Fans seemingly went through the same process that Daniel did when the news broke early on Monday. There was confusion, anger, disbelief, sadness but I think at the end of RAW we were all in the same camp as Daniel when it all came back to gratitude.
This all started when someone took a snapshot of Daniel at the airport sporting his new haircut and trimmed beard and the wrestling world got a little bit excited thinking that we were going to be witnessing the return of Daniel Bryan in his home state.
That news quickly turned to despair when Daniel tweeted that he had to retire with immediate effect and would be on RAW to explain more. I think fans knew deep down as soon as this tweet came out that it was likely to be legit. We had been through the fake tease of retirement previously with Daniel Bryan and we couldn’t see WWE trying to do the same angle twice.
Then sadly the realisation hit when WWE opened RAW with a tribute to Daniel’s career. A few hours and an awful lot of tears later it was all over. It’s hard to believe but sadly it’s also something that needed to happen…
