WWE star Daniel Bryan recently spoke with The UK’s Mirror to promote his new book “Yes!: My Improbable Journey to the Main Event of WrestleMania”, and below are some interview highlights:
On Brie following Undertaker at WrestleMania 30:
“There were also little things that were important in the day to me. Brie had to go out right after that [The Undertaker’s streak ending]. It was important to me, Brie’s experience at WrestleMania too. We were getting married five days later! So she has to go out with all the other Divas right after The Undertaker’s streak has ended. So I was watching that and being very concerned for her and them, because that’s a very tough position to be in. I talk a lot about that kind of stuff in the book, but yes, also the fact it was very unlikely I was going to be in the main event at WrestleMania when they started planning the main event of WrestleMania in January. I was nowhere near the top of the card when the original line-up for WrestleMania was planned out.”
On his strong connection with WWE fans:
“I’m not sure. We’ve entered this new phase in wrestling, where the fans acknowledge – and because WWE has done it for so many years – that what WWE is, is entertainment. Long gone are the days of you getting into trouble for saying that wrestling isn’t real. I prefer to use the term wrestling fiction. And so there is this acknowledgement that what they are watching is fiction. So fans don’t get as invested as far as like, for example if someone is really beating someone really hard. It’s not the same as it was in the 1980s when the Four Horsemen were beating on Dusty Rhodes. It’s a different vibe from the crowd. But there are still very real things that the fans catch on to. They think ‘this particular guy we like, and he entertains us, so we want to see him succeed, but the fiction is not allowing him to succeed’. And they think ‘it’s not that he’s not succeeding because he isn’t good enough to succeed, he’s not succeeding because whoever has decided to write the story, has written him out of this story’.
There is this realisation that by cheering they may have the power to change that. I think last year specifically it was almost the case that the fans didn’t know, they didn’t know if they could change it. But it’s very powerful, this idea is powerful. Imagine if you could watch a movie and as you’re watching the movie you realise that the supporting character is actually your favourite character, and you want him to be the guy who saves the day. And, somehow, by yelling at your TV screen or something like that, you could actually change how the movie pans out. That would be incredible! In wrestling you can.”
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
