this really weird feeling, I was like, ‘Oh no, is this what it’s like right before you die? Am I going to die? [laughs] I mean. huh, well, okay.’ I was like, if that happens it happens. [laughs]. It was just a really bizarre feeling. I don’t know why or how that happened, but it was unlike pretty much anything I’ve felt while wrestling before.”

He then wondered if the strange feeling from the match was a sign that he should end his full-time career, something he’s talked about for the past year.

“I’m not a big believer in signs,” he said. “Most people think of me as like this hippie-dippie kind of thing because I’m an environmentalist, but I’m really not. I really love science and reality-based things. So it was interesting, it was like maybe it’s a sign that this is the time to let go of being a full-time wrestler, which is kind of what I’ve been thinking for a while.

“When I first started training, Shawn Michaels said, ‘The second that you don’t get nervous right before you go out, that’s when you need to retire.’ And I don’t necessarily believe that, because for a long time I haven’t gotten nervous before I go out. I’m excited because it’s fun. But the odd detachment was like, ‘Woah, maybe it’s’ – like I said, I’m either gonna die [laughs] or maybe this is just a sign that this isn’t the same type of fulfilling that it was before. It’s interesting. I’ve been trying to – I just said I wasn’t hippie-dippie, right? – I’ve been trying to meditate on it [laughs] and talk to my friends that I’m close with like ‘Hey, what is that?’” he added.

He concluded by saying his WWE contract was expiring soon, and that he’s still trying to figure out what to do next.