FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 2014—7:15 P.M.
His previous chatting with Miz foreshadows an important discussion awaiting Daniel Bryan when he returns to his hotel room to find his fiancée … plus Nikki and “Mama Bella.” Serving as the couple’s wedding party planner of sorts, Brie’s mom insists that the two—both with significant championship matches in two days—commit to their final seating chart for their approaching event.
Bryan shares some unfortunate news about an important relative being suddenly unable to attend, then grabs a seat on the sofa between Brie and his future mother-in-law. Mama Bella makes her case for the seating arrangements she prepared but advises the pair to review and adjust for their big day. Table 1 is slated to seat guests from the WWE roster; table 2 will house the cast of Total Divas. Resting across from the trio of Bella clan members on the couch is a short stack of mixed papers, a FedEx envelope, Bryan’s full WrestleMania Week itinerary, and a publication: YES! Magazine. Yes. Correct. YES! Magazine.
“It’s an unbelievable magazine,” Bryan emphatically declares, as he shows off the special revolution issue. “It’s about powerful ideas, practical actions, different ideas on how to change the world. And they’re actually based out of Seattle. My favorite magazine is YES! Magazine.”
Overwhelming (and unintentional) irony aside, Bryan’s three-year readership of the publication isn’t the limit of his interests in eco-consciousness.
“One thing I want to do is build an Earthship Home,” he adds, advocating their use of solar panels, rainwater filtration, and general reuse. “That’s a home built out of recycled material—used car tires and stuff like that. It’s a completely sustainable system, completely off-grid. I found out about that through YES! Magazine.”
Reading isn’t presently an option, however. There’s tons of chatter in the room with three lady Bellas, and, much the way he may be on Sunday night, Bryan finds himself outnumbered … and he feels just fine.
The Monday after NXT was finished, all eight of us Rookies were brought to Raw in Miami. We had no idea why. We still had to dress separately from everyone else in the locker room, in a dirty draped-off space next to the catering area. Midway through the day, Laurinaitis pulled us all into Vince’s office, where we waited until Vince and Michael Hayes, a former wrestling star and one of the top match producers in WWE today, came in. Vince told us they had a plan, but it was of the utmost importance we not tell anybody outside of those in the room. If we did, it would ruin it, and if they heard of any of us telling anybody, that person would be fired. We were going to do something that had never been done before on WWE television.
It would happen in the main event, in which John Cena’s opponent was to be picked by the fans whose choices were Rey Mysterio, Jack Swagger, and CM Punk. They thought Rey winning was a pretty sure thing, but when you leave things up to the fans, you never know what you’re going to get, and Punk ended up winning the vote. I’m not sure how much Punk was briefed on what was going to happen, but after all eight of us got into our ring gear early in the day, if anyone asked why we were dressed, we just told them we had to shoot some photos. We lied to everybody, including people we trusted. I even lied about it to Regal.
While Cena and Punk were wrestling, the winner of NXT, Wade Barrett, came strolling down the ramp. Shortly thereafter, the rest of the Rookies, including myself, came through the crowd and jumped over the barricade. Punk had the Straight Edge Society with him, so we beat up his associate Luke Gallows, and Serena ran off. Punk got out of the ring, and we beat him up, too. Then all of us hopped on the apron and stared down Cena, the biggest star in WWE. We all slowly stepped into the ring, and the eight of us surrounded him. That’s when the mayhem ensued and the Nexus was born. We all beat up Cena, then got out of the ring to destroy everything in sight. We tore apart the ring, exposing the wooden beams underneath; we beat up security, we cut up the mat, we tore off the ropes, and we ripped apart the mats on the floor. We created chaos, and in the process, we even beat up ring announcer Justin Roberts, stripping off his jacket and shirt. Vince and Michael had told us directly that they wanted a “gang-style beatdown,” and that’s what we gave them.
