Inside Edition did a story on Thursday on Daniel Bryan’s retirement and concussions in sports.
Deborah Norville did the story intro and noted the problems with concussions in football. She said that we are now aware of the problem with concussions in professional wrestling. She said, “a major WWE star is stepping out of the ring after having hidden seizures that he says he suffered because of blows to the head.”
Diane McInerney did the narration for the story. They showed a clip from Bryan’s speech from Monday and then they showed a clip from WrestleMania 31 of him and Dolph Ziggler headbutting each other on top of a ladder in the ring. McInerney said that Bryan is famed for giving and taking headbutts and noted that Bryan hid the fact that he was having seizures. They showed another clip from Monday’s speech with footage of Triple H beating on Bryan’s head with his fist from a couple of years ago. Nevermind the fact that those punches likely had nothing to do with Bryan’s concussions but it would probably leave many viewers thinking that worked punches to the head from Triple H played a part in Bryan’s concussion issues.
They cut to McInerny in the studio and she said that Bryan’s concussion issues show that it’s not just a problem in the NFL. They showed a clip from the “Concussion” movie. They showed more clips of Triple H attacking Bryan with fists to the head and Bryan landing a headbutt off the top onto Darren Young. McInerney said, “wrestling is known for staging fights that are carefully choreographed before anyone steps into the ring. In 2014, Daniel Bryan was dropped on his head multiple times in a move called a tombstone piledriver. He was taken out on a gurney and had surgery to fix nerve damage. In this fight, he took repeated blows to the head, including with a metal chair. Now his headbutting days are over.”
The thing is that the tombstone piledrivers were written into the show because Bryan had learned (earlier that day) that his father passed away and he was going to be taking time off. I believe he also had an injury that he needed to get taken care of as well. The piledrivers and him being carried off on a gurney had nothing to do with concussions and he was not injured during that angle. Also, despite what the story tries to portray, Bryan did not take a shot to the head with a steel chair. The spot they showed, which aired on a Raw leading up to WrestleMania 30, was of Triple H hitting the steel post and giving the illusion that he was hitting Bryan in the head with the chair.
Other than the clip of Bryan talking about the concussions he suffered in the first 5 months of his career, there was no mention of Bryan’s concussion history before WWE and no mention of the steps WWE has taken (especially in the last decade or so) to protect their stars. The story seemed to have been put together without any research and the part about Bryan’s seizures was taken from the interview he did on ESPN. The one thing that Bryan either forgot to mention or was edited off the ESPN interview was that Bryan hasn’t had a seizure in about 4 years so it seems a lot worse when news outlets report, without proper context, that he has suffered from concussion seizures. Also, this kills the ridiculous story going online claiming that Bryan may have had a seizure during a match with Sheamus last year.
You can criticize the company for many things but this story was unfair to them and Inside Edition could have done a better job but it seems like they chose to put something together without any real research behind it in an attempt, in my opinion, for ratings since Daniel Bryan and concussions are a hot topic.
The Inside Edition story is below:
