My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 125 - DANIEL BRYAN

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

Robbie lands one of his dream interviews and sits down with Daniel Bryan for a 30+ minute chat about his upcoming match with Roman Reigns on SmackDown, his strange experience at WrestleMania, pushing the idea of WWE talent being allowed to wrestle elsewhere while still under contract, and more! Plus, he recalls some memories from Robbie's favorite independent matches of his to make a mark real happy! 3Chi: Use code MMB at checkout to receive 5% off at 3Chi.com HelloFresh: Use code 12robbie at HelloFresh.com/12robbie for 12 FREE MEALS!You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey, My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Daniel Bryan, if you have been a longtime listener of this show or from the top rope, you know is my favorite wrestler of all time, and I've been chasing this interview for years. Shout out to Kelly Martin, Barstool's wonderful talent booker, for finally getting him for me. We sat down for over 30 minutes, just one-on-one. I talked to Karabas about it and he was like, dude, just take him solo. He's your guy. So shout out to Karabas too. That was very cool of him to be like,

I know you're going to have a billion questions about the most random indie shit in the world. Take him for the full 30 minutes. Before we get into that, let me tell everyone about 3C, our presenting sponsor. They are the industry leader in Delta 8 THC products. And obviously this is my favorite sponsor in the world. I mean, it's a federally legal version of THC, which gives you a more functional alternative to marijuana, where you get that great body feel with a clearer head and less anxiety and paranoia. What's not to love? It's available online at 3chi.com. That's the number three, chi.com and at

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It is the real deal. So be careful with it. 3chi.com, the number three, C-H-I, then use the promo code MMB. Let's get into this interview with Daniel Bryan and I'll meet you on the other side. We're gonna actually close the show with a bonus interview. Use the promo code MMB. Let's get into this interview with Daniel Bryan, and I'll meet you on the other side. We're going to actually close the show with a bonus interview.

Welcome back to My Mom's Basement, ladies and gentlemen. If you're a longtime listener of the show, you know this interview is a long time coming. With me now is the American Dragon, Daniel Bryan. Bryan faces Roman Reigns this Friday for the Universal Championship on Friday Night SmackDown. He'll be live on Fox at 8, and if Bryan loses, he has has to leave smackdown i'm looking forward to this match a ton daniel because i feel like you and roman have such great chemistry together in the ring and correct me if i'm wrong but even going back before your first singles match at fast lane 2015 like even the team hell

no and shield stuff felt like you guys just clicked what do you think that was between you and roman yeah so uh part of it is just getting time in the ring together you know when the shield came up we were like it was me and Kane and sometimes one other person against those three guys like on and on and on and on it felt like every week and on live events and all that kind of stuff and you just get a chemistry you know with people the other thing is Roman's just really good right and he has chemistry with a lot of people so uh I feel like I have chemistry with a lot of people so but I think uh one of the things too that's interesting is just our history together you know and I think that that's um part of what makes the

matches intriguing and the fact that we haven't it it hasn't been seen a ton. Yeah. The singles matches, at least, you know, we did one at Fastlane 2015, one at Fastlane this year, a super short match at Elimination Chamber. And then, and then this one, and that'll be all of them. Are you enjoying this current feud with Roland? Because the dynamic has now swapped too. He's now the head of the table, right? He's got Heyman, he's got Jey Uso. So are you having fun with this iteration of Roman Reigns versus Daniel Bryan? So, yeah. So I have actually more fun with the, this iteration of Roman Reigns than

I do with this iteration of Daniel Bryan. You know, it's, you know I would have loved to have done planets champion Daniel Bryan versus versus this version of Roman Reigns to see who could get the fans to hate them more. But I don't think that's really like something that's good for the mass audiences. Like, oh, two people that everybody hates. Yeah, I mean, I loved your stuff as Planets Champion. Your promos, the serious stuff with Rowan. I thought the title was even amazing, the hemp title.

And I ask if you're enjoying this stuff because he kind of shook up the wrestling world last week with an interview you gave with BT sport, where you talked about the WrestleMania main event you had with Reigns and Edge. And you said, you felt sort of a weird sense of detachment from it. And it was like an out of body experience. And you said it might've pushed you closer to that idea of being a part-time wrestler, full-time dad than ever before. Have you had time to sit on that anymore i know it's only

been a week since that but you just described wrestlemania as a bit of a weird experience yeah yeah i mean like uh i mean figuring it out is like uh you know how do you figure out a momentary experience you know what i mean um but it was momentary but profound right so uh so just trying to sit with that and and see see what does that mean what does that mean for me what is my relationship now to wrestling uh that sort of thing and that's something that you know I've been talking with my wife about and have been talking with my friends about uh it was really funny because one of my friends I was talking to him this week and uh and he was just like it's so weird that what you talked about in the interview i had a dream like that it was exactly what you were talking about

but it wasn't a dream and it wasn't like a real thing i was like yeah my mind was real but it was funny because i think a lot of, a lot of, uh, a lot of my colleagues like kind of under understand that feeling of, even if they haven't felt it, you know? So it was just, you know, and it was so weird too, because I get such joy from wrestling and to not feel that was, was very unusual. Do you think the feeling could have been just maybe you're at peace with your

