Daniel Bryan On If He's Won Vince McMahon Over, Bret Hart's Comments, Recent Fake Interview, More
Daniel Bryan recently spoke with SportingNews.com's Brian Fritz to promote his new autobiography "YES! My Improbable Journey to the Main Event of WrestleMania." The full interview is at this link. Below are highlights:
The book builds up to your big moment at WrestleMania 30 where you had two matches and became the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, overcoming all of the odds. One of the things mentioned in the narration was how different the WWE would be after that and how things would change. Do you think that moment and yourself, your accomplishments there, have made a change to the WWE?
I honestly don't know. I don't see that much of a change. But I don't know what change people expected. The change was hurt by the fact that shortly after that I got injured and then I had neck surgery and all that kind of stuff. What I did think it did for people was give them hope. That even if you're not the standard person that WWE wants to push to the moon and give all the opportunities to, that if the fans really get behind you, you can still get to the highest level. And I think guys still have that hope. If you're good enough and the people get behind you enough, that can push you past that point that WWE was originally planning to push you to.
Do you with everything you've done that you've won over Vince McMahon?
You know, yes but I don't know to what degree. You know what I mean? Does he think I should ever main event another WrestleMania? I would say probably not. (laughs) It's interesting. I think he likes me, he sees me as a valuable performer. He sees me as someone who makes the company money. But I still don't think he will ever see me as "the guy" in the way he sees John Cena as "the guy" or in the way he potentially sees Roman Reigns as "the guy". To this day, I still don't think he sees me like that.
What was your reaction, and I know you had to comment about this recently on social media, about some interview that said you wouldn't be back wrestling ever again?
Yeah! It was interesting because Brie called me. I was visiting my sister. I was with my sister in Pennsylvania ? she lives amongst a bunch of Amish people and Mennonites, stuff like that. Brie calls me and says, "Hey, did you say something about not wrestling again?" And I said no. She goes it's all over my Instagram feed or Twitter feed or whatever it was. I was like huh? She said "do you think WWE released something that said you weren't going to wrestle any more?" I said I don't know, that's crazy that they wouldn't have at least talked to me about it before that. Then I went on my Twitter and checked and there was this fake interview with my hometown Aberdeen, Washington radio station or something like that and the interview never happened. Some people just have too much time on their hands. It was all over my Twitter. I don't put a lot of stock into social media but the nice thing is that something like that comes out and a bunch of people are talking about it that at least you can go on there and squash it and say that's a fake interview. That's not real.
Were you surprised about the comments ? I'm not sure if you saw them or not ? from Bret Hart when he spoke with Sports Illustrated and he said "he's got the same kind of injury that I had and I don't think he's ever going to wrestle again"?
I wasn't surprised. But different people have different circumstances. His circumstances were different from my circumstances. It's just one of those things where people only know their own reality. That goes for me, it goes for you, it goes for anybody. If you think you know what somebody else is going through, odds are you probably don't. So, it doesn't hurt my feelings he said that. I just think he doesn't know the situation.
How are your neck and your shoulder these days?
My shoulder is great. My shoulder and neck are great. Honestly, I feel amazing. The other day, Monday before Tough Enough, I squatted over, I did several sets at 270 pounds. It's not a lot for a professional athlete as far as 270 pounds for multiple reps. But it's a lot of pressure to be putting on my neck and shoulder and I did it with no problem.
Source: SportingNews.com