Keep in mind that I hadn’t been in WWE very long. I knew some of the rules, like no bleeding, and I knew it was a PG company, but I didn’t know what exactly was PG and what wasn’t. In the middle of this “gang-style beatdown,” I saw Justin Roberts lying there, no shirt on and tie still around his neck. In moments like this, I always thought violence was good for believability, so I grabbed the long end of his tie from behind and pulled it back. Hard. The cameras picked up on it right away because it was a great visual: Justin on his stomach, being choked by the tie around his neck, his face turning purple. Some people thought he was just selling goofy, but he wasn’t. I don’t trust nonwrestling people to sell very well, especially when it comes to a big, important angle, so it’s better to be a little rough, as long as you don’t hurt them. I pulled on the tie so hard it left long red marks on his neck.
Amid the melee, somebody from the production crew came to me on the side, saying, “No choking! No choking!” I stopped and heard it just in time, because I was about to choke somebody else with one of the cable wires at ringside. When we broke the ring, Heath Slater grabbed one of the ring ropes and was about to wrap it around Cena’s neck, but John whispered, “No choking!” to him as well.
Inside the ring, we were all given a moment to shine, with each of us hitting Cena with a signature move, mine being a simple kick to the head as he rested on his knees, execution style. Prior to this whole fiasco, Cena pulled me aside and said the most important thing isn’t the move, it’s what you do before the move. Looking back, I assume he was probably thinking of some sort of hand motion or something. Instead, I looked him dead in the eyes and screamed, “You’re not better than me.” I then spit in the face of WWE’s biggest star and kicked him in the skull.
When we got back through the curtain, everybody thought the beat down was awesome. Then somebody shouted, “Who was choking Justin Roberts?!” They couldn’t see because the camera was focused exclusively on Justin’s purple face.
I stepped forward and said, “Uh, that was me.”
“And who spit on John Cena?!” they asked.
“That was me, too,” I responded.
Apparently choking and spitting are two of the things not allowed within the PG guidelines of WWE programming, but I had no clue. Of course, we didn’t need the choke, nor did we need the spit, but elements like that showed our disdain and added to the brutality of the whole thing. The fundamental reason our characters did all of that was that we were pissed off after being treated like jokes for an entire season of NXT, and I just did the most violent and malicious things I could think of. The parameters of PG never crossed my mind.
I apologized to everyone and made a special point to apologize to Justin and Cena. Neither of them seemed to care, and part of me thinks Justin thought it was pretty cool. I’d known him since 2002; he loved wrestling, and I think he was happy to have had such a memorable part in the moment, despite the marks on his neck.
The Nexus attack happened on Monday, then Tuesday we all went to SmackDown but didn’t do anything on the show. As I walked down the halls at SmackDown, I passed Michael Hayes.
“Daniel, what did you learn last night?” he asked.
“No choking, no spitting, “I replied.
“That’s right. It’s OK to make mistakes as long as you learn from them,” Michael said.
I thought I was in the clear.
That Wednesday, WWE booked me on an FCW show down in Florida. Miz was on the show, too, and as we sat in the locker room talking about the whole thing, he reassured me not to worry about it. He said they would all forget about it by next week.
Two days later—June 11, 2010—I got the second and last call I’ve ever received from Vince McMahon. I didn’t know it was him at first because it came from a blocked number, but as I answered, I had a sinking feeling that it wasn’t good news.
When I picked up, I knew right away it was really Vince, and this time there was no feeling that it was a rib. He said, “You know, Daniel, I’m sorry I have to do this. I feel really bad, but we have guidelines as far as what’s PG and what’s not PG, and unfortunately, you broke those guidelines. I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to let you go.”
As far as firings go, it was actually not too bad. It was way better than the first time I got fired when I lived in Memphis. I appreciated that he called me himself, and there wasn’t anything mean or malicious about it; it was completely different than what you would expect if you’ve seen Vince fictionally fire someone on television. He further explained that he had to do it to set an example. He didn’t want to do it. It was actually quite endearing.
My reaction to being fired was different than even I would have expected of myself. I felt liberated, as if an enormous burden had been lifted off my shoulders. I thanked Vince for the opportunity, and after he expressed his regret one last time, I responded, “Don’t be sorry. I’ll make more money now this year than I did with you guys, so don’t be sorry for me at all.” It was a weird thing for me to say, because I’m not overly money-driven, but all I saw was opportunity. There is no better time to be fired than after a hot angle like the Nexus’s debut, especially because I essentially got fired for being too violent. And a lot of independent fans hated the sanitized version of wrestling that’s required to be PG. I knew they would see the whole thing not only as an injustice but also as proof that the only place they could see the kind of wrestling they liked was on the independents.