career at this point? Do you feel like you have much left to accomplish in wrestling? I don't want to say I've never. I really haven't felt like I've had a lot to accomplish for a long time. But accomplishing things was never my goal. I do it now because I enjoy doing it. You know, I think the, you know, the juxtaposition now is how much do I want to do it versus how much do I want to do what I love even more, which is spending time with my kids. You know, like the, you know, we'll have this big match on Friday. On Saturday is my daughter's birthday party. And so it's like, I'll fly home and have, you know, just be completely exhausted, whatever it is, right? And then coffee up and I hate coffee. Just so I can be like, there and present and be exactly how she wants me to be for her birthday party. Right. So like, and to me, so what's when you look at what's more important being present for your children in the best way

possible or go and i've always seen wrestling as kind of this selfish thing that i do this thing that i get like uh an incredible amount of joy from and uh and doesn't feel like i give much back so it's like i've always seen this like this this very selfish thing that seems crazy though because as a huge fan of yours for so many years, you've given so much to wrestling. And I feel like as someone that followed your whole journey, right, when you had to retire and you were the SmackDown GM, we heard that you were not enjoying that experience. Being around wrestling but not being able to wrestle was, like, depressing for you. Hearing that you're enjoying being a father even more than wrestling now makes me happy. It's like, all right, well, at least he has an avenue out now where it's like i feel like the dark knight rises where

batman gets a happy ending at the end you're like all right batman could stop fighting the rogues gallery at the end of the story and go live a happy life with catwoman yeah i i don't know that story but sorry yeah i got too nerdy on you you're talking to the wrong guy i got too nerdy on you i read another quote from you recently where you said that you were kind of trying to weasel your way into wrestling for the wwe and maybe some other companies and i feel like this is something that you've floated out there for years i remember you talking about it around wrestlemania 31 you wanted to do a hair versus mask match down in mexico is this something that you've actually like brought up to Vince? Can you expand upon that at all? Uh, yeah. So I've, I've brought it up to a lot

of people and, uh, I don't think the Mexico thing would happen, but I, uh, I also think that now is more than ever is a time when people are are open to new ideas right so it's like uh so i think i have made some headway whether it whether any of it actually happens who knows right so it's like uh it's just it's just one of those things that you know um one of the things that i think would be great, I don't think people truly understand how great a lot of the WWE superstars are, right? As far as, you know, you, because we don't necessarily put on a pure wrestling product. We put on a sports entertainment product. And so, but if all of a sudden you saw Cesaro in New japan for example like people would be like oh my god

this guy's the greatest you know yeah multiple people i think you put otis in new japan and people would be like holy cow this guy is amazing like invader from the 90s type type vibe you know what i mean people think i'm this worm guy but like but you know him being able to do and learn and work with some of those guys and you know that sort of thing it's all caps down in japan yeah yeah yeah yeah and it's just it's just a different presentation right so it's like uh so so i i think that would be cool and a very uh unique contribution to wrestling as far as like giving back to being able to like, hey, I also think it would just be good for, say, WWE and just wrestling in general. For people to say that are in the developmental system right now, for them to be able to go and learn in other places. I mean, I wouldn't be the performer that I am today if I hadn't wrestled

in Japan and not just like Japan where it's like sports stuff, but also like Butlins in the UK, where it's all comedy. And I'm out there waving an American flag, singing the national anthem, getting my pants pulled down, seeing how many times I can get hit in the groin in a match, right? That sort of thing. I think all those things uh add to your depth as a performer and then when it's time to put you in like a top position then then you can do any number of things obviously as a fan you're speaking my language I don't think there's a fan on the planet that would be opposed to this idea of WWE superstars you know popping up in other promotions around the world and like you said who knows now more than ever we just saw Chris Jericho on the broken skull sessions. Like we

don't know what's happening in wrestling nowadays as fans. None of us know. I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Um, to change topics a little bit, I want to talk about the wrestling road diaries, which is an old school documentary that you were in, um, with Colt Cabana. It's something that I've watched a hundred times as a wrestling fan. And one of my favorite aspects about it is it shows you guys giving seminars back in the day. And I know you didn't love doing that, but actually getting to see your perspective on wrestling and kind of the way you break down the psychology of things was fascinating to me. And a lesson that you tell everyone in this seminar is that cool moves don't mean anything. They'll get you claps, but they won't get a crowd behind you. And I wanted to know if Daniel Bryan

was running a seminar in 2021, what would be a main lesson you would want to get across to the next generation? Oh, gosh. I don't know. I think the main thing would be focus on the fundamentals and try to work your storytelling around fundamentals because so i feel like a lot of fundamentals then you can add i mean it doesn't take long to learn a cool move like i mean i mean i may be an exception but i don't think so like i could teach chad gable's definitely an exception but i was i, I could teach Chad Gable, like say Chad Gable sees a move and he's like, or it comes up like, Hey, I need a cool move. He's never once come up to me and said that, but say he does. So he comes up to me and says, I need a cool move.

Okay. I'll find him a cool move. And he can learn that cool move in under five minutes. Right. It's learning how and when to use the cool move right and so i think one of the things that uh that new japan has really excelled at because they put their um they put their rookies in a lot of matches where they're like they're not allowed to do anything but basics so when they do a boston crab the but

they have to learn where to put a boston crab to make a crowd care right that sort of thing and like that used to be part of the fundamentals of wrestling but i mean if i was doing but i also it's weird i also think there needs to be more mentoring in wrestling um like will Regal was a tremendous mentor for me and still is right like he'll he I had uh a match with Cesaro in the uh in the PC right in front of no people and it was so much fun and we're just grappling and all that kind of stuff and he sends me he sends me a text and he goes you know all that grappling and everything you guys were doing looked great. But because you pinned him in a way where his shoulders weren't being forced to the mat, like exposes the whole thing. And I watched it back. I was like, oh, my God, he's right. If I'm watching this with like a real in-depth thing and like that's one of the things I appreciate.

