bryan vs punk
By Scott Keith on 23rd September 2017
so it's looking increasingly likely that daniel bryan will indeed be returning to wrestling when his contract expires in a year or so. that would make arguably the two most popular post-cena superstars free agents. my question is, how much money is in a bryan vs punk match in, say, ring of honor? ignoring that punk would be quite unlikely to return, surely bryan winning the roh title and then goading punk out of retirement could do huge numbers? what sort of attendance etc could we see here?
secondly, what do you think are the chances of bryan ever wrestling again in wwe? i imagine they're going to make him a huge offer to sit on the sidelines, and i'm sure he will reject it. i doubt they allow him to wrestle, even if it means him going elsewhere, though i'll bet they try and throw some spanner in the works. surely the best option for them is to let bryan leave and see how he holds up on the indies? if something goes wrong, hey, WE didn't let him wrestle, we offered him a new contract, etc. if he's fine (as he seems to think he is) then he essentially does a test run for them without any of the risk involved, he tears it up for a year or two and then they bring him back as an even bigger star.
Well the problem is that while Bryan might be free and clear of his contract in a year, Punk is definitely not. I believe he has multiple years on his deal left, and there's little chance of Vince letting him out of due to the circumstances of his departure.
As for Bryan, I just don't know if WWE is going to let him go wrestle somewhere without doing everything in their power to make sure he remains under their medical supervision. Even if he goes to ROH or Mexico and sustains more damage there, the media is gonna be like "WWE wrestler suffers career ending concussion!" I mean, they can't FORCE him to stay, but they can sure try.