I don’t know how soon after the incident Vince knew he was going to fire me. He may have been under pressure, considering the company’s many sponsors and partners who rely on WWE being PG-rated. Plus, there are all the kids watching the show. I learned that Vince didn’t tell too many people before he did it. I called John Laurinaitis after I got off the phone with Vince, just to clear up what this meant as far as me wrestling for other promotions going forward, but he didn’t answer the phone. Ten minutes later, Johnny called me back, and he was shocked by the whole thing. He told me Vince had called him about thirty minutes earlier and asked for my number (he didn’t say why) and had just then called him back to tell him that I was fired. It was a very uncommon circumstance; Laurinaitis was usually the one responsible for calling and letting talent go.
The comment I made about the money must have really reverberated with Vince, because Johnny asked me, “Did you tell Vince you were going to make more money on the indies?” I told him I did. And it was the truth. There is a lot that people don’t understand about our lives as WWE wrestlers. For one, when we sign our contracts, we are guaranteed a certain amount of money, called your “downside.” With the exception of top guys, usually it’s not very much, and my contract was for substantially less than I made working on the independents. In WWE, the idea is that if you are booked most of the time, you will make far more than your downside, but since I wasn’t on many shows, I only made the minimum. It was by no means a struggle to get by, but I wasn’t saving as much money as I had hoped. Also, in WWE, the wrestlers are responsible for paying for their own hotels and rental cars, whereas on the independents, all of that was taken care of. WWE takes care of those expenses for anyone under a developmental contract who’s brought up on the road for TV. I was actually the only member of NXT not on a developmental contract, but I was lucky to be able to jump in with the other guys.
Anyhow, Laurinaitis told me Vince said I could start working independent dates as soon as I wanted, as long as it wasn’t for television or pay-per-view. That was all I needed to hear. As soon as I got off with Johnny, I called Gabe Sapolsky, who was booking shows for both Dragon Gate USA and Evolve. When he picked up the phone, I said, “Gabe, we’re going to make a lot of money.” (As a side note, what I considered a lot of money, some people would laugh at. It’s all relative. If I showed Steve Austin how much I made during the time I was fired, he would not be impressed. My family, however, was very impressed, and so was I.)
Gabe and I were both very excited. We discussed some ideas, and Gabe later got me hooked up with a graphic designer to quickly create a new T-shirt and launch a Web site that would basically be a vehicle to sell the shirts he was going to design. I had never been one to try to sell much merchandise when I was on the independents. I hated producing it, and I hated sitting out by a merchandise table trying to sell it. I knew, though, that if I didn’t do it, I’d miss out on the opportunity. In the span of a couple of hours, I turned into a full-blown capitalist.
I put Gabe in charge of dealing with other promoters who wanted to book me. Given the circumstances, I could charge a lot more for appearances and bookings, but I didn’t want to haggle with promoters, so I left that to him. To start, Gabe booked me for the upcoming shows he had, then we decided to talk again the next day to figure out where to go from there.
By the time I got off the phone with Gabe, WWE had announced my firing on WWE.com. All of a sudden, I got what felt like a million calls and text messages, including ones from Regal and Shawn Michaels. Regal, especially, gave me some great advice (yet again), which was to make sure I didn’t publicly disparage WWE. He had no doubt that if I kept my nose clean, within a year or two I’d be back, though I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be.
In the wrestling world, my firing seemed like a big thing. At least, it was the most talked-about thing that had ever happened in my career. Within days, my schedule for the next three months was full: three shows per weekend, every weekend, for far more money than I had ever made before. For a full week, I lay low and just tried to appreciate the calm before my schedule got crazy busy.
Ten days after I was fired, the Web site was up, and I couldn’t believe how fast the shirts were selling. It was actually quite stressful, because I decided to ship them out myself to save a little money, and the shirts weren’t going to be ready for a few days. I sold two designs: a gray one that said TEAM BRYAN on it, and a maroon shirt with my bloody face “Obamiconned,” a picture taken out of a Mexican wrestling magazine. Underneath my face, instead of saying CHANGE like Obama’s campaign poster, it said VIOLENT. It was perfect.