I don't want somebody to just like, oh, yeah, that was great. You know, oh, that was awesome. Or whatever. I want somebody who's going to be like, Hey, like here's something that you can do to improve. Right. And so, uh, but I, I actually think it's, I think it's hard. I don't want to say it's impossible, but I think it's very difficult for people to learn in the seminar style. I think, uh,

there needs to be more mentorships in wrestling where it's like you're really if you read sean michael's book right which uh you know i think was was ghostwritten but he still yeah um but the uh but he talks about doing these matches and say like memphis and i forget who the specific person was but you know they're just they've got they're wrestling him and they're telling him exactly what to do and then they get in a car ride and they're talking about why they're doing it and that sort of thing and that used to be a staple of wrestling and how people would learn and how people would come up I think it's gotten more more individualized recently where not a lot of that happens. And so

I think that's actually the best way for people to learn is if you can find like a good mentor and people who are willing to mentor and who want to be mentors. You know, I was blessed with William Regal in my life and my career wouldn't be the same without him, you know, without his mentorship. So I've read your book and you talked about not loving the trainer experience, but liking the one-on-one experience. If someone was really committed and you knew they were committed, you liked helping them learn. Do you see yourself maybe stepping into that role? Like a William Regal for someone else?

Yeah, I would love to. It's just, uh, I'm at a different point in my life. Like, are they going to come to where I live? Throw a ring in the backyard. Yeah. Right next to the garden. Yeah. Come, come live out in the middle of nowhere. And where there's, where there's no shows and no ring and you know, People would do it. You're Daniel Bryan, man. I was actually introduced to independent wrestling because of you. I was on wrestling message boards back in 2009.

And when you signed to the WWE initially, there was a big buzz about it. Some people saying, oh my God, this is going to be the greatest thing ever. Some people saying, oh my God, they're going to ruin my favorite wrestler. But there was just a buzz. So I said, okay, I got to check out this guy, Daniel Bryan. I didn't know there was independent wrestling like this. And the first match of yours I saw was against Nigel McGuinness at Unified that was the first match I watched and it blew me away I watched it twice over like hit the replay button right away so I want to ask you about a few independent matches

of yours that I love and have loved for years starting with that one and what you think about them today like that match with Nigel is legendary people still talk about it 15 years later. How do you look back on that? So I, it was weird. It's weird because I'm proud of the work and I'm proud of the work we put in, but I also, I also look back on it and be like, like, what were we doing? Right. In recklessness? yeah in the sense of uh and i feel like besides the one spot which is uh me pulling nigel into the post and nigel god bless in his mind he was going to get busted open by headbutting that post and he like it was like hey if it doesn't happen by the third time man we're not doing it and he's he whispered to me one more time one more time and then you see it on the video he just head

butts the post and i was just like oh my gosh and like in the moment do you are you like oh my god are you still adrenaline fired up that you're like hell yeah one more no i was i was oh my god then and uh you know and that was, uh, before Chris Nowinski's book had came out on concussions and all that kind of stuff. And so, um, or at least before I had read it. Uh, and so, you know, he had this huge knot on his head and like it bled down and to his eyes and all that kind of stuff. And like, I, i think it's a fantastic match right yeah no it is but when when you look at the long-term repercussions of it i wouldn't if if i i wouldn't show that to somebody aspiring to be a wrestler because i don't want them to think in the same way that like

uh i watched maybe one too many masawa kobashi matches before I started wrestling. Uh, like, I don't want people getting into wrestling and thinking like, Oh, this is so awesome. This is what I want to do. No, no, no, no, no. This is, this is not what you should do. Uh, but you know, but it's hard, like, it's hard to tell young people that, right. You couldn't have told me that like, like, and people did people told me like, Hey, Hey, you can't do, you can't do all these things. In 2000, 2000 I did to Brian Kendrick. I did a homicides finisher. I did that. I did that to Brian Kendrick and he landed completely safe and all that kind

of stuff. Regal came to, came, he was at the show and he came to the back. And kind of stuff regal came to came he was at the show and he came to the back and he said i don't ever want to see you do that move again and i thought he was joking at first and i laughed and he said no i'm deadly serious never do that move again i never did it again and it's just like wow it's this it's this concept of like hey yeah cool moves are cool but these are real bodies you know what i mean so it's like concept of like, Hey, yeah, cool moves are cool, but these are real bodies. You know what I mean? So it's like, you've got to, you've got to take care of yourself. Of course, moving on. I'd like to ask you about your match with Kenta glory by honor five.

