Daniel Bryan Talks Life After WWE, His Health, Retirement, More

Daniel Bryan had his first public speaking engagement since retiring from WWE earlier this month at Central Elementary School in Hoquiam, Washington. Bryan spoke to fourth and fifth graders as he special guest for the Hoquiam My Town Coalition, which honors students who completed a LifeSkills course.

Bryan spoke with The Daily World at the event and below are highlights from the interview:

His first public event since retiring:

“It was a little nerve-wracking. You are talking to fourth and fifth graders, a very specific age group, rather than a general age group that I’m used to. It was neat. I don’t know what they’re into or how to relate to them, though.”

His health now:

“For me, I wasn’t a very big as a wrestler and I had to work really hard to get bigger. Now that I am not wrestling, I lost 25 pounds because I don’t have to focus on eating as much. It is nicer being at a lighter weight. I run 3-4 miles a couple times a week and my knees don’t hurt. So, that’s nice.”

Retirement:

“You can also call me a New York Times best selling author. We’ve been decluttering the house and I found a list of things I wanted to do, writing a book was one of them. I think I had more of a novel in mind than (an autobiography).

“It has been good, but it is weird, because my life had been so busy before retirement. Now, you have all of this extra space and time. Because I was forced into retirement and not wanting to retire, I have to keep my mind away from wrestling. It is borderline painful. OK, so how do you fill your mind when you have filled it with this one thing for so long? I’ve experimented with gardning. I love it, but you don’t love it like that.

“A part of my mind hasn’t accepted it. I wake up sometimes with dreams of wrestling. This literally happened to me (the night before the speech). I was in Las Vegas and I flew in. I woke up this morning from a dream where I was going to wrestle and I’m not. I have to remind myself at times.”

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