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Yesterday, Daniel Bryan was interviewed by DJ Shaffee to promote the Smackdown taping in Grand Rapids, Michigan on 97.9 WGRD radio. You can watch the entire interview below, but there were several interesting discussions over the course of the 17 minute interview that have been transcribed below.
ON WHETHER WWE DESERVES CREDIT FOR BRYAN GETTING OVER
SHAFFEE: I guess your story is so, I don't know if bizarre is the right word. You've performed in front of, I don't know, 80,000 fans at Wrestlemania and you've performed in front of 22 people.
DANIEL BRYAN: Exactly, year.
SHAFFEE: You did it the right way. You walked up the mountain as opposed to someone just lifting you up there. It seems like....I know Vince McMahon. I know the power of WWE. Revolutionary force in sports-entertainment. The man's a genius. He's revolutionized the business. PPVs. The Network that is coming out is going to change everything in entertainment I believe. So they deserve so much credit, but I don't know if they deserve, creatively, credit for what has happened to you or if your success has been kind of despite them. If seemed, in the beginning, that they did everything to clown you out. Michael Cole every week saying this guy's got no charisma, this guy's boring, yet you've become the most popular guy in the company.....
DANIEL BRYAN: I definitely feel that way. I don't feel like they...they never aspired for me to be where I'm at. There's certain guys...they see somebody and say, 'I see money in that guy.' I don't think they ever looked at me and said 'I see money in that guy' and to this day, even with the loud fan reactions that I get, I don't feel like the company still doesn't see money in me. That's just interesting, because you go out there and you do your best and sometimes it can be very, very frustrating. That's probably one of the biggest frustrations of this job because this is not an objective business. It's not like football where if you're a running back and you go out there and get five yards of carry every time you are out there, they are going to keep putting you in because.
SHAFFEE: The stats don't lie....
DANIEL BRYAN; The stats don't lie. It's not that. It's, "He's getting a great crowd reaction, but is he selling tickets?" The bottom line is you need people who are going to sell tickets, but I can get the crowd to react very loudly, but does that's transition into people buying PPVs or does that transition into this or that? "Oh, I don't think he's very marketable....he might have a niche appeal" or this or that or whatever. I just go out there and do my best. Sometimes, it's very difficult dealing with the political type stuff because I'm not a politician. I never have been. I've never been someone to say, 'Oh you have to do this with me or you have to do that with me.' My whole career...I've been pretty easy going. As far as being pretty successful in WWE, that's probably my biggest downfall actually and that's...it's one of those things...the booker in Ring of Honor. Ring of Honor was an independent company I worked for for years...his name was Gabe Sapolsky. He ran the company from the time it started until 2007. He said when he met me, he never thought I'd be the guy in Ring of Honor. When he met CM Punk, he thought he'd be the guy. When he met Samoa Joe, he thought he'd be the guy in ROH. Both of them were the guys for Ring of Honor. I ended up being the guy for Ring of Honor but he never thought of that because of my personality. I'd be, "Okaaay' Bryan you are doing this tonight. OK.
SHAFFEE: You're very easy going.
DANIEL BRYAN: I just take what they give me and I just do the best I can.
SHAFFEE: But it turned into Gabe saying, 'OK tonight you are winning" and you said, 'OK' because you were pretty dominant towards the end of your Ring of Honor run.
DANIEL BRYAN: What had happened and this is kind of the story of my career. I feel like I'm very good. There are a lot of guys who are every bit as good as I am but they don't have my connection with the crowd. Some people like to say it's because I do this or I do that. In my opinion, it's a mystery. It's the same mystery that's the divine inspiration for a lot of authors or something like that when they are writing a novel. You can't force a connection with the crowd and you can't say, "I have a connection with the crowd because I do this." I don't think that's accurate. I can't teach someone else to have a connection with the crowd. I had a connection with the independent crowd and that sort of thing and nobody thought that could transition to the WWE...that I can connect with a much larger audience that involved kids and all that stuff. But it's happened and that's the mystery and that is the luck of being in the right place at the right time and...A lot of circumstances have to happen for that to happen for that to fall into place and really a lot of times you can't even explain it.
ON NOT BEING PROTECTED LIKE TOP NAMES FROM THE PAST LIKE HULK HOGAN OR STEVE AUSTIN WERE
DANIEL BRYAN: The interesting thing to me, because I'm a fan of pro wrestling history. I am a fan and I love the whole thing. What's interesting is I've become very popular without needing what those guys needed to become very popular, which is Hogan didn't get beated for years, a four year run as champion. Steve Austin, after the big promo that started the Austin 3:16 thing, he was very carefully managed and you didn't see him a lot, you know? He lost a couple of times but you didn't see him lose a lot on TV. This year, the day after Wrestlemania, 70,000 people throwing their arms up and doing my "Yes". I lost to Big E. Langston in three minutes. I'm not somebody who's been protected or...
SHAFFEE: You lost at Wrestlemania in 18 seconds.
DANIEL BRYAN: In 18 seconds. Two months before I main evented Summerslam, I lost to Damien Sandow in four minutes. It's one of those things where it's never been, I've never been the guy...let's put a rocket ship to him, let's try to turn him into the guy. That's why, if that doesn't happen, because you need that to happen for you to have any enduring success beyond crowd reaction. A great example for me is a UFC Fighter and he's Clay Guida. He was everybody's favorite. There was a point where everybody was rooting for this guy because he fought like an animal but then he kept getting to that number one contendership spot and losing or getting a title fight and getting dominated. People still like him but nobody's getting PPVs to see Clay Guida fight. They like him, he's awesome, he's an animal but you have to overcome that hurdle. They have to see you as a success for people to buy into you as an attraction like Austin was, like Hogan is. Like John Cena is. For John Cena to become the success that he is, they didn't just put him in his first title match and he was the draw that John Cena is now. The same thing with Steve Austin. It had to be a lot of time of him on top and him winning and he had a supporting cast and was wrestling guys like Shawn Michaels and Triple H and all the big names of the past.
SHAFFEE: I think everything's perfect the way it is right now. No need to rush anything. Your day will come.
DANIEL BRYAN: I am very, very patient. That's one of my greatest strengths. I don't get easily frustrated by stuff. So like, I feel like if I keep working hard and like I said, Gosh knows why the crowd reacts the way they do but it's incredible and it forces the company's hand into doing something that they might not ever have wanted to do and that's...Brie and her sister started something we called the Yes Movement. The company showed me a new t-shirt and it had The Yes Movement on the back. They may have known about this but they started it on Twitter and they...I'm not on the social media stuff. I'm very bad with technology. Now, it's not just wrestling and it doesn't have to be called the yes Movement. it doesn't have to be called anything but now people are realizing how they can effect change. Especially with something like wrestling, you've seen fans hijack segments and it's awesome, especially when its for me. We were in Seattle [explains title ascension ceremony segment] and the crowd just wouldn't stop chanting 'Daniel Bryan."
SHAFFEE: They should though. It's the crowd's show. I love when the crowd steals the show. There's nothing better.
BRYAN DANIELSON: Yeah. It's really showing the power of the people and the power that the people have in something like WWE where their reactions dictate what the company has to do. Actually, that's why I'm here right now. I lost in 18 seconds to Sheamus at Wrestlemania and I think that was, "OK not Bryan can go back to whatever he was before" but the people were just like, "Nope. Yes! Yes! Yes!" and that was the whole thing.
You can watch the entire discussion, including whether Bryan has insured his beard, the Michigan State "Yes!" chants and whether they influenced WWE and more:
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