This is at the Manhattan center, a legendary venue for wrestling and a legendary venue for you. Yeah. That's a, that's one of my favorite matches. And I think one of the reasons I don't know why I, I feel this way, but I love matches that are really hard on my body. Like, because it feels like a warm more. Yeah, it feels it feels it feels more. I don't know. I don't know what it is. It just feels more like, ah, yeah. And like, I legitimately separated my shoulder. I don't know what it is like three weeks before and so I can barely move my arm and all this kind of stuff and he's just kicking the crap out of it right and I just thought the the build-up so Gabe Sapolsky was the booker of Ring of Honor at the time and

the build-up that he did with Kenta where he didn't lose at all and he was just you know beating everybody into this thing really and people knew that my shoulder was messed up and people really believed that kenta was gonna win and when you have that and when you have this feeling of like people like you didn't see me lose much and you didn't see kenta lose much and it felt big to the audience and like i love that kind of stuff and then to be able to tell a story where i mean when you say tell a story it was just was legitimately kicking the crap out of my separated shoulder that yeah it's so great i mean the story of like kobashi and joe is chops but it

works you know you don't need much more than that yeah yeah so it's like uh that's that's one of my favorite matches i recently interviewed excalibur and I was talking to him about, you know, the PWG commentary style started as very comedic, and then eventually along the way, it transitioned into serious-toned commentary when it was necessary. And I asked him, when do you think that switch happened? And he referenced your match against Chris Hero

when you got signed to WWE, and everyone assumed that you were just going to lose to Chris Hero, and you actually won the PWG World Championship. This is a 43-minute match. You went out there and tore the house down. What do you remember about that one? I just remember actually the thing I remember most about it is thinking like, oh man, this might be my last time ever wrestling in front of this crowd. And that was before PW pwg was what pwg is now where you can't get tickets to pro wrestling gorilla right like it's you know um but it it was still really cool in developing this super underground fan base and i love those shows and

the idea that like hey this might be my last time wrestling here. Like that's, that's what punctuates the match more than the match itself. But I always loved wrestling Chris because Chris, like his mind for wrestling is, is, is great. And then also you don't need to call a lot with Chris. Like you don't have to like put a match together that much. You can go out there and you can just wrestle because he knows every hold that's ever happened right and every counter to every hold that's ever happened and so it's like so he and i can just go out there and like just and then get really stuck in and i like that kind of stuff it's fascinating to hear from me because you've had a lot of like longer matches

with him to think that some of that wasn't called and it was called in the ring is pretty cool there's two more pwg matches that i want to ask about and both of them have a similar style in that i don't think they went the way that most people expected the first of which is at pwg 100 and excalibur actually brought this up in our interview as a match that just took everyone by surprise in the back and it was the john jacob jingleheimer schmidt match where everyone expects oh my god kenny omega and brian danielson are about to go buttheads and it's going to be this hard-fought battle and you wind up doing the do-si-do and singing john jacob jingleheimer schmidt in the center of the ring the crowd loved

it but it's just not the match anyone expected uh so the you know one you have to think that kenny omega then is not kenny omega now right you so it's like, I think if we did that now, like if, if you book like, uh, Daniel Bryan versus Kenny Omega or Bryan Danielson versus Kenny Omega, and we gave him the John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt bit, it wouldn't fly. People wouldn't be happy. But, uh, but, but at the time he was like a little bit, you know, substantially lesser known than he is. Wrestling like seven-year-olds and stuff like that yeah yeah yeah but uh but i remember so we were at a hotel and we were like he he i don't know if he floated the idea of something or another and then we just

started riffing about like this thing and then i laughed it off like yeah yeah it's like no what if we actually do it i'm like what are you saying to me but i think that's one of the things um i have a lot of respect for kenny omega and it's not just the uh the great matches that he's put on it's also that he looks at wrestling differently than anybody else and so when i uh so like when you look at say like young bucks who would be you would think of in a similar vein you can see where the young bucks take on wrestling is it's like a takeoff of uh and a genius takeoff of these the wrestling that they loved when they were younger, right? And mimicking it, but also like evolving from that and evolving from the takes from that. That's why I think it resonates with so many people, the way that they wrestle.

Kenny, you don't, it doesn't have a previous evolution point. It's just these completely new things that have entered his head that he's daring to try right and so um so when i finally agreed to do it it was like you know i i i just remember getting to the back i don't remember anything else about the match like i don't know if the i don't know if the rest of it was good i don't know it was it was a good match i don't i don't know i don't know anything the i don't know if the rest of it was good i don't know it was it was a good match i don't i don't know i don't know anything about it i just remember the john jacob jingle hammer schmidt bit and and the crowd like because i wasn't convinced it would work i was

like do people even still know that song you know whatever it is and you know and we we did it and they went nuts for it and yeah i loved it and the final match on your independent career that i want to ask you about and this is the one match that i brought up to you once before i met you at access it was just a fan thing it was the one match that i had to bring up and you said most people that meet me here have not seen that one and it's your headlock match with cesaro at pwg and this is another one you talk about daring to try and thinking about wrestling outside the box. You guys wrestle a 10, 15 minute match where you're stuck in a headlock the entire time. And the big climax is you just getting out of this headlock. And it is one of my favorite PWG matches of all time, just based on its uniqueness.

What do you remember about that one? So I remember Claudio and I uh up in the locker room and i you know i would always as much as i could try in that specific pro wrestling gorilla venue it was hard to kind of see the matches so you have to go the locker room's upstairs you have to kind of go down and peek through the curtain and all that kind of stuff and i'm watching all these matches and they're doing all this stuff and i'm like we can't follow any of this. Like as far as just stuff goes, like we can follow it with like people seeing me as a little bit more of a star than some of the other people or whatever,

but we can't follow it from a moves perspective. And, and it was interesting when I was in developmental, actually, where I got the idea is when I was in developmental actually where I got the idea is when I was in developmental, Al snow of all people would have us in training and he only had us maybe do it like two times, like, okay, work a match where you just for five minutes, just somebody grabs a headlock and you just try to get out of the headlock.

