Daniel Bryan will not return this Sunday on PPV as wrestling news site had reported earlier Monday.
PWInsider on Monday reported that WWE Intercontinental Champion Daniel Bryan would be returning from his injury Monday night after being out of action for a month—the exact length of time, they noted, that their sources had claimed he’d be out after suffering a nondescript injury in Ireland while on a tour of Europe.
In their report earlier, Mike Johnson wrote:
“PWInsider.com has also confirmed that Bryan is booked for the Payback PPV, so it would appear his appearance tonight will set up his role for that PPV. Bryan missed a scheduled bout at April’s Extreme Rules PPV against Bad News Barrett due to the injury.”
However, when Daniel Bryan did return to Raw on Monday night, fans were left disappointed—especially those who had been taken in by PWInsider’s false reporting. Bryan announced to fans that he was relinquishing his title after MRIs revealed that he could be out a few more weeks, months, or even never be able to return again.
The PWInsider report left many sites looking bad in their own reporting, as several sites, from WrestleZone to F4Wonline all ran with reports repeating the news, and citing PWInsider in their stories claiming Bryan would be back, and would be defending the title at Payback.
The F4Wonline story in particular is strange, as site proprietor and podcast host Bryan Alvarez reported both Sunday night on his Bryan & Vinny Show, and Monday afternoon on Wrestling Observer Live, all indications he’d had on the situation were that Daniel Bryan would be stripped of the title—and that was the prediction he gave.
One wonders, in this case, why no reports on the website stated this, and deferred instead to running a report on the PWInsider story, repeating the news that Bryan would be wrestling.
Shortly after Daniel Bryan made his announcement on Raw Monday night, PWInsider quickly ran an update reiterating their earlier report that Daniel Bryan was still scheduled to be at the Payback PPV this Sunday, however they backpedalled from their earlier report that made it appear as though Bryan would be wrestling on the show.
In somewhat related news, PWInsider had, earlier in the day, touted itself as the wrestling news provider that was first to break the news that Monday night’s Raw would also feature the return of Stephanie McMahon on screen for the first time in about a month.
“Over the weekend, PWInsider.com also broke that Triple H and Stephanie McMahon would also be returning to Raw after Stephanie’s Eisenhower Fellowship and the required international travel led to their televised roles in The Authority disappearing from TV as part of a scripted ‘vacation.'”
However, as the show came to a close, McMahon did not reappear as reported.
Most wrestling news providers picked up on this news and reported the same thing over the weekend, including Jeff Hamlin’s Raw Recap hyping the return of Stephanie McMahon twice before the show even started.
