SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 2014—9:22 A.M.
The “Yes!” Man’s psyched for his VIP Axxess event, now four years after his very first WrestleMania Axxess in 2010. He ends up encountering NXT’s Sami Zayn (in his first appearance of this kind), and the two talk their way up the ramp into the loading area of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. There’s tremendous history between both stars who gained their pre-WWE fame in Ring of Honor.
“Personally, [Bryan] represents to me what he represents to millions of people already, which is an unconventional hero that has really defied the odds,” Zayn boasts of his friend. “He means as much to me—as the one spearheading the movement for the little guy—as he does to every kid who sees himself in Bryan. I’m still a kid who sees himself in him as well.”
It’s been ten years since Bryan and Zayn first met in 2004, and Bryan’s opportunity at WrestleMania—the dream stage for these warriors—is a powerful symbol to his friend and fellow entertainer.
“Professionally, I’ve always looked up to [Bryan] and always tried to catch up with him,” the tenacious NXT grappler concedes. “For him to break this barrier, he’s paving the way for guys like myself.” He adds, “Daniel Bryan is smashing those boundaries, and now, more than ever, anything’s possible for me and countless people like me.”
Several moments after the impromptu Ring of Honor reunion, an anticipated “Yes!” chant serves as Daniel Bryan’s entrance theme during his arrival at his Axxess signing. Among the first jubilant members of the “Yes!” Movement he meets is young Hunter. Despite his name, he’s actually not pulling for the “other guy” at WrestleMania. He’s one of the biggest little supporters Daniel Bryan has.
“He’s the best wrestler ever,” Hunter says after his encounter with the bearded star.
Danielle from Long Island, New York, shows off her special manicure for the Show of Shows with fingertips supporting the Shield, AJ Lee, and Daniel Bryan by way of a YES inscription on her thumb. There’s also an eight-month-old baby girl in a Bryan goat-face top who can’t help but lock her eyes on the Superstar’s face up close.
“Signings are great,” Bryan says. “It’s an opportunity to meet the fans. We have great fans. They’re pretty awesome. It’s all about seeing the way that we touch people.”
While Bryan scribbles out his autograph, Zayn prepares to compete in a live match at the center of Axxess, just ahead in the distance. If he has anything to say (or do) about it, the young NXT upstart may follow in his fellow Ring of Honor alumnus’s footsteps and perch in his seat not too far from today.
I hadn’t been doing much on TV once the story with the Bellas ended, but I was still United States Champion, and that gave me hope of being able to get on the card for WrestleMania XXVII. That said, I was delighted at Elimination Chamber 2011, the pay-per-view immediately before WrestleMania, when I found out the plan was for me to wrestle Sheamus on the biggest show of the year. We even had a writer assigned to us, Jen, who would help us craft our story in the six weeks leading up to the event.
Even though I was the U.S. Champion, Sheamus was a far bigger star than I was. He had already won the WWE Title by this point, and the previous year he’d wrestled Triple H at WrestleMania XXVI. For the 2011 edition, they actually asked Sheamus whom he’d like to wrestle, and the two top options were me and Rey Mysterio. Sheamus chose me. When he told me that, I chuckled and thanked him, but I also told him he’d probably made a mistake. If he elected to wrestle Rey, he would be guaranteed to be on ’Mania, because Rey was a veteran who’d earned his spot already, and WWE would feel almost obligated to put him on the card. If Sheamus wrestled me, there was no guarantee our match would make it. Sheamus didn’t worry about it, though, because in his experience, when WWE told him something like this was going to happen, it did. My experience hadn’t been like that, so from the very beginning I was skeptical, despite assurances from all sorts of people that we would get an opportunity to shine.
And at first it seemed like we might. When we started crafting our story for the show, we knew we weren’t going to get a lot of time to build it. WrestleMania season is a notoriously hard time to get on TV, so we designed a simple story, and for the first several weeks, our ideas were actually being executed. We wrestled a short match where Sheamus lost by count-out after he hurt his ankle. The next week, we did a title match where Sheamus declared if he lost he would quit WWE. He won that match along with the championship, and from there, we were setting up my rematch to happen at WrestleMania.
Shortly after I lost the title to Sheamus, we were talking to Jen about the following week’s plans when I asked, “What are the chances of us actually being on WrestleMania?” She said, “Oh, I think a good eighty percent.” I took that as being a good thing. Sheamus, not so much. Until that moment, I don’t think he even considered the possibility that we wouldn’t be on WrestleMania.
The Monday before WrestleMania XXVII, Raw was at the Allstate Arena in Chicago, and there was a big talent meeting before the show to talk about the busy week ahead. We were all handed packets that had lists of the vital information we would need: hotel and gym info, contact info, and the schedule of our appearances. It seemed like a normal meeting, until John Laurinaitis announced there had been a rehearsal added for some people on that coming Wednesday night. The rehearsal was for the preshow lumberjack match … between me and Sheamus. In front of all our fellow wrestlers, that was how we found out our match would take place, not on WrestleMania, but rather prior to the pay-per-view.
I turned and looked at Sheamus across the room, and he just buried his head in his hands. I was upset, but I’d kind of figured something like that might happen, especially because Miz told me a similar thing had happened to him in the past. What did make the pay-per-view was an Intercontinental Title match between Cody Rhodes and Rey Mysterio. Their build was similar to ours, and it was the same tier of match, but they made it onto the show and we didn’t. I knew Sheamus should have chosen Rey.
After the meeting, Sheamus and I talked. We were both very angry, not only about the move to being on the preshow but also because they just announced it in the meeting without warning us. We were determined to go out there and show everybody up, preshow be damned. However, once we got to the rehearsal, the match changed again. Sheamus and I would only get to wrestle about three minutes before the lumberjack match got out of hand and it turned into a giant battle royal, with Great Khali winning. The whole thing was thrown together that week to give everybody a chance to work in front of the largest crowd of the year.
This was my first WrestleMania week as a real WWE Superstar, not as a Rookie from NXT, and it was filled with signings, media, and appearances. We were told not to say anything to the fans or media about our match being on the preshow. I was miserable all week, and it didn’t help when people would tell me they were looking forward to our match or they thought Sheamus and I were going to steal the show. I knew they’d all be disappointed.
WrestleMania XXVII was held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, before seventy thousand people. It was the largest crowd I’d ever performed in front of, and afterward I didn’t remember any of it. Sheamus and I did the best we could in the three minutes we had, but by the end of the night, I’m sure not a single one of those people even remembered we were on the show.
After our match, I watched the rest of the show, yet I barely recall any of it, except thinking during the endless, horrible Michael Cole–Jerry Lawler match that surely they could have cut some time from that to get us on the pay-per-view, as we had advertised. But WrestleMania is a spectacle, not a wrestling show, which is why Snooki of Jersey Shore fame was on the show and we weren’t. As Regal explained to me when I signed with WWE, “Wrestling is what you did before this. Anything you get after is a bonus.” Despite the advice, I sat there disheartened. It was one of two WrestleManias I spent watching the show with my eyes glazed over.
Several weeks after WrestleMania XXVII, WWE held what used to be its annual draft. Raw and SmackDown were completely separate crews, and there would be very little interaction between the two. If I were on Raw, very rarely would I wrestle somebody on SmackDown, and vice versa. Your brand also determined your schedule; the Raw crew worked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday live events, then did TV on Monday, whereas the SmackDown crew did live events on Saturday and Sunday, went to Raw on Monday if needed (which I seldom was), and then did the TV taping on Tuesday.
For the 2011 draft, I got moved from Raw to SmackDown, and I was thankful for the switch, because I’d hoped TV time would be easier to come by on SmackDown. On Raw I would be scheduled for a seven- or eight-minute match, and then somebody’s interview would go over on time, cutting my match down to two or three minutes, if it still happened at all. Teddy and Sheamus were also drafted to SmackDown, so our riding crew would be able to stick together. Overall I was pretty optimistic.
It ended up being a great move. In my first SmackDown match, I wrestled Sheamus in a nearly ten-minute match. I lost, but I’ve always felt that if given time in my matches, I can get over, win or lose. I just needed the time to have a good match, and I was getting it. Almost every week, I’d have ten minutes to go out and wrestle, and slowly—again, win or lose—I felt like I was winning over the fans.
The May pay-per-view was Over the Limit in Seattle on my birthday. Miz was the WWE Champion at this point after beating John Cena in the main event of WrestleMania. I pitched hard to do a title match with him at Over the Limit, with the concept of Miz, cocky and overbearing about being the champ, giving some scrub an opportunity to challenge him for the championship. I figured it would kind of be like the movie Rocky, especially being among my hometown crowd of Seattle and it being my birthday. That idea was shot down pretty quick. Instead, I did the preshow match against Drew McIntyre. Regardless of the fact that it was on the preshow, it was the first time I got a real hometown-hero, starlike reaction in Seattle—and the first time I’d ever gotten that kind of reaction in WWE.
Bryan and mom, Betty, before the 2014 WWE
Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
Being that it was a pay-per-view, Superstars from both Raw and SmackDown were there, including Bri, who wasn’t drafted and had stayed on Raw. We weren’t able to see each other very much, so the night before, we got a hotel in downtown Seattle and had a really nice, romantic dinner. After Over the Limit, Raw was in Oregon, and my mom’s house was on the way from Seattle to Portland, so Bri followed me there, where my mom prepared a nice meal for us and made me a vegan birthday cake. She also made Bri one of her famous pumpkin cakes—my absolute favorite; Bri loved it and took the leftovers to Raw the next day for the other Divas. After the birthday dinner, Bri left for Portland and I stayed at my mom’s because I wasn’t needed for Raw, but as I went to bed, I felt truly lucky to have had such an amazing birthday.