SUNDAY, APRIL 6, 2014—9:46 A.M.
The temperature feels immoderately warm in Daniel Bryan’s hotel room this morning. With fiancée Brie across the city at Axxess’s early session, Bryan sits in his quarters and describes the first thoughts of the day, WrestleMania Sunday.
“Once Brie left, I was able to go back to sleep, and when I woke up, I had a lot of energy,” says a cool, relaxed Bryan. “And that’s what you want: feeling excited as opposed to nervous. You think you’d be a little more nervous about something like this, but I’m not,” he adds. “I woke up and feel really good.”
Dual knocks at the door bring Bryan to his feet to welcome in this morning’s visitors—two quite tiny. The chilled Superstar warmly greets his mom, plus his older sister, Billie Sue, and his pair of young, excited, and adorable nieces, ages four and two. They discuss logistics for the day and night ahead. During the pass-off of WrestleMania guest wristbands, the brief family banter results in smiles—Bryan and Billie Sue exposing their identical laugh—after cute cut-ins by Billie’s adorable daughters.
“Awww, mannnn,” the adults all say in unison, quoting a character from Dora the Explorer whose adventure unfolds on one girl’s iPad.
Betty hugs and squeezes her son as he stretches on a piece of furniture midconversation. She then leaves him with a maternal kiss on the cheek, and the family heads out for now. The support is palpable.
“My sister has, by far, been to more shows than anybody else in my family, and she regularly comes to WWE shows when we’re near her,” Bryan says, beaming. “When I first started talking about becoming a wrestler, Billie Sue thought it was cool. My father was also thoroughly supportive of me; even when there were times that wrestling wasn’t going well, he never once told me to stop wrestling. And when I made the decision to go to wrestling school instead of college, my mom was also unbelievably supportive.”
He continues, “Overall, my family has always wanted what’s best for me. It’s something that makes me feel very, very fortunate.”
The matches Glenn and I had with the Shield throughout 2013 really helped me gain momentum, even in defeat. We were wrestling them seemingly every week on TV, and every week the matches seemed to be great, getting the fans more and more behind me. After our tag team title loss to Rollins and Reigns, WWE.com wanted to record an interview with Glenn and me for the site, and they essentially wanted us to say something like, “Man, somebody needs to stop the Shield,” which was a weird implication that somebody else needed to do it but we couldn’t. Glenn and I just decided to do our own thing instead, going off the cuff. I got really passionate during the promo, going on this tangent about not being the “weak link” of our team—in fact, I think it ended with me screaming, “I am not the goddamned weak link!” The premise behind my statement was that I was the one who got pinned when we lost the titles and was the one who got pinned pretty much every time we lost. That was the way our team was designed: I was the beatable underdog and Kane was the monster. We needed to keep Kane the monster for our dynamic to work, so I would usually take the pins.
Somebody in charge must have seen my tirade on WWE.com and liked it, because the next night on Raw, we continued down this path of me crazily thinking everyone believed I was the weak link of Team Hell No. My character’s motivation changed and I became obsessed with proving to everyone that I was not the weak one, which led to a short television feud with Randy Orton.
On June 17, 2013, I wrestled Randy on Raw and was supposed to win. It would have been the biggest win in my career at that point and was going to really help me transition from the comedic figure I’d been for the last year and a half to someone who could be taken seriously as a main event performer. It didn’t exactly go as planned. Randy and I had designed a spot where I missed my signature suicide dive through the ropes, and as I did it, my neck and shoulder crashed into the barricade. I felt a quick pain shoot down my right arm, but I didn’t think anything of it. Minutes later, I did a dropkick off the top rope, and when I landed, I lost feeling in both of my arms. The left side came back pretty quickly, but the right side stayed numb for a while. I also couldn’t stand up.
After an extended period, I heard Randy trying to talk to me. He had no idea I was hurt and asked, “Dan, what the fuck is going on?!” When I was finally able to get back to my feet, I still couldn’t move my right arm and it was hanging limp. We kept going through the match, and after his draping DDT, Randy went to throw me over the top rope to the floor, but I held on. I was supposed to pull myself back into the ring, where Randy would boot me right back out, but at first I couldn’t get my arm up to the rope. I finally used momentum to swing it up, and I was able to get partially upside down before Randy booted me to the floor.
While I was on the outside, Dr. Sampson, one of two WWE doctors at the time, came over to check on me. I told him I was fine, but he wouldn’t listen. I insisted I was fine again, and he tried to call off the match, so I sprinted into the ring and started brawling with Randy to keep the match going. I saw this as my big opportunity, and I wasn’t about to let it pass me by.
Randy still had no idea what was going on, so he threw me to the floor and gave me a backbreaker on the barricade. The referee pushed Randy aside, and Dr. Sampson came over once again, but this time he directed the referee to stop it, and the ref waved off the match.
