Daniel Bryan was a five-time world champion, having held the WWE Championship four times and the World Heavyweight Championship once, as well as having also won the United States Championship once, respectively, the WWE Tag Team Championship as a member of Team Hell No (with Kane), the Intercontinental Championship and the SmackDown Tag Team Championship with Rowan.

He was also the winner of SmackDown's Money in the Bank (2011 edition), main evented several pay-per-views (including the 2013 SummerSlam and WrestleMania XXX) and won the Slammy Award for Superstar of the Year (2013 edition). He is also the twenty-sixth athlete to boast the Triple Crown and the fifteenth to complete the Grand Slam with the new format (of the new format he is considered the sixth winner) in WWE history.

He wrestled extensively in Japan, winning the GHC Junior Heavyweight Championship in Pro Wrestling Noah and the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship (with Curry Man) in New Japan Pro-Wrestling. He has also won numerous titles on the independent circuit, including two PWG World Championships, the FIP World Heavyweight Championship and the wXw World Heavyweight Championship, as well as numerous accolades from publications such as Pro Wrestling Illustrated, which also ranked him No. Rolling Stone's annual 500 Greatest Athlete rankings in 2014 and Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer Newsletter voted him Best Athlete of the 2000s.

On February 8, 2016 at the age of thirty-four, he announced his retirement from professional wrestling due to multiple concussions and an injury to the temporomandibular area of his brain. However, he was declared fit by WWE doctors on March 20, 2018 to return to active competition.