Daniel Bryan recently spoke with the UK’s SPORTbible while in Europe with WWE. The full interview is at this link and below are highlights:
If he’s had any ring rust since returning to action:
“I honestly didn’t feel any ring rust. It was strange because the day I was cleared, Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens attacked me and I did the running dropkicks – just dropkick, dropkick, dropkick. You have to understand, I wasn’t prepared for this to happen. I’m wearing the shoes which I’m wearing now – which are from a thrift store and they’re a half size too big! I was wearing a sportscoat and I haven’t done the dropkick in the corner for three years – it’s a very exhausting thing to do because you’re sprinting, running, jumping and then kick.
“I was a little bit concerned but that night I didn’t feel tired or anything, I was excited, it was fun. Same thing at Wrestlemania, I felt like nothing felt weird or awkward – everything felt like normal and how it used to feel. Obviously I am doing these live events and there are more singles matches – there’s stuff where I’m like, ‘Ok I’m a little bit rusty at this’ – I haven’t done a fireman’s carry in years and that’s a very specific movement that I haven’t done a lot of. Stuff like that is going to take me a while before everything’s back to normal but overall I’m very happy with it.”
Making minor tweaks to his in-ring style that would bring less risks but retain the same level of intrigue and entertainment:
“The idea would be that I do things differently and people aren’t able to perceive it. Specifically with the Wrestlemania match, we wanted to show people that the old Daniel Bryan was back – I want to change my style but I’m doing it gradually. This last week I attacked Cass and ended it with a heel hook – in my mind this is a new direction in how I’m wrestling and then focussing more on the ‘Yes!’ Lock than on knee and that sets up different things.
“This is probably in more detail than fans would probably want to know but I’m setting up those things so the matches are still entertaining and interesting – if you’re watching it for a story front to back, it’s more interesting with less risk. That’s kind of where I’m going with it, while still making it exciting.”
The recent match with WWE Champion AJ Styles:
“I consider AJ to be the best right now as far as in-ring performance. It was good to be able to go out there and see if I could keep up with him not only physically but mentally because a large part of what we do is mental. I actually wish we had more time; the match we had was 10-12 minutes or whatever it was and hopefully soon we’ll have the chance to do a solid 30 minutes and do our thing.”