My first show, two weeks after being fired, was in Detroit for a company I’d previously worked for called Chikara, itself a family-friendly company. Before I was announced for the show, they had fewer than a hundred tickets sold, and after the announcement, they ended up selling several hundred. The event was held at a swap meet, with no bathroom or shower in the dressing room, no bottled water or catering. I felt right at home. When I came to the ring, instead of throwing streamers into the ring—a Japanese custom that had been adopted by American independent wrestling fans—they all threw neckties.
After the show, I went out to the merchandise stand to sell the shirts and 8x10s, and I was genuinely moved by the support a lot of the fans gave me. They were more pissed off than I was, seeing the whole thing as unfair and “typical WWE.” The way they cared for me warmed my heart.
From there, I was off to the races. I had two shows back-to-back the next day in Cleveland, and the following weekend I wrestled several shows in Germany. Somewhere in there, WWE had its Fatal 4-Way pay-per-view, and I received texts from multiple people telling me the live crowd was chanting my name throughout the show, even during the main event. I didn’t care. I was already past it. I was excited to be back on the independents and elated to be back working with Gabe.
Before I was signed by WWE in 2009, Gabe and I were talking about starting a new wrestling promotion together. We only talked about it a couple of times, but in that short window, I also came up with a name: Evolve. My concept for the whole thing was based on the idea that wrestling had, for the most part, become a parody of itself. Even in places like Ring of Honor, they kept the same tropes that had been going on in ROH for years. Same in Japan. Same in WWE. There hadn’t been much of anything brought to the table that was new to help wrestling evolve, and we were going to create something different that would, hence the name. Of course, with my signing, I never got to be a part of it when Gabe started Evolve in January 2010.
In Evolve, the wrestling would be different, the interviews would be different, and the production would be different. Gabe sent me a DVD of the first show, and when I watched it, I felt the main event—Davey Richards against Kota Ibushi—was excellent. Now that I was no longer with WWE, Gabe and I could get back to collaborating on the project.
But it wasn’t just Gabe and me who wanted to bring Evolve into the future. Paul Heyman was interested as well. Paul always has a lot going on, and this period was no different. TNA was in talks with him about working for them, but he would only go if he would have complete control. TNA was also interested in signing me, but I would only consider it if Paul was going; otherwise, I’d rather be on my own. The more it looked like Paul wouldn’t be going to TNA, the more he talked to Gabe and me about Evolve. Heyman is a genius, and his ideas for marketing and promotion blew my mind. We talked about it a lot, but unfortunately, it never went anywhere. We were all pulled in too many different directions.
The first Evolve show I did was in a tiny building in Union City, New Jersey, which gave the whole experience a Fight Club atmosphere. The following night, I returned to the famed ECW Arena in Philadelphia to wrestle for Dragon Gate USA. The throwing of ties during my ring announcement had caught on everywhere, and this crowd probably threw more neckwear than anybody anywhere else. That night, I had the best match I’d have during my return to the independents, against a Japanese wrestler named Shingo Takagi. The arena was hot and humid in July, but the fans didn’t care and neither did we. Shingo and I wrestled almost thirty minutes, and the audience was loud the entire time. It was my first time back working with Gabe in a long time, and it was a blast, even if it didn’t last long.
If I may digress, I know some fans have fond memories of Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, so here are some quick stories. I was PWG Champion for a relatively short amount of time, yet it was important in the sense that it was a regular booking that I could count on to help me get exposure. The bigger PWG shows, which had a lot of tape or DVD marketability, were important because if you had a really strong performance that people liked, they’d talk about it and you’d get more bookings. There was also Internet exposure through various videos we’d release.
