According to Daniel Bryan himself, he wasn't cleared to return to in-ring competition until Monday night, less than 24 hours before the news broke.
Daniel Bryan and his legions of fans likely feel as if they are living in a dream world right now. Despite being three days removed from the groundbreaking announcement that he has been cleared to return to in-ring competition by WWE somehow it still doesn't feel real. It was a day, by his own admission, that at points, Bryan believed would never come.
We only had to wait a handful of hours after the announcement to hear from the man himself on SmackDown Live and a further two hours after that Bryan was throwing his first kicks and taking his first bumps. It wouldn't be WWE if we didn't get all types of insight into one of the biggest comebacks in the modern era and they have also posted a short video detailing the moments before Bryan came through the curtain on Tuesday night.
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It's a terrific watch, and perhaps, the most telling piece of information within it is when exactly Bryan claims he was cleared by WWE. Despite the timing being pretty much perfect in terms of how close we are to WrestleMania, apparently, the former World Champion was only cleared on Monday night, 24-hours before he took a powerbomb on to the edge of the ring apron from Kevin Owens.
Vince McMahon and WWE love drama of course so there is every possibility that isn't entirely true. There's also the possibility that the boss and higher ups decided they were going to clear Bryan longer ago than Monday night but they didn't want to tell anybody in case the news leaked out. Doing it this way means that WrestleMania will now be an even bigger event than it is already shaping up to be.
Whether Bryan is lying to us, WWE are lying to him, or everything we have been told is the truth, in all honesty, we don't really care. All the WWE Universe cares about right now is the fact that Daniel Bryan is back and judging by what happened on SmackDown Live this past week he will be wrestling at WrestleMania. It's something most of us thought we would never see again and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.