And then he'd criticize every single one of us as far as like, right. Or whatever it is, you know what I mean? But I always thought it was kind of an interesting concept and then uh tony guria uh and this was in one of my like uh episodes of going in and being an extra for wwe tony guria he said oh you know we held a 40 uh hammerlock for 45 minutes and the crowd was going crazy or whatever it is. And I was like, huh, I wonder if that's still possible. And the idea would be is that you have to tell a story that makes people care about why I'm in a headlock. And so for people, most people haven't seen it, will never see it, whatever it is.

We wrestled before the headlock. And then I hurt my ear. And then Cesaro's so strong, he grabs a headlock to work my ear. And I can't get out because he's so strong. Now, my favorite part about this whole thing is that you can see the ebbs and flows of the fans thinking it's clever or funny. And then them being sick of it. And it would go like this. It would be like okay headlock oh god

come on get out of the headlock man oh this is so funny yeah we love wrestling okay guys that's that's enough like come on with the headlock and then like uh and then it would go like that and then finally i get out of the headlock and there's this enormous reaction of all the pros and girls uh shows that i've ever done the biggest reaction i feel like i've ever gotten was getting out of the headlock drop down o'connor roll one two three and there was a huge reaction to that and then after the reaction everybody's like oh wait that wasn't what i wanted i wanted i wanted something we wanted something more and I was like nope that's it but it was like I think it's actually one of my one of my one of my crowning achievements as an independent wrestler

I'm so glad that you love that match as much as I love that match yeah yeah yeah I uh I have a deep-seated passion for that match and it's really funny because after that match they didn't bring back claudio for like damn poor claudio all right my final question for you daniel i really appreciate all the time if you could narrow down your career to three defining matches which three matches would you choose for someone to watch and say this is daniel bryan uh gosh that, that's really hard. I think my favorite match in my WWE career is my match with Kofi at WrestleMania 35. To me, it's just so special and such a cool moment. And it's also one of the things that I love is because it's Kofi winning at the end.

So like, let's say WrestleMania 30, right? So like, my shoulder's horrible and like, or my neck and like, I've got this horrible pain down my arm. And then I know I have to get up and do media the next morning. And then everybody comes up to you and be like, oh, congratulations, congratulations and all that kind of stuff. There's a lot of responsibility to that. When I wrestled Kofi, Kofi wins. Everybody goes to Kofi. Everybody says congratulations to Kofi.

I get to have my moment with Kofi and be like, hey, man, thanks. That was awesome. And then my daughter was there and my wife was there and I get to go hug my daughter and my wife and I get to go home the next day. And Kofi is the one who has to do media and Kofi is the one who has to deal with all the people saying like, Hey man, congratulations, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I think that's, uh, that's actually, I think my favorite WWE match as, uh, you know, it's, it's hard to like narrow down things as when it comes to that kind of stuff. But, uh, I love my match with Brock Lesnar. Um, It's one you wanted for so long right yeah and i think it's just really cool because i had just been turned into a bad guy the week before

and like oh man like i finally get to wrestle brock lesnar and it's as a bad guy but one of the things that i'm very very proud of is i went out to booze got them to cheer me by the end and then when i left they still booed me which is like you know which is like the perfect to me the perfect and actually uh wrestling brock lesnar was was gave me a deep-seated appreciation for how great Brock Lesnar is, you know? Wow. So that, and you know, the other stuff, I don't know, it's hard to narrow down just like one thing. I mean, if I were to say one thing that is like means the most to me would be, they were doing this championship unification

with Randy Orton and John Cena, and it was in Seattle. And they had all the former champions out there. I was one of them. And they're doing this thing, and it's supposed to be a big buildup for John and Randy and all this kind of stuff. But the Seattle crowd just keeps chanting Daniel Bryan, Daniel Bryan. They kind of hijack the show or whatever. And that is what it is. And just a cool moment.

But what makes it super cool was that that was the last time my dad got to see me wrestle. And so I will never forget it's at, cause that was the last segment of the show. So after that happens, you know, I'm walking around the ring, giving high fives to people or whatever. And my dad, who was like a couple of rows back, comes running up to the, to the barricade and just being able to give him a big hug. And he was like, he'd never, he didn't really watch wrestling and had never seen me wrestle at that on that kind of level before. And like,

he came and people like the whole arena was just chanting his son's name. And his, he went with his boss and his boss's wife I guess is a very like uh talkative person and she goes you know this is Daniel Bryan's dad and so like will you sign this and he was like uh oh okay buddy Danielson Daniel Bryan's dad yeah it was like uh that holds just a special place in my heart but I also think if you're just looking at like my career that was one of the jumping points for me getting to experience the Wrestlemania 30 moment which I think from a fan perspective people would say

that's the biggest moment of my career or whatever and so uh so like that's that's what spurred me being like a a real main eventer as opposed to just kind of like a guy who flirted with the main events for a little while that night i remember watching raw like it was yesterday because i was the biggest daniel bryan fan in the world still am wanted you to be in that main event more than anything and every time the crowd would hijack a show i would get so happy i'd be like they're chatting for everyone else i didn't know what to do with it i didn't know what to do with it i was like am i gonna get in trouble for this is that like an awkward vibe for like those few months when the crowd is hijacking any segment that didn't feature you yeah and

especially because i'm not somebody who's like hey screw these guys i deserve this spot or whatever i know you just told me about how happy you were to lose at WrestleMania. And so it's like, you know, like, I don't want anything bad for Batista. Right. Like, I was like a great dude. Yeah. Yeah. And not only that, like, he like, I put him in a heel hook and he sold it like hell and all that kind of stuff. And so it was just like, man, I don't want anything bad for this guy. It was just like, but it was just weird because it was just like this thing, just this thing rising. And I just like, but it was just weird because it was just like this thing, just this thing rising.