I’ve done some really wacky promos, but the “American Dolphin” one I did in PWG with Paul London, who’d previously been in WWE, got a good deal of attention and a lot of views on YouTube. Paul was taking improv comedy classes then, so he was saying the most random stuff (such as renaming the American Dragon as a water mammal, as part of the “Hybrid Dolphins” along with him and Roderick Strong). I’d instantly start laughing whenever he’d insert one of his zany lines. In recording it, we’d gotten to the fifth or sixth take, and the limiting factor in each of those takes was how much I was laughing, because Paul is hilarious. The final product that you’ll find online is the one where I laughed the least while shooting. My laughing actually got people asking me if I was stoned when it was recorded. I certainly was not stoned, but as for the other parties involved, I have no idea. More important than that, I knew that promo really worked because after the video hit YouTube, I was doing a show in Germany and instead of fans clapping or cheering, everybody just buzzed at me—something Paul and I encouraged fans to do at the end of the clip. It shows how the Internet was changing wrestling back in 2009.
During this period, Chikara—an independent promotion in Philadelphia—gave me one of the coolest experiences of my career up to that point: being in the ring with Johnny Saint. It was me, Claudio Castagnoli (Cesaro), and Dave Taylor against Johnny, Mike Quackenbush, and Skayde Rivera. Johnny had been wrestling for more than fifty years at the time and wasn’t competing in many matches. Even in his sixties, though, he was still awesome. He’s an incredible English wrestler who did things in the ring throughout his career that guys can’t pull off today. Lots have tried to replicate his style of technical wrestling, but they can’t. As much as you can learn a move, you can’t learn the physical fluidity that he possessed. When I first met Regal in 2000, he told me that if I was interested in technical wrestling, I had to watch Johnny Saint. I had even bought a VCR that played different formats so I could watch Saint on old British wrestling tapes. Those were the lengths I’d go to in order to learn something new, because our generation of wrestlers doesn’t always have an opportunity to wrestle veteran guys to learn from.
Before our six-man tag with the English legend, I had known Claudio from Ring of Honor. We’d done shows together in Germany, and since he can speak German, he’d help me out. Over time, we got to know each other just by being at so many shows together. It was a very gradual process, not unlike my most enduring relationships with a number of wrestlers—particularly those who’ve shared my path from Ring of Honor to WWE, like Cesaro, Seth Rollins, and Sami Zayn, who are all very close with me.
Jimmy Jacobs and I still occasionally talk because I consider him a genius. Despite not seeing him for a really long time, I feel closer to Nigel McGuinness than to people I see as friends in WWE. I still consider Nigel one of my best friends because he’s a good person and we went through a lot together. I’m not sure why it is, but even though I’ve been with WWE for more than four years, I don’t feel I have as close bonds with WWE people as I do with Ring of Honor people.
Speaking of WWE, the first week of August 2010, Regal’s advice became prophecy. My then-girlfriend and I were at the veterinarian’s office with a tremendously overweight beagle we were going to foster. The beagle’s previous owners were an elderly couple, but the husband had passed away and the woman had moved into a nursing home. The facility permitted the dog, but, unfortunately, the woman wasn’t in a state to be able to take her pet out for walks, so she kept the beagle happy by feeding her tons of treats, which created the fattest dog I’d ever seen. Her belly hit the ground as she walked, and she was barely fit enough to walk outside to go to the bathroom without getting exhausted. Eventually the beagle was placed in a rescue center until we agreed to foster, which would only be until the center found her a permanent home. In the middle of the vet’s examination of this fat dog, I got a call from John Laurinaitis. It was so unexpected I didn’t even think to excuse myself from the room.
Laurinaitis told me WWE wanted to bring me back and in a big way. They were doing a seven-on-seven elimination match for the main event of SummerSlam, WWE’s second-biggest pay-per-view of the year, and they wanted me to be the surprise seventh member of John Cena’s crew against the Nexus, the group consisting of the former NXT Rookies. The opportunity was hard to turn down. However, there were some logistical issues. I explained that I had a good number of independent shows booked already. Johnny said that was great, perfectly fine; I should honor all of them, except the ones I had the weekend of SummerSlam.
Also, since I felt like my value had increased following my release, I shyly asked for a pay raise—which I’d never done in my entire career. In Ring of Honor, every so often, they would just offer me a pay raise, often in thanks for my hard work, but also acknowledging that I was becoming more valuable. I made my request, and Laurinaitis paused for a minute, then said, “I think we can do that.” Thinking back on it now, I asked for such a minute raise, I’m sure he was taken aback by how little it was.
