Insight Into Daniel Bryan's AEW Deal, "Creative Input" And Possible NJPW Matches
Owner and editor of Bodyslam.net Cassidy Haynes was on today's episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily. He and Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman discussed Haynes' report on Daniel Bryan / Bryan Danielson signing with AEW. Hausman started by asked Haynes if this was the biggest story he's broken in his career.
"Easily, man," Haynes admitted. "People were asking me, 'How confident are you putting out this story?' It's obviously the biggest story I've ever broke. It's kind of one of those 'do or die' with my career, you'd think, but if I've dropped the ball on this one, that's a big one to recover from.
"That's how confident I was putting it out there. That should tell everybody. You should think about that. That's what I was saying to people. I was like, 'That's a big one to come back from if I'm wrong,' so that's how confident I am. This is all new too. It's all happened real fast."
Haynes had a follow up report on when the contract discussions began between Bryan and AEW. He spoke on the details of Bryan's contract.
"I know that he asked to have less dates, comparable money," Haynes said. "He wanted to work in Japan, and he wanted to be able to have creative input on his character and storylines and stuff and he got all that. It's not really control because everything goes through Tony [Khan], but it's input. He wanted creative input."
The Bryan news coincided with the CM Punk – AEW news, and the internet went into a frenzy. Haynes recalled his mindset during that time when those stories broke.
"It was very stressful," Haynes admitted. "I didn't sleep for a little bit because I was hearing about that and Punk at the same time, and as I'm starting to ask around, I'm checking with some of our colleagues. 'Have you heard any of this?' And of course, right then, [Sean Ross] Sapp was putting out that stuff on Punk. I was like, okay, I really need to get to this quick because if that one's coming out, it's only a matter of time before anybody else hears this too.
"A lot of people had been hearing it, but they weren't able to get anybody to acknowledge it or confirm it for them. I've never seen so many messages and phone calls in my life, but I visually got some confirmation back, to the point where I was like, alright, I'm confident enough in everything I've heard to put this all out there. It was going. It was stressful because I was worried that somebody else was going to scoop me and beat me to it."
Haynes spoke more on Bryan's contract and his motivations to sign with AEW. He also discussed potential opponents in the future.
"The only thing I heard was he wanted to go to Japan," Haynes said. "So that makes me think New Japan stuff, and of course, the dream match guy in any of us are going, 'what does that mean for the G1?' You start thinking about all those match-ups, but with him saying that Japan was a factor in him signing, that's as far as I know as far as potential Japanese match-ups. That would be something else. There's plans for potential opponents. Japan was a factor in where he wanted to go."
You can follow Cassidy on Twitter @Casshooole.
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