Daniel Bryan Says His WWE Contract is Expiring Soon, Will Pivot to Part-Time Role

While Daniel Bryan has consistently appeared on Friday Night SmackDown over the past three months, [...]

By Connor Casey

While Daniel Bryan has consistently appeared on Friday Night SmackDown over the past three months, the former WWE World Heavyweight Champion will be pivoting to a different role in the near future. The 39-year-old and Brie Bella welcomed their second child earlier this year, and Bryan confirmed in a recent interview with BT Sport that he's looking to become a part-time wrestler soon in order to be a full-time dad. He also stated his current WWE contract will be expiring "soon."

"I still love wrestling and I feel like I'll always love wrestling, and as long as I can do it I'll do it, but do I want to continue wrestling full-time? When, like, you've got two babies at home, also... I just say how much I love wrestling and there's this weird part of me, and even talking about it now, and I've been wrestling for over 20 years now, it fills me with this joy and it almost gives me like an energy, like, when I start thinking about it, it's like, 'Ooooh,' kind of the shakes, right?" Bryan said (h/t Wrestling Inc.).

"But now I have things in my life that I love more than wrestling that give me that same... that give me a different feeling..." Bryan said before going into detail about a FaceTime call he recently had with his daughter Birdie Joe. "... And part of my just wants to focus mostly on that because soon they're going to be in school and they're not going to lay on my chest. Like my daughter wants to sleep with us every night or whatever, and we don't let her sleep with us every night, or even half the nights, but like sometimes I go sleep in her room, and I'm not like a giant man, but it's a tiny bed, but it's so... like there's just the feeling of it is unlike anything else, in a sense of like, it fills you with this joy that's kind of undefinable, you know?"

"So now I'm just kind of switching priorities in my life where for years wrestling took up kind of the key focus and all that kind of stuff," he added. "My contract is coming up soon and not to say that... but we're looking to transitioning me into maybe less than a full-time wrestler. My time of being a full-time wrestler are numbered and I'm more going to be like a full-time in dad, part-time wrestler, right? [laughs] Wrestling is my side job, daddying is my most important job."

Bryan is rumored to be Roman Reigns' opponent for the Universal Championship at the Royal Rumble next month. If his contract is expiring soon, this might be his last shot at a world championship for quite some time.

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