And I'm like, oh my goodness. It was timing. It was poor timing for everyone else, but amazing for you and amazing for Daniel Bryan fans. Being able to follow your journey and then see you main event WrestleMania, that WrestleMania main event is my favorite wrestling match of all time.

I feel like it gives the perfect encapsulation of the whole journey leading up to that and the whole journey of your career. This has been awesome getting to talk to you. I'm looking forward to your match against Roman on Friday night. Everyone check it out on Fox at 8 p.m. Daniel Bryan, thank you very much. Yep, thank you very much. All right, like I said, that was one of the coolest moments for me personally at Barstool. Just, I mean, one of the coolest moments of my life. I'm interviewing my favorite wrestler of all time. That was amazing for me. We're actually going to end this podcast with a bonus interview

with NXT champion, Karrion Kross. This interview, if you're a YouTube subscriber, you might've seen earlier in the week, it hit YouTube first. That's going to happen sometimes. I'm going to put things on YouTube first and then it'll come to the podcast or vice versa. Sometimes guests are going to be only podcast exclusive. We're going to go back and forth to make sure that both are worth subscribing to. But first, let me tell everyone about HelloFresh, where you get fresh, pre-measured ingredients and mouthwatering seasonal recipes delivered right to your door.

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when you're done with the meal, you're not going to have a bunch of weird like spices hanging around your cabinets forever. You're going to use exactly what they give you. It's very easy to make about 20 minutes, 30 minutes. You make these meals and it looks like, and tastes like you got it from a restaurant. I love this stuff. It's even easy enough for me and Trent to make in our tiny ass apartment or tiny ass kitchen. We barely have any cooking utensils, but we make it anyway. If you go to hellofresh.com right now slash 12 Robbie and then use the promo code 12 Robbie, you'll get 12 free meals, including free shipping. That is one, two R O B B I E at hellofresh.com slash 12 Robbie. Let's get into this interview with NXT champion, Karrion Kross.

I am here with the NXT champion, Karrion Kross. Karrion, you just had an amazing match, WrestleMania weekend with Finn Balor, and it was a long journey up to this match, right? You had to relinquish the NXT title due to an injury it was a long journey back to getting that title match and you get the championship what was that like after the match was it everything you envisioned it being it was a little surreal once it was done because uh people have to understand that this was something for several months that I was waking up to every single day chasing.

So finally, when you actually capture this thing you've been chasing, it was just kind of like, I had to pinch myself. I was like, are we finally here? Are we actually here at this point? And we were. It felt very, very good. It took a few days to actually kind of settle in because every single morning I was getting up, I had one thing on my mind, which was to optimize my performance and get back to where we were. And then, you know, in a strange way, we actually surpassed where we were. So we overshot in a good way.

And it feels very good, I guess, for lack of better words. Did you feel a lot of pressure going into the match, not only because of the injury, and it's like you're a wrestler coming back from injury, it's a daunting situation in and of itself, but because Finn Balor had been on such an amazing run with NXT championship matches that you know that, no pun intended, you had to deliver in this match?

I was aware that there was pressure. I was aware that there was accountability and all that stuff. I have like a weird thing that I developed mentally, psychologically, maybe even spiritually prior to wrestling, where when I get into a fight or flight mode, and very much that day, it felt like this is, you know, a fight day. I don't allow the moment to become bigger than me. And I know that probably sounds like a cool thing to say, and maybe that's not true. Like it absolutely is the more pressure, the more accountability that I have in a certain situation or scenario. Like even on the extreme end of like, you know,

like life and death situations. Like I just, I tend to relax into the nature of what that is. For me, there's less to think about. There's less to worry about. There's less to be concerned about. There's only one task at hand and I zero in on that. And that's what I did that day. So you never have moments where you feel like nerves before a match where you're jittery or is that, does that still exist? Is it like excited, excited jitters or is it just like, Nope,

you're just calm, cool, collected right before a match? No, the jitters, I still get jitters before matches and stuff like that. But it just, for me, the more intense the situation is, the better I do. Wow. And I don't go seeking those overly intense situations in life, but I just happen to find myself in them from time to time, and I do very well. I think it has to do with, I think it probably has to do with combat sports background and stuff like that. Just kind of being under pressure, learning how to be under pressure,

learning how to be comfortable under pressure is something that I feel like is a necessity for our industry. And I really just, I really kind of lean back on that. It's weird. Like all of the nerves for me, like even when I was doing like competitive stuff uh martial arts like wrestling or grappling judo the nerves are gone the moment i made contact with people it's always like uh the last few hours before the bell rings it's like all right you know and you just need to like learn to find comfortability being uncomfortable well you guys had one of my favorite matches of the weekend. I thought it had such a great main event feel. It really felt like a main event pay-per-view match.