As I agreed to come back, Johnny emphasized that my re-signing and return was supposed to be a complete surprise. I couldn’t tell anybody … but I did. I told my family, just so they could watch, and I called and told Gabe. So many of his plans revolved around me, and I owed it to him. He was both disappointed that we would no longer be able to work together and happy for me, personally, that I was getting an opportunity to go back to WWE in such a good spot. Gabe was also thrilled I’d be able to finish out the bookings I had with him for the next month, and so was I.
Other than that, I told no one. Under the guise of a “family issue,” I canceled the bookings I had during SummerSlam weekend. I also stopped taking any new bookings, which was challenging because I had been in contact with New Japan, and they e-mailed several times during that period asking for my dates of availability. I didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t tip my hand about rejoining WWE, so I didn’t respond. Laurinaitis told me, “We just can’t have this getting out to the dirt sheets,” and I did my best to make sure it didn’t. I didn’t even tell William Regal, which was the hardest part.
My return to WWE was a very well kept secret. I flew into Los Angeles that Sunday morning of the event on August 15 and checked into a different hotel than the one where the rest of the talent and crew stayed that week for all of the events leading up to SummerSlam. WWE hired me a private car to take me to the Staples Center, and I didn’t arrive until well after the pay-per-view started. They told me to wear a hooded sweatshirt and nondescript clothes so that no one would identify or notice me as I was hurried from the car to a private locker room.
When I arrived backstage, I was told to hang tight, so I just waited. Shortly thereafter, all the guys in the match were brought back to the room. With the exception of a few guys on John Cena’s team, I don’t think anybody else knew I was in the match. Jamie Noble was one of the producers for the match, and he had already worked with a couple of Nexus guys to go over things the “surprise seventh man” might want to do, but those things were generic enough that most of them didn’t put it together until they saw me. I wasn’t going to actually be in the match very much, so I just had to work out a couple of things with some people.
Despite the pressure of being in the SummerSlam main event, I wasn’t worried about the wrestling part of it at all. What made me most nervous was the reaction I would get coming out. I was pretty concerned that when Cena announced me as the final member of the team, the crowd would have an anticlimactic reaction. Cena’s team consisted of mostly established stars; Bret Hart, Chris Jericho, and Edge were all on the team, and usually surprises are supposed to be big. Prior to being fired, I’d lost pretty much every match on TV and was portrayed as a nerd/loser by commentators. I assumed the casual WWE fan would be like, “What?! Why on earth did they choose this guy?!” The concern weighed heavy on my mind before the match.
They wanted me to continue wearing my hoodie so no one would see me as I walked to the Gorilla position for my entrance, which I thought was a little excessive given it was only moments before the match. After the match, I learned that WWE.com revealed that I was the seventh guy minutes before I came out. Given all the secrecy the entire day, I thought that was pretty funny.
When John Cena announced me as the surprise member for his team, in no way did I get a megastar reaction from the Staples Center crowd, but it wasn’t the apathetic reaction I had anticipated either. I’d say it was more like polite applause that rapidly shifted in my favor when I started the match and I got a quick submission on Darren Young, who tapped out to the LeBell Lock. The match was structured so I wasn’t in the ring much, but each time I was, I looked great. I didn’t come in for a second time until well after twenty minutes, but I came in like a house on fire, and after I hit a suicide dive to the floor, the crowd started chanting my name. It had worked. I then submitted Heath Slater, again using the LeBell Lock. In one night, I was instantly made more important than I had ever seemed during my entire time on NXT.
A few moments later, Miz, who wasn’t in the match, ran in to hit me with his briefcase because he was fictionally upset that he wasn’t chosen as Cena’s seventh man instead of his onetime Rookie. Miz’s actions led to my elimination from the match, which was great for me because it also easily led into a story with Miz going forward. I considered it a very successful night. Well, for me at least.
After I was eliminated, it came down to Cena against Wade Barrett and Justin Gabriel, and Cena beat both of them. The Nexus had created a lot of interest, and the group needed a win to solidify themselves as a force to be reckoned with. They didn’t get the victory when they needed it, and after SummerSlam, they went from being dangerous guys with an edge to just another faction of bad guys.
