Daniel Bryan recently sat down on the ‘State of Combat’ podcast with CBS Sports to talk about a variety of things. You can see the highlights of the podcast below.
On his recent heel turn:
You have to understand that this was a day-of decision, me being the bad guy was a day-of decision. I had kind of been thinking about [turning heel] because I had been doing stuff with the The Miz and I started to realize, hey, the tide is turning on this role, the whole thing of me being a good guy. And eventually, people are going to get tired of me in the same way people began booing John Cena and all that kind of stuff. I get there the day of, things are happening, and it’s a day-of decision. After that, it’s like, wow, I get a completely clean slate to do whatever I want now.
On the future of the babyface character:
I think 100 percent there is a place for it, but it has to be presented in the right way. A good guy, a ‘white-meat babyface’ as you’re talking about — can’t be presented as a loser or a dork or somebody who, any time an authority figure [threatens to fire them], they hang their head. No. If you want a good character that people like, and he has something that he believes in … [they would respond], ‘Fire me, fine, but guess what, I’m great at what I do, I can go get a good job somewhere else.
On being frustrated when he made is in-ring return:
When I came back, there was such an expectation of people wanting me to be the old Daniel Bryan — they want the ‘Yes!’ chant and the same moves that we got before. … Those kind of expectations, the weight of that can sometimes just crush you and the expectations you have on yourself. Doing what I’m doing now has really opened me up because wrestling has always been my creative outlet. To go out there and do wrestling how I want to do wrestling as opposed to meeting others’ expectations, I felt like the old Daniel Bryan was getting pretty stagnant and a little bit stale. It was the same character it was in 2014. This is a completely new Daniel Bryan, which it why it’s the ‘new Daniel Bryan.
