SmackDown General Manager and former WWE World Champion Daniel Bryan recently spoke to Yahoo! Sports to promote SummerSlam and more. You can check out the full interview here along with some highlights below.
Has traveling on the road again on a weekly basis as GM of “SmackDown” helped or hurt whatever wrestling itch you still might have? It’s kind of hurt it. It’s not the traveling part of it … I was doing OK, right. I was like, OK, this isn’t my jam anymore, I can’t do this. Until they had me sit out by ringside for a couple of matches and it’s just like, c’mon, I’m ready to go. That’s the hard part. Or when I go out to the arena and get such a great reaction. That’s when I want to wrestle.
What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far in your short broadcast career calling the “Cruiserweight Classic?” For me, it’s trying to keep my voice up. So [last] Wednesday, there was an amazing match between Cedric Alexander and Kota Ibushi. We filmed three tapings in a row that day and that was the main event of the first taping. I was so excited calling the match that I lost my voice completely and then I had to do two more hours of calling matches. Mauro [Ranallo] is great because he’s trained to do that. My voice isn’t trained for it. I can only talk for so long before my voice just goes out. That’s been the hard part but the “Cruiserweight Classic” has been a blast.
Do you feel directly responsible for the number of smaller wrestlers in the main event picture? No, I think it was a natural evolution. I think what’s happened is there’s so many hours of TV that’s put out there that people who are more exciting in the ring are going to be the ones that become more popular. Because of “RAW” being there hours and “SmackDown” two hours, there has to be more matches and longer matches. Smaller wrestlers are built for more exciting matches.