And I wanted to ask if you had any personal favorite matches of the weekend. We had so many wrestling shows from WWE. Two nights of WrestleMania, two nights of NXT TakeOver. Did you have any that caught your eye? Rhea Ripley winning the championship title at Mania against Asuka was probably my favorite moment of the entire weekend. I got to meet her upon being hired. Scarlett and I have, she's always been a favorite of ours. You know, we love her personally and professionally.

So to see her have that moment, especially in front of all of those people. We've been dying to get back to that. It's like, it's priceless. She had like the full experience too. She had the personalized entrance, you know, someone singing her theme. People were going crazy for that win as well. She got like such a great reaction

for actually beating Asuka and getting the title. So that's a great moment to call out. Oh, it's amazing. Like, it was awesome. I had goosebumps just thinking about it right now. I'm getting goosebumps. So that was my thing right there. That was my match for the whole week.

That's awesome. So I'd like to ask you something that I ask all of our guests, and it's what was your first memory of wrestling? The very first memory I could even recall in my life was Ultimate Warrior getting Hulk Hogan. Really? WrestleMania VI? of wrestling the very first memory i could even recall in my life was ultimate warrior really wrestlemania 6 i'm really very serious about that i just interviewed seth rollins and he had the same exact answer really same exact thing yeah that's hilarious yeah well yeah there you have it like you know i was an 85 kid uh that's when i was born and i just i remember

seeing that on my television it's literally the first memory I can recall. That was it. I became enamored at that point. I really feel like, I say this jokingly, I was pre-programmed as a mind and i just fell in love with the spectacle of the whole thing all of this energy in the building going in one direction yeah just all of it you know was it someone that introduced it to you was it a father or even a mother or a brother because for me i have an older brother that was 12 years older than me and he introduced me to wrestling so he introduced me to wrestlemania 6 right away that was like one of the first things i ever watched was it someone like that for you uh my whole father's side of the family lost wrestling so yeah pretty much when you actually get into wrestling who are your first heroes who are your first people where you're like i want to be that guy i don't know if i

well i guess i'd have to say ultimate warrior and hulk hogan yeah you know macho man was occasionally in there from time to time but you know macho man used to go like extra crazy sometimes so as a kid you're like you're rooting for him one minute and the next minute he's like you're just like you freak out you know yeah um so he was always a wild card out of the three but you know it was it was always warrior hogan and macho man for me as a kid growing up if i asked you that question right now like who do you think of modern day and you you say that's the guy that i want to be now i don't mean this in a condescending or a pretentious manner whatsoever i don't have one and the reason i don't have one is because I want to protect my own level of

personal creativity. I am like hell bent man on carving my own path with Scarlett. We love the larger than life theatrics that are involved with sports entertainment. And you know we have our favorites but we don't want to overly emulate anyone and so we're not really trying to mold ourselves after after anyone we we do callbacks to uh certain elements in the business that, that were missing in the current product prior to us being there in terms of the theatrics and stuff like that. We do that on purpose out of respect,

you know, and we just know we have our finger on the pulse of what people want to see. And we also kind of meet halfway with, well, this is what people want to see, but like what's not being done so we can cover the basis of having a product on television that has everything people are looking for. We have luchadors, we have hybrid luchadors, we have power wrestling, we have European chainers, we have strikers, we have all of that. Within that whole entire mix of those types of styles and genres, what can we produce? And we try to find our own path, so to speak. Obviously, you guys have such a calculated plan and mindset when it comes to the business. Are you guys able to turn it off when you go home? Are you guys just working and thinking about wrestling 24-7 at home? Or do you have moments where you're like, all right, for the next hour hour let's watch a movie and just turn it off man oh it goes right off it does okay good good it needs to because oh my god if you were just like constantly thinking that you know the next idea i don't know how you guys would do it we went we went through that phase and we have a really

good balancing act of how to manage personal life and professionalism. Like it's not a problem at all for either one of us. Every once in a while, an idea will kind of hit us randomly. We'll write it down and we'll get back to it at the appropriate time. Because we put so much energy, like pretty much all of it and then some, into what you guys are seeing now on Tuesdays, we know that we need to recharge. So we have our routines and sometimes our spontaneous activities that we go to to get that recharge.

So we come back fresh every week. What were the biggest breakthroughs in your career? I've watched a few interviews with you where you've talked about the journey leading up to NXT and you've said, hey, maybe some WWE fans just heard of me, but my wrestling journey has been a long time coming. You know, this isn't just starting. It didn't just start in NXT.

So what were the big moments in your career where you felt a breakthrough? Three points, four points, actually, I would say. My first match with Leon Ruff was probably the most important match of my career, the way I look at it, because that was my initial introduction to the WWE universe. And I thought that that went perfectly. You know, like first impressions are everything in life in general. Had that not gone well. I don't know if we'd even be talking right now. So that was like, that was the most pressure I've ever felt in my entire life was the first match.

Wow. My second point of breakthrough was with Tommaso Ciampa. In that match, I was able to demonstrate for the first time sort of a work rate, aside from just dive-bombing people on their head, which I love. The third point of breakthrough, I'd probably say, was with Santos Escobar in the street fight because yet that was another layer of being able to demonstrate a side of performance that people haven't seen yet. No rules is always a lot of fun. People love to see that.