Usually I don’t get superangry, and when I do it’s barely visible. This time, I was furious and I let everyone know it. When I walked through the curtain, I yelled, “What the fuck is that all about?! That’s fucking bullshit!”
“You need to calm down,” responded Triple H, who had been communicating with the doctor over the headset and called for the match to be stopped.
“No, you need to calm the fuck down,” I replied.
We were up in each other’s faces and both ready to fight. I never had a match stopped in my entire career—not when I separated my shoulder five minutes into an hour draw and not when I detached my retina. Certainly not through any of my concussions. I’m sure I shouted all those things to him, but I was blackout mad so I don’t necessarily remember. He was livid, too, and shouted back about stopping the match for my protection, but I wasn’t having any of it. It felt hypocritical for Triple H—of all people—to do that, considering in 2001 Hunter himself tore his quad live on Raw and yet finished his match.
“How the fuck can you say that to me?” I asked. “You went out there and tore your quad and you continued to wrestle!” It was getting so heated that guys stepped in to separate us and I stormed off.
Bri was afraid I was about to start fighting people, so she took me into a room, which helped to calm me down. Soon after, Vince came to talk to me, and all of a sudden I was riled up again, yelling at him. I was a raving lunatic. He told me I needed to calm down, and I responded with something to the effect of “All these dumb motherfuckers are trying to calm me down and I have every right to be angry.” Randy was one of the guys trying to get me to regain my cool. He was actually trying to help and on my side, but my statement pissed him off. He responded, “Don’t call me a dumb motherfucker!”
It was kind of a big thing and the first time anybody in WWE had seen me like that.
Later on, after speaking with Bri and Regal, who found me backstage, I started to find my composure. Regal advised me I needed to go apologize to both Vince and Hunter since they were only trying to protect me. I knew he was right. I blew up because I was frustrated that the biggest win in my career was being taken away, something I thought would help legitimize me to the WWE fans. Admittedly, I was also a little scared because I had never experienced anything like the numbness that happened to me.
By the time I went in to talk to Vince and Hunter (especially), I was embarrassed by how I had reacted. I told Hunter I was sorry and explained that I usually don’t lose my cool like that, but I have so much pride in what I do. He apologized as well, and we buried the hatchet right there. We each understood where the other was coming from. He was trying to protect the talent, and I had the mindset of finishing the match—no matter what—which is a mindset he shares when he’s in the ring.
The numbness went away in my right arm, but it became a significant problem going forward. When I got home on Wednesday, I went to go get an MRI, which showed that one of the discs in my neck was bulging into the nerve. Both WWE doctors agreed that I was fine at the moment but it was likely I’d need surgery at some point. I was gaining momentum and didn’t have time for that.
The next week on Raw, I wrestled Randy again in a street fight, and they gave me my win as Randy tapped out to the “Yes!” Lock while I pulled a kendo stick across his face. It worked out well because this victory became much bigger than a win the week before would have been. Randy was the biggest star I’d ever beaten, and I needed that win, especially because several weeks later, John Cena elected to face me for the WWE Championship in the main event of SummerSlam.
Originally I heard I might face John for the title at the Money in the Bank pay-per-view in July, right before SummerSlam. When that didn’t happen, I was a little bothered because I anticipated that WWE couldn’t possibly want me to face Cena at the second-most-important pay-per-view event of the year the following month. John told me he’d pushed for a match between us at Money in the Bank and when Vince asked him why, John said he felt like it was the biggest match WWE had at the time. Vince took a long pause—which he’s notorious for—and then told John we weren’t going to do it at Money in the Bank because if it was the biggest match WWE had, we needed to do it at SummerSlam.
They did a cool setup for our match in which Cena was going to get to select his own opponent and challenger on Raw, live in Brooklyn. When John came out to make his announcement, the audience in the Barclays Center was already fired up with “Yes!” and “Daniel Bryan” chants. John teased that his pick might have been a couple of other people: Chris Jericho … RVD … Sheamus … even Heath Slater. When he finally announced that he chose me, the place came unglued. It was the first time WWE fans actually voiced their opinion that they wanted me in the WWE Championship picture.
John Cena has helped me in a lot of ways. The first was back in 2003, when WWE used me as an extra. Typically, when extras had matches, they were just used as enhancement talent to make the WWE guys look good, and thus they would get very little offense. They booked me against John for their syndicated show Velocity on a night when he was starting a big championship program with Brock Lesnar. To set up his match with Brock, what he should have done was eat me alive in our match. But he didn’t. We had a good 50/50 match that actually helped my independent career, as opposed to the squash matches that would typically hurt your career. When John got to the back, he got an earful. A championship contender should never give an extra that much offense, they told him. But he did anyway.
John also helped me in the buildup to our match ten years later, giving me some really good advice: “Just go out there and be genuine.” It may not sound that complicated, but it is—especially when you have page-long scripts handed to you that don’t sound anything like your voice. To be genuine, but still be the character that people want you to be, is a difficult thing.
We did a few back-and-forth promos heading into SummerSlam, and John encouraged me to hit below the belt a little bit, which we needed to build intrigue for a good-guy-against-good-guy match.
Earlier in the year during an overseas tour, I came to the realization that what we were doing in WWE was no longer pro wrestling. I know WWE uses the term “sports-entertainment” all the time, but it should still be the same thing. Instead, what most of WWE had become was actually a parody of wrestling. Yes, there were times to be a parody and entertain people, but I wanted something more. Cesaro and I were riding together at the time, and we talked about it at length. I didn’t want to be a parody of wrestling anymore. And in my mind, being a wrestling parody was the worst possible thing a wrestler could be.
On the last Raw before SummerSlam, we needed a strong go-home segment between John and me to sell the pay-per-view. So as John stood there, decked out in his merchandise from head to toe, I stood face-to-face with the WWE Champion and called him a “parody of wrestling.” John realized that there were a lot of people who did feel that way about him, but he let me do it anyhow. In fact, he encouraged it because it gave our story a little more bite. He responded as only John Cena can with an awesome promo talking about not being a parody to the kid in the front row, about being proud of who he is, and about how there was a long list of guys who don’t respect him as a wrestler and yet he was still the top dog after more than ten years. When John fires up, he’s the best talker in wrestling. But I wasn’t finished yet. In my response, I made reference to a tradition in Japan in which wrestlers would slap each other in the face to instill fighting spirit. I told John I’d love to slap him in the face right then and there, but he didn’t deserve it—because he wasn’t a wrestler. Between the match’s significance and the intensity of the segment, I thought it was the best promo I’d done yet.
Words aside, the performance with John was one of my favorites. Just having the match—the main event of SummerSlam—meant WWE had a tremendous amount of trust in me. Plus, the match itself wasn’t gimmicky; there were no ladders or table spots. On the contrary, it had a championship feel to it, and we went out and wrestled without it being a parody. I loved it.
On that night in Los Angeles on August 18, I debuted my new move, the flying knee, then pinned John Cena to win my first WWE Championship. Even though I lost the championship moments later when Triple H Pedigreed me and Randy Orton cashed in his Money in the Bank contract, it was still the biggest moment of my career up until then. Very few people beat John Cena clean in the middle of the ring, and I got to do it in the main event of SummerSlam.
Immediately after the big August pay-per-view, Cena needed triceps surgery and was going to be away from WWE for a couple of months, giving me the opportunity to be the lead protagonist driving stories forward. It didn’t go very well, to say the least, at least not businesswise.
The basis for my main event story was that The Authority—Triple H and Stephanie McMahon—didn’t want me as the WWE Champion because the WWE Champion is supposed to be the “Face of WWE,” and I didn’t fit that mold. Historically, the “Face of WWE” has been someone with a very good build, someone who’s on the taller side; your Hogans, your Rocks, your Cenas—all people with these bodybuilder physiques. I don’t fit in with that stereotype of what Vince sees as his top guy. This reality was the basis for a lot of the ideas for what became my rivalry with The Authority. They wanted a champion that could be put on magazine covers and pay-per-view posters, somebody who looked like a star and acted like one. I wasn’t their type of guy. Randy Orton was, and thus Randy and I feuded over the WWE Championship for several months, with The Authority always stacking things in Randy’s favor.
A lot of what played out on TV, I feel, stemmed from legitimate thoughts WWE has about me. They blended a bit of behind-the-scenes reality with on-air storytelling. I don’t have the look WWE likes; nor am I overly charismatic the way Hulk Hogan, The Rock, and John Cena are. I’ll never be on the cover of Muscle & Fitness; nor am I somebody Hollywood producers look at and want to give a role in a movie. Thus, I’m not the best-suited person to be the “Face of WWE.”
The Authority also started calling me a “B+ player,” recognizing that I was popular, but also that my popularity was among a niche audience and wouldn’t appeal to the masses. I was good to have around because people like me, but I wasn’t going to move numbers. Here, story line met with reality once again. Despite what I thought was good buildup, SummerSlam main-evented by me against John Cena did disappointing numbers, as did the subsequent two months of live events headlined by me and Randy.
Despite recognizing that the entire premise was partially legitimate, I thought it was a good story, especially in today’s world where people are sick of homogenized, shoved-down-their-throat celebrities. It seemed as if the stories we were doing on television were drawing anger from the fans, but in a good way, in a way that made them want to see me stick it up The Authority’s ass. Unfortunately, when it came to delivering, we ultimately failed in that two-month run.
Randy Orton is one of the best guys I’ve been in the ring with, and we’ve had some great matches. Regrettably, none of them were during the three times we main-evented pay-per-views in late 2013. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think great matches are absolutely necessary in successful stories. Satisfying conclusions, however, are. And none of the pay-per-view main events we had gave those. At Night of Champions, I beat Randy, but crooked referee Scott Armstrong counted fast, and the title was taken away from me the next night on Raw. That would seem fine, but because Scott was doing the fast count on my pin, I wasn’t allowed to make any pinfall covers during the match, which killed some of the drama. At the next pay-per-view, WWE Battleground, there was no finish to the match; Big Show came out, knocked out both me and Randy, and walked off. The show went off the air like that—no announcement of who won or lost. All of that would have been fine had it been on a Raw on free TV, but to pay $50 and have a show end like that had a lot of fans giving up.
My final main event pay-per-view performance with Orton was at Hell in a Cell, in the event’s signature match in which most of the ringside area is enclosed in a giant, roofed cage. Shawn Michaels was made the special guest referee—an interesting plot twist since he was my original trainer and is also Triple H’s best friend. This was probably the best of the three major matches Randy and I had, but again, it ended in a strange finish. Shawn got knocked down somehow, prompting Triple H to come into the cage to check on him, along with a doctor. I went over to check on Shawn as well, but Triple H threw me down. When I got up, I charged and hit him with the running knee, just as Shawn recovered in time to see it. Though he was the ref, Shawn himself superkicked me, then counted as Randy covered me for the win.
When I initially heard the finish, I thought maybe WWE had convinced Shawn to come back and face me at WrestleMania months later, which would’ve given meaning to the closing moments of my match with Randy. Shawn had done a retirement match with the Undertaker at WrestleMania XXVI, but wrestlers rarely stay retired. If such was to be the case for me and Shawn, the whole finish would have been amazing. Performing against Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania is my ultimate dream match because not only was he my original trainer, he’s also known as “Mr. WrestleMania,” boasting more show-stealing matches at the big show than anybody in history.
After speaking with Shawn, however, it became clear he had no intention of ever wrestling again, and the finish was constructed the way it was just to get out of the situation while still protecting me from losing. I appreciated the fact that WWE bothered with protecting me, but again, the fans left feeling dissatisfied in a way that didn’t help business going forward.
Though I did not get a WrestleMania match with Shawn, I still got to experience a cool moment with him the following night on Raw. I was in the ring, and he came out to explain himself to me, asking me to shake his hand, which I refused. Shawn then slowly turned into an arrogant asshole, demanding that I shake his hand, which I did, then immediately turned the handshake into the “Yes!” Lock as retribution for the previous night’s incident on pay-per-view. Shawn is a master storyteller, both with his wrestling and his promos, and being able to do that with him was a lot of fun.
Later in the night, I was attacked by the Wyatt Family (Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper, and Erick Rowan), which essentially ended my two-month run as a main-eventer. I feel like I did well in terms of performance, more so with my ability to carry multiple segments on Raw—wrestling and talking—and I got vastly more comfortable on the microphone during this time. But when you’re in the top position, it’s your responsibility to draw in the fans. It doesn’t matter how well you wrestle or how well you talk if fans don’t pay to see it. In that regard, I failed, and I didn’t think I convinced the higher-ups in WWE that I was anything more than a “B+ player.”
In the middle of my main event run with Randy and The Authority, something in my personal life overshadowed what was going on at work. On September 25, 2013, I asked Bri to marry me.
I originally planned on proposing to Bri a couple of months later when we returned to Boston. My intent was to go back to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (where we had our first date), take her to the third floor (which we didn’t make it to on our first visit), and propose to her there. I know it’s kind of cliché to propose where you had your first date, but for good reason: Your first date is an important milestone in your life, and thus it’s a return to where the whole thing started.
But in late August, Russell, the lead producer of Total Divas, asked me if I’d be willing to have the proposal take place on the show. I was OK with it, but they needed it to happen soon to make the season-two midseason finale. I already had the ring, custom-made from an awesome jeweler in New York who specializes in environmentally friendly and socially responsible jewelry. Most importantly, I wanted to make sure the moment was special and not thrown together, so together with Russell and Nicole, Bri’s sister, we formulated a game plan: Bri and I would go on a vacation to Big Sur, where Total Divas would film us staying in a handmade dome house in the woods. Bri would think it was because they just wanted to film us in a zany eco-retreat episode with beautiful scenery.
I hoped she wouldn’t suspect anything, but my big concern was Nicole. Being twins, the two of them tell each other everything. I was worried Nicole would let the cat out of the bag, but, luckily, she didn’t. Or if she did, Bri kept the secret so safe that she’s never told me.
My new plan was to propose to Bri somewhere along a five-mile hike at Big Sur. I didn’t know when or precisely where it would happen, because it was my first time on this hike that I only researched on the Internet beforehand. I figured I would just feel when it was right. But, in order for the crew trailing us to be prepared to get good footage of the proposal, we agreed to have me say a code word or phrase, something like “Boy, the sky sure does look blue.” In the meantime, for the sake of the surprise, the camera guys filmed most of the hike simply because it would seem strange to Bri if they didn’t.
Even though it wasn’t that steep a hike, it’s much more difficult when you’re loaded down with equipment. The crew’s sound guy never made it to the top, which made me feel a little bad but also made me laugh. Everyone was sweating by the time we made it to the top of the ridge with this beautiful view overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I knew immediately that this was the place and the time.
I was really nervous, and my hand started shaking. I knew Bri would say yes because A) we went ring shopping together in New York before WrestleMania 29, just so I could see the kind of style she liked, and B) from that moment on, she gave me grief about when I was going to propose. To add to my anxiety, I kept recalling how Bri once told me the only thing she cared about was the words I would say when I proposed. If the moment weren’t being filmed, that wouldn’t have been such a big thing, but if I messed it up on camera and it aired on Total Divas, I would never hear the end of it. I was so nervous that I forgot to say the code word. The cameraman wasn’t ready, and neither was whoever was handling the sound.
I was vaguely aware of scuttling going on around me as everyone rushed into position when they realized I was getting down on one knee. I looked at Bri and said, “It’s been two years, seven months, and ten days since the very first time we kissed. And it’s not enough. I want it to be forever, like all this,” referring to the endless-looking ocean. Then, for the very first time, I said, “I love you,” followed by asking her to marry me. Oddly enough, Bri was so excited in the moment that she couldn’t even process the words she previously said would be so important. Still, as you know, she said yes. It felt like the perfect moment.
Afterward, sitting on the cliff overlooking the ocean, we ate the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we’d packed . It was an incredible moment of calm and happiness. Our trip to the top of the mountain felt like an accomplishment of sorts, the end of one journey. When we got back to the bottom, it felt like a new journey had begun.
Bryan and Bri celebrate their engagement, September 2013
One of the things that made the proposal so special was that immediately afterward, we had a surprise engagement dinner that Total Divas had our families flown in to attend. They set up a beautiful area in the woods, and for the first time, our families got to meet each other. The cameras were rolling, but nobody even seemed to notice because we were all having so much fun enjoying the special moment.
There are certainly times when filming the show can feel invasive, but then there are moments like that—with elaborate and thoughtful planning—that Total Divas creates to demonstrate their appreciation, and it makes it all worthwhile.
I’d been dealing with a little bit of pain after the stinger I got in the match with Randy back in June, but all of a sudden it got substantially worse. The bulging disc was pinching on the ulnar nerve—which runs from your neck to your shoulder, through your triceps, past your elbow, and into your hand—driving pain down my entire right arm. The pain made the two-week November European tour miserable as it started shooting at random, making it nearly impossible for me to sleep more than an hour or two at a time.
When we returned to the United States, I was sent to get my first epidural steroid injection: They use a long, thin needle to inject cortisone into the space surrounding the nerve, helping to reduce the nerve’s inflammation. That first shot helped a great deal, giving me my first relief from the pain in months, and I was finally able to sleep through the night. I was scheduled to get a total of three injections, spaced about a month apart, but during the second treatment, something went wrong.
They numb your entire upper back and neck area before the injection, so you’re not really supposed to feel much of anything. Given the amount of sensitive material around your neck and spinal column, they use X-ray guidance to direct the needle exactly where it needs to go. Somehow, on the second injection, the doctor hit the nerve with the needle and I screamed out “FUCK!” as an intense pain shot through what felt like my entire body. I was shaken up, and so was the doctor, yet when they asked me if I wanted to do it again, I agreed because I figured it couldn’t get much worse than that. The next attempt went fine, but didn’t end up giving me any relief from my existing pain.
Since the second treatment went so poorly and did very little for my pain, I chose not to get the third injection. I couldn’t do any heavy lifting, but acupuncture and massages helped minimize the discomfort. Fortunately, it wasn’t really affecting my wrestling. When my adrenaline is flowing, I tend to not feel much pain anyway. I was getting weaker, but luckily I designed my entire WWE offense around not lifting people up. And moves I do execute that involve moving my opponent’s body, like a snap or German suplex, are all about hip movement. The rest of my offense is comprised of high-impact strikes, submissions, and flying around. I continued to perform and finished up a tumultuous 2013, which ended with what will probably go down as my favorite show I’ve ever done.
My family has only been able to come to very few of my shows, either on the independents or in WWE. There just aren’t that many events that emanate from Washington State every year. One time, I performed in a crappy independent show in a flea market in our neighboring state of Oregon, just so my dad could come see me wrestle. It was a horrible show, but my dad had a great time.
On December 9, 2013, the annual Slammy Awards show emanated from Seattle, and my dad was able to get off work and go. Before the event, my dad and a couple of guests he brought with him to the show went to eat at a restaurant, and some people in Daniel Bryan T-shirts entered. His boss’s wife stopped them and told them he was my father. Just like me, my dad was a naturally shy person, so of course he got really embarrassed being pointed out like that, but the fans thought it was the coolest thing to meet my dad, and they asked for his autograph. This naturally made him even a little more shy, but he still signed for them, inscribing “Buddy Danielson, Daniel Bryan’s dad” on their tees.
Later that night, this Slammys edition of Raw started off with me wrestling Fandango, and the hometown crowd was going crazy for me from the very beginning. I could tell it was going to be a fun night. The Slammy Awards are voted on by the fans, and I went on to win multiple, including the ludicrous Beard of the Year award. Since Bri and I also won Couple of the Year, I went in to talk to Vince earlier in the night to ask about the two of us going out together for my match. He didn’t want that, but while I was there in his office, I also asked if there was anything he wanted me to say if I won the Slammy for Superstar of the Year. Vince just kind of laughed, almost in disbelief that I thought I could win, and told me I could say whatever I wanted.
Well, I did win—by probably the smallest margin in the history of the award, narrowly beating out John Cena. The Seattle crowd cheered wildly when I came out to accept the award, and at the end of my acceptance speech, I gave them a loud “Go Seahawks!,” a nod to Seattle’s favorite sports team. It was all actually pretty neat, because even though I don’t see winning Slammys as overly important, it was fun that Bri and Nicole won Diva(s) of the Year, I won Superstar of the Year, and together Bri and I won Couple of the Year. After I accepted my award, WWE took a bunch of pictures of us together holding the Slammys, which is nice because they were cute pictures (well, as cute as I get) that we can show our kids someday.
Bryan accepts the 2014 Slammy Award for Superstar of the Year
The end of the night featured the Championship Ascension, a symbolic hoisting of WWE’s two top titles, the WWE Title and the World Heavyweight Championship, above the ring days before they were to be unified at WWE TLC. In the ring for the ceremony stood past champions, including myself, as well as the current title holders, Randy Orton and John Cena. WWE was trying to bill the unification match as the biggest match in WWE history, given the significance the two titles previously had, but as soon as the segment started, the Seattle fans starting chanting for me. I was only out there because I was a previous champion, that’s it. In no way was I involved in the upcoming match, but the crowd didn’t care. As Triple H tried to speak, the entire crowd drowned him out in a sea of “Yes!” and “Daniel Bryan!” chants. I couldn’t do anything but laugh in the background, and I was almost concerned that somehow the whole thing would be blamed on me. Another former champion, Mark Henry, was standing next to me, and he raised my arm to huge applause, hoping that would help the crowd let it out and then they’d simmer down a little and get back to focusing on the segment. But that only made it worse. As Randy started to speak, the crowd just got louder and louder, cheering for me. Situations like this are why John Cena has been the top guy in WWE for the last ten years. Thinking quickly on his feet, he asked me to come forward, then asked a series of questions.
“What’s your name?”
“My name is Daniel Bryan,” I replied. Huge cheer.
“Where are you from?”
“I’m from Aberdeen, Washington.” Even louder cheer.
“Were either your mom or dad a past WWE Superstar?”
“Nope, my dad is actually a log scaler.” Another loud cheer, as logging is a huge industry in Washington.
And that’s where Cena turned it around. He said guys like me and him had to get to the top on our own, while Randy came in with everyone expecting him to succeed because his dad was a WWE Hall of Famer. John got the segment right back on track and focused on the title unification match. At the conclusion, a brawl broke out, and the show ended with—you guessed it—“Daniel Bryan!” chants. For the first time, what we later called the “Yes! Movement” essentially hijacked Raw.
After the segment, as the show was ending, my dad came up to the rail elated, as proud as he could be. I gave him a big hug and told him how happy I was he could come. My father later told my sister about the amazing time he had, about how loud the crowd was cheering for me and that people had even wanted his autograph, just for being my dad. He’d had a great time.
What made it my favorite show wasn’t winning the Slammys. Nor was it the amazing crowd reaction. It was that my dad got to see all that and got to be in the crowd while everyone was going crazy for me; he got to enjoy it, to stand back and be proud. I am incredibly thankful for that, because it was the last live show he would ever see.
For a few months after Hell in a Cell, I was in a story with the Wyatt Family, who’d been trying to get me to join their clan, led by cult leader Bray Wyatt. The Wyatts and I seemed like a natural fit. They all have huge beards (much bigger than mine), and they are pretty out-there characters. I had been pitching to join them and do some vignettes showing Bray brainwashing me, which we thought would be really cool. It was taken under consideration by WWE writers but was seemingly dropped until, randomly, on the final Raw of 2013, I actually did join the Wyatts.
It was weird because the story changed from Bray brainwashing me to me deceiving the Wyatts. It was all a part of my plot to destroy the group from the inside. Our connection wasn’t supposed to last very long, but I pushed and pushed and pushed to get the whole story extended. Bray was on tap to begin a feud with John Cena leading into WrestleMania 30. I figured with me joining the Wyatts, it would add to their credibility, and as a result, I would be a part of one of the main stories heading into the biggest show of the year. Since there were really no plans for me for WrestleMania at the time, I thought being a part of this would at least give me something big to do, especially if I turned on them after ’Mania, when there is kind of a lull following the excitement of the big show.
But the week after I joined them, I ended up getting quite a bit of mainstream attention. I was in my hotel room when Titus O’Neil texted me and told me to put on ESPN’s SportsCenter. I never turn on the TV in my hotel rooms, but I did, and, much to my surprise, they were showing a whole arena at a basketball game chanting “Yes!” I had no idea what to make of it. The Michigan State college football team had just won the Rose Bowl the week before, and after a touchdown, Travis Jackson, one of the players, started “Yes!”-ing. The team was doing a huge celebration of their Rose Bowl win during the halftime of a Michigan State–Ohio State basketball game, and Travis got on the microphone to get the whole arena to start “Yes!”-ing as well. It caught on. The fans at the basketball game kept doing it throughout the rest of the game, especially when the other team was at the free throw line. Instead of the usual noodle things or wiggly balloons that basketball fans use to distract the other team, they used the “Yes!” chant. It was an amazing visual. Not only did SportsCenter pick up on it, but so did media sources around the country, and they all credited me as the inspiration. The whole thing blew my mind.
I’m not sure if it’s because the basketball game got so much mainstream attention or if it was the plan all along, but the following week, I turned on the Wyatts. Bray and I were doing a tag match against the Usos inside a steel cage and after the Usos won, Bray wanted me to submit to him by allowing him to hit his “Sister Abigail” signature move on me. I refused, and the crowd that had been dead for the last ninety minutes of the show all of a sudden came alive. Bray charged at me and I dodged it, lighting him up, knocking the other two Wyatt Family members off the cage, and then at the end, hitting Bray with the flying knee. I climbed to the top of the cage and sat there, leading the entire arena in “Yes!” chants. It was another really cool visual.
Somewhere around this time, I was speaking with Vince in his office, and though I forget what we were originally talking about, he suddenly changed topics; he wanted to talk about his plans for me for WrestleMania 30. Prior to this discussion, I had been talking to Triple H about possibly doing a match with him, but also, in the back of my mind, I was still hoping they had convinced Shawn Michaels to come back to wrestle me. But Vince’s idea was neither of those. He wanted me to wrestle Sheamus.
Let me say right now that I love working with Sheamus. We have great matches, we get along really well, and, with the exception of the two WrestleManias we’d already wrestled, we always had fun together. However, given that I was, at worst, the third most popular wrestler in WWE—and on some shows the most popular—it was a pretty low-positioned match for WrestleMania. We would be lucky if we were the fifth biggest match, given WWE had already planned to have Randy Orton–Batista for the title, Brock Lesnar–Undertaker, Triple H–CM Punk, and John Cena–Bray Wyatt. With those four matches, it would be difficult for anything else to get much time. Though demoralized, I thanked him for the opportunity and was determined to do the best with what I was given.
But the road in life is uncertain and nothing is set in stone, even what Vince tells you—maybe especially what Vince tells you. Things can always change, which is what happened to my WrestleMania plans at the 2014 Royal Rumble in January.
Royal Rumble is when WrestleMania season starts, and the winner of the event’s headline thirty-man Rumble match goes on to compete for the championship at WrestleMania, presumably in the main event. Next to ’Mania, the Royal Rumble crowd usually has the most hardcore fans in attendance. People fly in from all over the world for the annual event, and those people are very vocal. That year they also happened to be pretty big Daniel Bryan fans. I knew I wasn’t going to be in the Rumble match, and I hadn’t been advertised for it, but nobody specifically said I wouldn’t be in it, either.
I didn’t mind that I wasn’t involved in the Rumble, because I had a match with Bray Wyatt earlier in the show and I was able to just focus on that. We wrestled in the second bout on the show and had a great match, fueled by an amazing crowd in Pittsburgh that was overwhelming in their support for me. The only times I had seen anything like that audience was the night after WrestleMania XXVIII and shows in my home city, Seattle. And just like at those shows, the fans continued to chant “Yes!” and “Daniel Bryan!” long after my match was over.
It’s interesting that wrestling has moved into this postmodern era where fans understand that what they’re watching is entertainment. They choose to cheer for what entertains them, whether the character is good or bad, and they reject things they don’t want to see by booing, chanting “Boring,” or creating their own entertainment among themselves. One crowd might start the wave; another might start chanting for an announcer or the local hockey team. I don’t know where this idea came from to start having your own fun and stop paying attention to what’s being presented, but it has its pluses and minuses. Fortunately for me, it’s been mostly positive. For instance, in the title match for the unified WWE World Heavyweight Championship featuring John Cena against Randy Orton, the crowd initially rejected it. They were chanting “Boring!” and “Yes!” and “This is awful!” The thing was, it wasn’t awful. It was an actively good match, so much so that the same crowd that wanted to reject it at first actually got into it by the end.
I sat in the back in Pittsburgh during the main event Royal Rumble match, watching and wondering if there would be any discernible negativity toward me not being in the Rumble. At first there wasn’t; there were “Daniel Bryan!” chants, but they dispersed pretty quickly. Generally speaking, the fans were just enjoying the Rumble. But they didn’t know I wasn’t going to be in the match. Not yet.
When Batista—the guy WWE wanted to be the headlining hero going into WrestleMania—came out, the crowd booed because they figured that if I didn’t win, he would. Shortly after he entered, the chants for me increased, and the closer the match drew to its final entrant, the louder those chants got. When the countdown to the thirtieth entrant started, the fans were on their feet in anticipation. However, once the countdown was completed and the buzzer sounded, instead of hearing “Ride of the Valkyries,” they heard Rey Mysterio’s music. This was the moment when the fans finally realized I wasn’t going to be in the match, and they started booing—loudly.
As I watched, I instantly felt bad for Rey. He’s the last person to deserve that kind of reaction, and I’ve looked up to him since I was in high school. Rey has worked through more injuries than one could count, and he has always done his best to entertain the fans with his high-flying style, despite the toll it might take on his body. And yet the fans booed him because he wasn’t me, and I was what they wanted. It’s weird for me to be typing that now. It sounds egotistical, but I don’t know how else to say it. The fans turned on the whole match. They booed pretty much everyone except for CM Punk and Roman Reigns. When Batista won, the crowd mercilessly booed him, the man who was going to main-event WrestleMania. Then they followed with a loud “Daniel Bryan!” chant. They were directly telling WWE what they wanted.
You have to keep in mind that this was one crowd on one night. All crowds weren’t like that, and Batista got some amazing positive reactions after he’d come back. WWE knew that the WrestleMania crowd would be very similar to this crowd, and I wondered if WWE would listen to what the crowd told them. Truthfully, part of me was already resigned to just hoping that maybe I could build up enough momentum for the following year’s ’Mania.
The next night, another bizarre incident occurred. CM Punk left WWE. I don’t know why, and it’s not my place to guess. That side of it is his to tell, should he choose to tell it. All I know is he left and he didn’t come back, and all I can tell you is how that affected me. As for WWE, Punk’s departure put the company in a strange place for WrestleMania; two of the big four matches they planned were going to be much different than they thought. One, the Punk–Triple H match at WrestleMania, was not even going to happen. And two, if they moved forward with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match between Randy Orton and Batista, the fans were going to turn on it just like they turned on the Rumble match.
For a couple of weeks, I didn’t hear of anything changing. I knew Hunter wanted to face me at WrestleMania. Unfortunately, even in his position, Hunter doesn’t always get what he wants. I’ve seen him come out of the TV production meetings on the road to discuss stories looking like he’s been in a battle and lost. I think Vince was still hoping that Punk would come back or that Batista would win back the crowd. Neither of those things happened, but then WWE came up with a solution to both of those problems: me.
Not only did the fans want me in that spot, but it made sense story-wise. The Authority had kept me from being champion since SummerSlam the year before, and every time I got close, they took it away. They ignored my popularity and didn’t even put me in the Rumble match to get an opportunity to compete for the title at WrestleMania. It was a very legitimate story that could easily be told about a corporate machine (The Authority) holding the little man (me) down. All they had to figure out was how to get us there.
WWE came up with a very creative idea based on the “Occupy” movements that protested against social and economic inequality, which were happening all over the world. It was called “Occupy Raw,” and I, along with a bunch of “fans” wearing Daniel Bryan T-shirts, hijacked the ring and did not leave until we got what we wanted. Most of the fans that were in the ring were actually production or catering people that work for WWE, though the people on the floor surrounding the ring were real fans. I’m not sure how those individuals were picked, but they sure were enthusiastic, which helped. One of the real fans actually jumped in the ring and stood right next to me as I sat on the turnbuckle, and you could see him taking a bunch of selfies during the entire segment.
Our seizing control of the ring threatened to ruin the show, and after putting up as much resistance as they could, The Authority finally gave us what we wanted: I got a match with Triple H, and if I won, on that very same night, I would be entered into the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match and main-event WrestleMania 30.