The night immediately after SummerSlam, we taped two episodes of Monday Night Raw because the Raw crew was headed overseas. I was feeling good about the pay-per-view, and I was eager to engage in the new story with Miz. The first Raw went really well. Even though I lost a quick match to Nexus member Michael Tarver, it was due to Miz’s interference and resulted in a brawl between Miz and me. During the second taping, I had to run out and attack Miz in the ring. I thought it went well, but when I got back through the curtain, Vince was furious. He said, “That was horrible!” and then sent me back out into the arena to do the same thing, in front of the same crowd.
It was a taped show, so the production team could edit in the better one. This was the first time in my career I ever had to redo something in front of a live crowd. It was embarrassing, made me feel terrible, and, in my mind, justified any of my detractors who looked at me as the independent guy who couldn’t do the big league stuff right. The second attempt, they said, was much better, but it didn’t cast away that feeling of failure. That’s the way wrestling goes: One day you’re high, one day you’re low, and at the beginning of each day, you never know what to expect.
That September in Chicago, I had my first WWE pay-per-view match at the next major event, Night of Champions. It was also my first title win in WWE, as I beat Miz for the United States Championship. We had a good little match, but nothing great, and I knew they had me win just so they could get the U.S. Title off of Miz. They had big plans for him in the near future—winning the WWE Championship and being in the main event of WrestleMania—but they needed to detach the title from Miz. I knew the title win didn’t mean much as far as how much WWE wanted to push me, but it was still a great opportunity. At the time, both the U.S. and Intercontinental Championships were consistently defended on pay-per-view, and more shows than not, I would at least compete in a match. It was hard to get much wrestling time on Raw with the show being only two hours, but I was confident I could gain some steam if I could get a solid match on pay-per-view every month and wrestle at least ten minutes.
After I won the United States Title, I asked to change my entrance music. I had been coming out to this hard, generic metal-type music that didn’t fit me at all, and music is a huge part of the presentation. Admittedly, I’ve always had questionable taste in entrance music. Coming out to “Born in the U.S.A.” in my first match was a Shawn Michaels decision, so I can’t take “credit” for that one. When I had a big beard and a shaved head in 2005, I wore a giant crushed velvet cloak to the ring and entered the arena to the “Imperial March” from Star Wars. But during my last several years on the independents, the song I came out to was instantly recognizable and, to hardcore fans, became synonymous with me: Europe’s “Final Countdown.”
I was in Japan in 2004, looking through a music magazine that listed the hundred worst songs of all time. Lo and behold, “Final Countdown” was number one, voted as the worst song ever. I loved that song, but hadn’t heard it in a long time. Despite the horrible lyrics about leaving Earth for Venus, as soon as I reheard the horns blaring at the beginning, I knew it would be a great entrance theme. It didn’t take long after I started using the ballad for the entire audience to sing along with it, even before it reached the chorus: “It’s the final countdown!” Unfortunately, WWE couldn’t use “Final Countdown” without paying an exorbitant rights fee, so I suggested using a piece of classical music, Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” which is in the public domain and can be used freely. One of my favorite old-school Japanese wrestlers, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, came out to it, and it was badass.
Once I suggested it, I thought it would take a few weeks to get it cleared and approved. Not this time. That same night on Raw, I was wrestling Edge, who had already made his entrance. Right before I walked out, WWE producer Billy Kidman was on a headset in Gorilla and told me, “OK, you’re coming out to new music.” I was just about to ask if it was “Ride of the Valkyries” when it hit. The version of the song they played—there are many different ones—was not what I was looking for, though. This one was very … soft. When I walked through the curtain, I could see an entire arena filled with confused faces, some people with their mouths wide open. Edge was visibly laughing in the ring. Miz was on commentary with Michael Cole, and the two of them were having a field day calling me a nerd. It wasn’t quite as badass as Fujiwara. We altered it a little bit, and now it’s become my thing. It was a rough go of it at first, though.
