A few months ago Bryan Danielson officially made his debut, but for years he was known as Daniel Bryan in WWE. Bryan managed to win a world title 5 times during his run with the company, and at one point he introduced a hemp belt and called himself the planet’s champion.
During a recent appearance on Casual Conversations with The Wrestling Classic the former world champion explained why he felt trapped by the “yes” chants, and why his time as the planet’s champion was his favorite part of his WWE run.
“WWE obviously wants ‘Yes Guy’ Daniel Bryan because that’s marketable. Doing the ‘yes’ chant. To me, it felt a little bit like it trapped me in certain ways. Somebody who yearns for freedom. My favorite part of my whole WWE run was when I was the planet’s champion and I wasn’t doing the ‘yes’ chant at all.”
Bryan also reiterated that choosing between AEW and WWE was difficult for him, and that WWE was willing to let him make appearances in New Japan Pro Wrestling.
“WWE would have let me do some shows in New Japan, I don’t know how much. It’s interesting because given the pandemic in the way it is now it’s not really urgent and humans, like myself included, aren’t great at looking at the long-term picture of things. I was like in 18 months I’ll be able to go to wrestle in New Japan when the pandemic is over because I’m mostly thinking like, ‘Okay, what does my next week look like or whatever.’ On both sides, I probably would’ve been able to wrestle in Japan, but then there’s this idea of spending more time at home with my kids. Although it was a very difficult decision there were times that I at different points was going one way or the other.”
H/T Wrestling Inc.
