Pro wrestling veteran and AEW star Bryan Danielson appeared on “Insight With Chris Van Vliet,” where he discussed various topics, including why he thinks fans began to hijack WWE shows with their chants, which ultimately led to him headlining WrestleMania 30.
Danielson said, “But even in the sense of like, then when Batista won that Royal Rumble. I feel bad for Batista because he worked hard to come back and all that kind of stuff. You do that with Batista now; he gets a great reaction, or any other year. I don’t think it was necessarily me. It was okay. The crowd had gotten behind a Dolph Ziggler, the crowd had gotten behind a Kofi Kingston, and they got up to a certain level, and then they were during that era, it was like, okay, then they would always kind of be pushed back down, or whatever it is. I think fans were starting to get upset by it. Even Punk, me, and Punk had wrestled a match on a pay-per-view, must have been 2012 for the title. We were in the middle of the show, and the main event was John Laurinaitis and John Cena. I think the fans were ready for something new, or whatever it is. I mean, that’s just time and place; there’s a lot of my career that’s been like that. I’m of the firm belief that you could have [anyone]. I was in a very fortunate position, even winning the title. I wasn’t even supposed to. I wasn’t even supposed to be there that day.”
On winning Money in the Bank in 2011:
“The thing that whole led to me Yes-ing was I had won the Money in the Bank, and the only reason I won the Money in the Bank is because they had two Money in the Banks. They had one for Raw and one for SmackDown. They knew for sure they wanted Alberto Del Rio to win the Raw one. The SmackDown one, they thought they wanted Wade, Barrett, Cody Rhodes, or me on the day of the show; they all decided it was me because they didn’t want a bad guy to win the Money in the Bank on the SmackDown side, because they had a bad guy winning it on the Raw side. But the most important thing was the Alberto Del Rio thing. But then they gave me the Money in the Bank, and they’re like, oh no. Now, Daniel Bryan has the Money in the Bank, and nobody at that point had cashed in and lost. And so, you know, we did a couple things with it for a couple weeks, and then it was off TV for like six weeks, or whatever it is. Then they inserted me in a story with Big Show and Mark Henry, which got me on TV or whatever it is. But it was great. It put me in a story, but then Mark Henry got hurt. This was at the TLC pay-per-view in 2011. Mark Henry gets hurt. I wasn’t scheduled to be at the pay-per-view. I had a Walmart signing that same day in Baltimore with Kelly Kelly, and came over to the building because Brie was there; I think Brie had a match on the show.”
On cashing in to win his first World Heavyweight Title:
“So I was there, and then Vince found out that I was there, and then Daniel Bryan’s here, and then it’s like, oh! Because I had been involved in this thing with Mark Henry and Big Show. Okay, well, Mark Henry’s hurt, so they had to do like a real smoke and mirrors type chair match, and then Mark gets mad at Big Show. And then, just because I happened to be there, it’ll be shocking that Daniel Bryan comes in and cashes in on Big Show. So even that was just a circumstance. If I hadn’t been booked, if Walmart hadn’t asked to have two WWE wrestlers sign at that on that particular day, that whole thing would have never happened. And Vince’s direction to me was go out there and celebrate like you just won the Super Bowl. Then that’s how the yes thing happened. A lot of these are just circumstances. If they had let me at WrestleMania go out there and wrestle Sheamus for 20 minutes, and then he beats me, I don’t know if it would have stayed as hot. I mean, it was more angering that they just had him beat me in 18 seconds with one move. So it’s like all of these things are things beyond my control. I have nothing to do with any of these things. And they’re just these weird little gifts, right?”
On not remembering if he was told he was winning at WrestleMania 30:
“I don’t even remember. I honestly don’t. WrestleMania 30 was a very difficult time period for me, because my neck was really bad. I had gotten a concussion that I had to hide, not had to hide. But I realized I was in this thing, this trajectory of going to WrestleMania 30. I had gotten a bad concussion, but I had to hide it, and was doing live events with the concussion. Then I was wrestling one match. After the match, I was in the shower, and I couldn’t even stand. I was riding by myself, and I had to ask a friend to drive me to the next town. So WrestleMania 30 happened. I was not in a great headspace, to be honest. I got married on Friday, my wife and I went on a honeymoon. I’d never been to Hawaii before, so we went to Maui, and we stayed at this eco retreat, and it was awesome. But I was looking up, and you had this portal to the moon, but the room just wouldn’t stop spinning. At this point, the Chris Nowinski concussion book had come out, and I knew that I’d been lying about concussions for a while. Then, we get back from our honeymoon on Saturday, we fly to Baltimore, which is the place where I first won the World Heavyweight Championship, cashing in that Money in the Bank. Then I found out the next morning my dad died. That’s completely unexpected. So it’s like, so people ask me about WrestleMania 30. Honestly, that whole thing was a blur. So I don’t remember them telling me.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
