Pro wrestling veteran and AEW star Bryan Danielson appeared on Insight With Chris Van Vliet. He discussed various topics, including the number of documented concussions he has experienced throughout his career.
Danielson said, “So I’ve had 13 documented concussions. [Is the actual number more?] Who knows? I don’t know. It’s just weird because when I started in 1999, the idea was, Oh, you just got dinged. You got your bell rung. So, with all the stuff that they’ve discovered about concussions since then, it’s probably too many. I would say it’s probably too many.”
On if he had any idea that he had too many concussions in 2016:
“So what had happened is I’d had some post-concussion seizures that I never told WWE about. So then, Brie, who had been there to witness a post-concussion seizure. She said, ‘The next concussion you have…’ and she was worried about me when we were on our honeymoon, the room was spinning, and this is supposed to be the best week of our lives. There was also a semi-funny incident, but she became worried that it was because of concussions, rather than just my overall aloofness. We were in Maui, and we had rented a car. You’re going along the east side of the island, you’re doing this drive, and then we stopped at this beach. We made a million stops just to see all the different things. We stopped at this beach, and the waves looked great. And I’m like, I’m gonna go body surfing. So I got in the car, and then Brie took this picture of me as I’m emerging from the water, just like, Oh, Bryan must be the happiest man alive. And then she goes, where are the car keys? And then I was like, Oh no. And we lost them to the Pacific Ocean, and then I had left him in my pocket. I don’t think that was because of concussions. I think it’s just my overall aloofness. But after that, I had neck surgery, and I was gone for nine months. But she said, the very next concussion you have, you need to tell them about this.’”
On his Thoughts on a wrestling return for his wife Brie Bella:
“Yeah, only in certain contexts. She doesn’t want to come back and do a singles run or anything like that. If she comes back, she would want to do it with Nicole. But I think there’s something in her too, and I can appreciate this, because our kids see her as just a mom, just a mom, as if that isn’t the hardest job in the world. Part of her, I think, has a desire to have the kids see her in that light, too. I didn’t realize it until later, how amazing my mom was, right in the sense of, okay, we didn’t have any money. She was a single mom. She was working two jobs, going to college. I don’t know if it was my junior year or senior year of high school. She was going on a walk with a friend, and she just collapsed from exhaustion. She had to be taken to the hospital, to the emergency room. She was somebody who probably needed food stamps, but we lived in a small town, she didn’t want to [use them]; she was ashamed. She didn’t want to go to the grocery store and pay with food stamps, all these sorts of things.”
He continued, “My mom is also an inspiration to me. She went to college, got her master’s degree in psychology, and ended up working with underprivileged kids. She worked with the Native Americans. She worked in the prison. She got attacked in a prison, being in a room with an inmate. You think about that, and you think of like, okay, I grew up knowing I was loved. Which is like, okay, Brie and I can fail at everything else in this life, but if we let our kids know that they’re loved. But all of that to say, I don’t understand how my mom did it. Now I’m in amazement, right? Because financially, we’re doing okay. We didn’t have any of the financial stressors that my mom had, and she still made a lot of time for us, and like I said, made us know that we were loved. With Brie, this whole mom thing, one day our kids will realize what a great mom she is. But it’s fun to see when they don’t appreciate it. So it’s like, I was FaceTiming her and the kids this morning, and then just our son being as wild as he is, and then our daughter, and part of me, but you never say that as a parent. You never say, ‘Do you realize how much I’m doing for you?’”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
