Daniel Bryan's Appearance on WWE Backstage
Daniel Bryan was recently a guest on WWE Backstage joining Renee Young and CM Punk.
Note: The full uncut interview is located at the bottom of this post.
Renee initially brought up Matt Riddle, who Daniel Bryan praised and mentioned being very excited to compete against. CM Punk also asked about other opponents he would love to face to which Bryan listed his top choice along with other several other notable names:
"Number one, who I believe has been supremely under-utilized is Big E. He's just the most entertaining guy. And he's big and he's fast. I don't know if I've had 2 or 3 singles matches with him, but every single one, when I get in the ring with him, has been, how is this guy so good? He's so good!"
Bryan also mentioned Gran Metalik, Keith Lee, Dominik Dijakovic along with individuals outside of the WWE umbrella such as Will Ospreay and Zack Sabre Jr.
CM Punk and Daniel Bryan also reflected on their feud in 2012 following AJ turning Bryan down at the alter.
CM Punk: “How weird that all of that eventually blossomed into me and her getting married. It’s a strange story. But I’ve got nothing but great memories from that time working with Bryan and April.”
Daniel Bryan: “And Kane, he was involved in that too!" It’s interesting because you know, I don’t remember a lot of specifics, but I remember a couple of things. This was a period where Punk and I were doing stuff with the WWE Championship against each other and we’re not in the main event? I don’t get rubbed the wrong way very often, but that was just one of those things where we did a title match once and the main event was John Cena versus my now father in law (John Laurinaitis) and that was the main event? It was just this weird thing where we did three PPV title matches, two singles where none of them were the main event. And then the other one we get Kane involved. I remember being in these title matches and being like, hey, let’s really go out and show them, right?
Renee brought up how Punk and Bryan have known each other for so long and asked if they ever thought at that time they would go on to have the careers that they did in WWE.
CM Punk: “I think if you asked us back then, we wouldn’t have cared, not in a negative way either. I always look at Bryan kind of like how earlier on in the show he described Zack Sabre. I remember not being conceded about how good I thought I was, I was convinced. And then you branch out. Promoters start flying you places and you meet all these other different guys and I always remember hearing about American Dragon, Spanky from the Northwest, Low-Ki from New York and Homicide from New York and I was always one of the midwest guys. You eventually start mingling all these guys together and I think there was this nucleus of guys that wanted to be wrestlers and they did it and then at some point realized they could make a living at it and they did it. Going to Japan, England, Puerto Rico, doing tours and being able to support yourself while you’re a single guy from wrestling, I think was always the goal. And then challenging yourself and looking to the future to what’s next, I need to conquer something else. What’s beyond Ring of Honor? What’s beyond all this other stuff? WWE was always there and I think the both of us, tell me if I’m wrong Bryan, always knew we were good enough to be there but there’s a lot of different hurdles when you’re on tv, when you work for WWE, it’s different on the independents, being good and successful there. It’s completely different from being good and successful in WWE. It’s a lot more fluid. There’s politics, there are moving parts, there’s promos, the travel, being your best on your worst day. There are no excuses, it’s just go go go. I think back then, both of us would have said, yeah, we COULD there and be the best there and had these wonderful careers, but if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. We’re pretty stocked at where we are and what we’re doing. Because it’s more of an art for guys like me and him.
Daniel Bryan: Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. One of my things was I actively didn’t want to go to WWE. I really liked the DIY aesthetic. I liked being in control of my own schedule. Being like, I’m going to take a few weeks off and I’m going to go do this thing or go watch a Seahawks game with my dad. All of that kind of stuff. I remember when Punk signed with WWE and I thought, man if they give him a shot, he’s going to blow them away. And I actually didn’t think that about myself. And the reason why is because WWE is so promo heavy and so interview heavy. At that point, I was not good at promos. I would say actively bad, maybe? I could do a sports promo. Hey, you’re fighting this guy, okay, I’m going to go in there and I’m going to do this. But as far as being entertaining, I could do a little bit of it, but that’s not what they would do with smaller guys and that sort of thing. My interest has always been in my love for wrestling. I’ve never wanted to be famous. I only needed enough money to survive. So, the rest of it was like, okay, whatever. It was actually when I started getting a decent amount of injuries and all that kind of stuff where I looked at my life and was like, okay. Either I’m going to have to sign with WWE, where I can save up enough money to be kind of taken care of for the rest of my life or whatever. Or I’m going to have to start looking at another path where it’s like, I’ll still wrestle on the weekends, but I need to start looking at going to school. 2009 was like this make or break year for me where I decided, okay, I’m going to spend all year training MMA just because I’ve always wanted to do it, but never got the chance to do it. I’m going to work really hard to get into WWE. Because this is really my make or break year. And if that doesn’t work out, I’m going to go back and start going to school and then just cut down on my independent dates and start working towards a normal life after this. So, it turned out and everything ended up how it did. When I saw Punk in his interviews and the way he carried himself, he carried himself like a star. I thought, if they give him a chance, it’s going to be awesome.”
The interview lasts nearly 30 minutes in total and I highly recommend watching the entire conversation in its entirety. Given their history, it was truly great to see CM Punk and Daniel Bryan reunited once again.