For the next few months, I was in this interesting position where I would do Raw TVs, pay-per-views, and some live events against Miz, but then would go do my remaining independent shows, where I relished the opportunity to bring in new fans based on my exposure in WWE. During this stretch, I worked my final match for Gabe at a Dragon Gate USA show in Milwaukee: It was me against Jon Moxley (Ambrose) in a crazy brawl all over the tiny building. There are few things in wrestling that add drama to a match like blood, and because I knew it would be my last opportunity to add that sort of drama for a long time, I took full advantage and bled that night for my send-off. Generally speaking, it was strange going back and forth from the independents to WWE. I was very well respected on the independents, and the fans saw me as a badass submission wrestler who would kick people’s heads in. Yet in WWE, I could tell management didn’t think very much of me; they didn’t really listen to my ideas, and they were constantly trying to portray me as a nerd on television.
The next WWE pay-per-view was Hell in a Cell, where I wrestled the Miz and John Morrison in a triple-threat submissions-only match. Despite neither opponent ever really using submission moves, it turned into a solid match. I felt good walking through the curtain, and then all of a sudden I was getting yelled at again. Alex Riley had come out to help the Miz during the match as we were all fighting on the stage. I went after Riley and ended up throwing him off the stage; unfortunately, he landed on a cameraman named Stu. They were livid. Not only was it dangerous for Stu (and could potentially open up a lawsuit), but in the process, he also dropped the camera—and those cameras are expensive, worth more to the company than either me or Riley, at that point. We both got an earful that night and more the next day. At Raw, Riley and I were pulled into Laurinaitis’s office and shown the tape. Somehow, they thought we did it on purpose to get ourselves over. I already had the issue after the Nexus attack in 2010, and the last thing I needed was something like that, where I again upset WWE management.
Stemming from this incident, I started to regret coming back to WWE and fell into a bad mental place where I hated every second I was there. When I was inside the ring was the only time I could get out of the funk, but every time I walked back through the curtain, I went right back to where I’d started. Nonetheless, I kept my mouth shut, kept working hard, and hoped that the way I felt would soon change. It did, but it took a long time.
Leading into the WWE Bragging Rights 2010 event, where Raw Superstars wrestled Superstars from the rival SmackDown brand, I was directed to go out and challenge Intercontinental Champion Dolph Ziggler to a champion-versus-champion match on pay-per-view. It was rare mic time; plus, I’d ultimately get to perform with Dolph, one of the better wrestlers in the company, so I was excited. Then I was told what they wanted after I challenged Dolph: He and I would get in a little scuffle, and while we were on the floor, a bunch of Divas would come out to dump confetti on Vickie Guerrero, who was Dolph’s manager at the time. OK, whatever. The thing was, after Vickie ran out, they wanted me to get into the ring with the Divas, get supershy like I didn’t want to be any part of it, then bust out into a dance while the Divas all danced around me. I hated the idea. Nevertheless, I put a smile on my face as we went through rehearsal, and I did my best to make it entertaining on the show. Meanwhile, on commentary, Michael Cole continued to mock me, declaring I’d never been on a date in my life. He was just playing his character (who randomly hated me); however, to me, Cole’s comments were indicative of how the company perceived me: just some nerd who was lucky to even be on the WWE roster.
Dolph and I had a good match at Bragging Rights, and I had another strong pay-per-view outing against Ted DiBiase Jr. the next month at Survivor Series. That November was the first time I’d gotten to work with Teddy since we were in Japan together after he’d only performed in sixteen matches. He was good then, but had gotten way better in the ring, and after Survivor Series we wrestled each other on all of the live events, which was a lot of fun. In between all that, I went on my first WWE European tour: two straight weeks of shows every night, and I got to wrestle Regal almost every show. It was the first time Regal and I had been able to wrestle since 2001, so we went out and had proper wrestling matches every night, incorporating lots of European-style wrestling. It was a blast, and for a while, doing those kinds of matches lifted my spirits. Even if I was a geek on TV, I’d be able to go on the live events and wrestle however I wanted.
After having four good pay-per-view matches in a row, I thought WWE fans were starting to realize that I could be counted on to provide really exciting matches they could look forward to. However, the match with Teddy was the last pay-per-view singles match I had for over ten months, and my story shifted entirely.