WWE Superstar Daniel Bryan appeared on a recent episode of the Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast and spoke about his preference for separate RAW and SmackDown rosters, as well as his original plans for his WWE Intercontinental Championship run. Below are some of the highlights from the interview.
On his original plans for his I-C title run: “One of the things I wanted to do when I came back [from injury], was do something with the Intercontinental Championship. And my big spiel, my big pitch for this thing, like, I want to be the Intercontinental Champion and I only want to be on Smackdown. I don’t want to be on RAW. I want to be on Smackdown because one of my things was I would never have gotten this opportunity if there wasn’t split brands, if there wasn’t two [world] titles. If there was just the one main title, [WWE] would never, ever given me the opportunity.”
On doing another brand split in WWE: “I knew coming back from my neck surgery that I was not going to be the top good guy, as far as the booking is concerned. I’m not talking about popularity, as far as placement of people. And one of the things that really can hurt you is that if people see you as that and people want you to be that and you’re not that, is that they can take it out on other people. Right? Like, taking it out on somebody like Roman [Reigns] when [WWE] are trying to push him and that sort of thing.” Bryan added, “if you put [Roman Reigns] and I on different shows, then it’s better for him and it’s better for me.”
“Right now, [WWE] are not going to put Cesaro in a WWE World Heavyweight Championship program with Seth Rollins. I mean, [WWE] might, but I don’t think [WWE] will though. [WWE] would do that with [Cesaro] and me and the Intercontinental Championship and it might not be the main event of pay per views, but if it carries Smackdown, if that’s the main story on Smackdown, it can show everybody, like, I think WWE doesn’t think people are capable of some of this kind of stuff. I don’t think [WWE] thought I was capable of carrying that kind of stuff until [WWE] gave me the opportunity and it turns out I was. And until you give them the opportunities, give somebody like Cesaro an opportunity to do that and show that he can do it, you know, like, that was part of my thing too. People like Cesaro, people like Cody Rhodes, you know, people like Ryback. Give them these opportunities to carry a show like they carry a program and it would just be good for everybody, and, not only that, good for morale, I was hoping. Like, I have all these greater things. I want everyone to be happy at work. I want us all to enjoy it and be like, ‘hey, if I work hard and if I’m good and if I get good crowd reactions, I am going to get further’.”
Check out the complete interview at Podbay.fm.