That's always a spectacle, always super violent. And then I would say the match with Finn Balor. And aside from all of the obvious things that people would probably take away from that match for me I felt like I was me again and I don't mean that in a disrespectful manner to anyone I had worked with prior to that but there was just a level of organic authenticity that I was just able to like we were we were given a massive amount of time and I was just able to get myself into this and not be concerned about where my shoulder was going to be at or how my body was going to respond to hitting the canvas.

Like I feel like I'm totally back in such a way where I feel like I'm a total version of myself right now at this present time. I got that breakthrough from that match. Would you credit Finn Balor to that a little bit as well? Was he like the perfect opponent for you to return against? Absolutely. I was pleasantly surprised how much we think alike in terms of creating something together for people to feel and enjoy. For me, I'll speak for myself on this. of creating something together for people to feel and enjoy.

For me, I'll speak for myself on this, my goal is to elicit an emotional response out of an audience every time I go out there. I don't throw words to the wind. I don't just say things to say them. I am leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for people every single time you see me. Scarlet does the same thing. When you see the cards on the screen, we're telling you something.

And if you're a person who likes the devil in the details, you will be able to have something within that. There's something to play with there. We deliberately do that. We know that's not for everybody. There's a lot of casual viewers that turn on and just want to see people bang heads. And that's cool. We want them.

Give them to us. Give us everybody. But like I said before, at the beginning of the conversation, we're trying to cover all bases. You know what I mean? That's what we try to do. And that's kind of like, I guess, how I would say. You know, with Finn, I could not have asked for a better person to perform with.

So he's worked all around the world. Everywhere he's gone, championship titles have followed. And his pro wrestling IQ is off the chart. Who are your favorite opponents that you've had throughout your entire career? Well, I've got to say Finn at the top, as of right now, for sure. Tommaso Ciampa, definitely, is one of them. I better not get in trouble for this but John Moxley Dean Ambrose I have to say it

I hope he comes back one day I think he will not that I would know or nothing's been said because you know people go crazy with that but I hope he comes back one day if he does he's going to have to go through me we have unfinished business. But people I'm looking forward to in the future, there's quite a lot.

And that seems to be floating around on Twitter as of recently. Yeah. There's a lot of main roster appeal, which is also interesting, which is a good sign, I suppose, for myself. Oh, absolutely. I'm seeing everything we're doing. Yeah. If I flipped it and then said,

who have been the greatest mentors for you in your wrestling career, who have those people been? You know, this may take people as a surprise, but Disco Inferno, believe it or not, has probably been the best mentor that I've had. And the reason being is because he prepared me to understand what this business actually is before I was involved with it at the highest level. But he prepared me to understand the business model

of what this is at the highest level, which is WWE. To understand what we're really trying to achieve here, what this company would be looking for within a person, how to go after the goals that I have efficiently and effectively. He taught me more the business mechanics of how television works. And that allowed me to prepare myself to work for television before I was on television. Um, aside, aside from disco, um, I would probably definitely say the whole WWE team, uh, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Bloom, Terry Taylor,

like the whole crew that I have here, every single week I learn something new. And I thrive on that. Like even aside from sports entertainment, in general, I just like to learn things. I'm a sponge. Sometimes at my own exhaustion, I have to turn stuff off sometimes. But the people that I have here have been amazing. I mean, look at the crop of talent that the WWE performance center group has produced, right? Just in the past few years alone, it speaks for itself. It's pretty crazy. The team that they have developed down there,

just have a few more questions for you. I know you're a huge music fan. So if the WWE could license any song for you to come out to entrance wise, do you have one in your head that you think about i'm very much in love with the theme music that we have right now and i'm not being biased just because scarlet sings it but uh it's funny uh i i've had so many songs you know i'm a very big fan of uh gojira uh code orange but to me code orange is sacred to break and i would never want you know what i mean like i love all those guys um obviously a big fan of metallica dan zig is another one i've seen interviews where you talked about metallica that's what kind of why i asked i'm such a big

metallica fan myself yeah what i think would be really cool and even like some retro stuff too like uh retro uh new wave i guess is what they call it. Like gunship. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. Yeah. Health is another band that I just got into big time. If you haven't heard that album, I believe the name of the album is slaves of fear. Okay. You've got it. You're like, it is, it's, it's music that literally makes you move. You can be from anywhere on the planet any culture any race any type of society and you will hear this and

it will make you feel something i can't wait to check it out i'll check it out i promise yeah um i would love to see in a perfect world scar Scarlett being able to collaborate with a band for an interest music. That to me, if you're asking me, if we're talking about a dream situation scenario, if she could do vocals on a track with a band like that for an interest thing with WWE, that would be amazing. That would be amazing. After the pandemic is over, when concerts return, when you could go see a band that you love, who's the first band that

you want to see a perfect circle a perfect circle wow good call good shout yeah um and finally what are your goals for 2021 carrying cross nxt champion i want to surpass all expectations i want to become a household name i want to be be one of the most memorable NXT champions of all time. And that'll just be the beginning. Wow. I'm looking forward to it. NXT Tuesday nights. Now everyone makes sure you get the new night Tuesday. Don't tune in on Wednesday and nothing's going to be on. I'm carrying across. You're going to be on there.

Thank you very much for the time. I appreciate it and I'm looking forward to you having And Karrion Kross, you're going to be on there. Thank you very much for the time. I appreciate it. And I'm looking forward to you having a huge 2021. Thank you, my friend.