When Daniel Bryan announced his retirement on February 8 of 2016, his farewell speech centered on one theme: gratitude. Gratitude that his retirement was taking place near his hometown, in front of family and friends. Gratitude for his wife, Brie Bella. Perhaps most important of all, gratitude towards the fans who helped raise him up from an indie darling to quite possibly the most beloved WWE superstar of his generation.

We are now four months into his improbable return to pro wrestling after brain injuries forced him out of the ring, and Bryan is well aware of how rare this type of second act is. So aware, in fact, that it has actually liberated him. Gone are the butterflies and nerves and stresses that may have once plagued him. Instead, there's simply wrestling. And for that, he's grateful.

We caught up with the former WWE champion ahead of this year's SummerSlam pay-per-view to find out how he's adjusting to life back in the ring, discuss the merits of goat yoga, and to answer the age-old question: Can you still be called an underdog once your career is immortalized in a video game?

GQ: I've got to ask you the quintessential Daniel Bryan question for 2018 right off the bat: How is your body feeling since your return to the ring?

Daniel Bryan: You know, it's actually felt really, really good until this weekend. [Laughs] I did something to my lower back. But that's just something that happens when you're wrestling. You'll just get things here and there. So when I get up in the morning, it's hard to get out of bed. But once the fluid starts moving I feel okay. That's part of the reality of being a 37-year-old professional wrestler.

I was curious how it felt to be back in the ring those first couple of weeks. Did your body have to completely re-adjust to running the ropes and taking bumps again?

You know, it's interesting. Never in the ring did I feel like I had to re-adjust. It's so strange because I did a lot of jiu jitsu and kickboxing-type stuff, and when Brie was wanting to train for the women's Royal Rumble, I helped her train, right? But that was the only time getting in the ring. I didn't do any bumps or anything like that. So running the ropes and all that kind of stuff, it's like the first time I've done it pretty much in three years. And honestly, I didn't feel like anything had changed, which is really bizarre. You think it would.

Your very first night back in the ring after getting cleared by WWE, you're in the ring with Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, you're delivering a promo, and you know you're only a couple minutes away from getting physical for the first time in a long time. Take me through what's going through your mind in that moment. Are you nervous? Excited? Paranoid?

Honestly, I was just excited. I trained with Shawn Michaels when I first started wrestling and he would say that the day you stopped getting nervous was the day that you need to retire. I'm like, “Should I retire again?” Honestly, I don't get nervous anymore. I just get excited. I think part of that has to do with it being taken away from me and then being able to come back. Now I approach the whole thing with such gratitude and joy. I think if you were to rewatch that first time where I got physical, while they're punching me in the face, you might see a little bit of a smirk on my face, just from the joy of being able to do something physical again.

So no nerves at all on the night of your return?

The one thing I was most concerned about was doing the repeated running dropkicks in the corner. So I had no idea that I was going to get cleared. When I left for that trip, I was going to the Middle East to do some media and some appearances. And then I got cleared literally the night before. So I didn't have wrestling shoes, I didn't have anything. The shoes that I had were, like, from a thrift store and are a half size too big. [Laughs] And that's what I'm wearing as I'm running corner to corner doing the dropkicks. In the middle of doing this, what I'm thinking to myself is, “Man, I hope my shoes don't come off!” That was the only nerve-wracking part of it.