WWE Champion Daniel Bryan spoke to Newsweek to promote Sunday’s match with AJ Styles at the WWE Royal Rumble pay-per-view. Among other things, he talked about his match with Brock Lesnar, wanting to be hated more than Brock.
Bryan faced Brock Lesnar last year at Survivor Series, which is a match he wanted to do the match for a long time. He said he was satisfied coming out of the match. Bryan was then asked how the match would be different if he was a babyface.
“It would have to have been a different match. One of the challenges with that match, specifically, from a creativity standpoint is ‘ok I just turned into a bad guy maybe 5 or 6 days ago, I can’t go out there and be a good guy. Otherwise it’s an ineffective turn.’ So how do I go out there and make people want to see me beat Brock Lesnar but at the end of it still have them hate me? And I feel we accomplished that very well [laughs]. It’s funny too, because a lot of people give Lesnar a lot of crap especially from wrestling fans. But man, what an incredible performer that guy is. I’ve been wanting to do the Brock Lesnar match for a long time and I was very satisfied.”
The interviewer pointed out how Bryan was always getting cheered by fans in his match against Lesnar, no matter how many Heel-like acts Bryan did. Bryan said that the dynamic worked well in the end and then said he wanted to be the most-hated superstar in WWE, far more than Brock Lesnar.
“Yea it’s an interesting dynamic because this was my thinking going in and it worked. Get people at first, because I want to be the most hated guy in the company. I want to be more hated than Brock Lesnar,” Bryan revealed. “Some people want to cheer for the bad guy. I don’t want them to cheer, I want to be hated. So far I’ve had two jumpers at live events [laughs] and that’s an old school kind of mentality. You don’t want those guys to jump but you want them to hate you. You want them to pay to see you get beat. Or pay to see you get beat up or at the very least enjoy seeing you get beat up. That’s my thing. In the Brock Lesnar match, specifically, before we got to do much, I wanted people to see Lesnar kick my ass. But then I want them to be concerned about Brock Lesnar kicking my ass, and then I kick Brock Lesnar’s ass. And then when I lose, I still want [the fans] to be like “I wanted to see him win but you know what, I hate him. What a despicable human being this guy is” [laughs].
“So it’s a challenge. I look at professional wrestling as a martial art, almost. But if you’re looking at martial arts, MMA is the most martial aspect of it, professional wrestling is the most artistic aspect of it. And so this is my performance art. When I do other martial arts I do them to be better at my performance art. Creating those kind of narratives is something I think about a lot. People think of wrestling they don’t see it as a performance art or something that is very nuance or have that kind of depth to it. It doesn’t have to, but I don’t mind having that depth.”
“One of the things I think of when I think of professional wrestling is music. I’m thinking more classical music. If you’re in the ring and you’re listening to classical music, and this is an imperfect example, but it would be like “boom… boom… boom…boom boom boom boom.” So you get used to the “boom….boom….boom” part so when you get the “boom boom boom boom” part you say “oh that’s different.” And then you throw in variations on that, and you throw in the horns [makes horn noises] and that sort of thing. [I want to ] add those sorts of things to the art of professional wrestling in a way that even people who are watching aren’t’ thinking of. I do it because it isn’t “I want the critics to be like this!” this is something that I do because I love doing it and I appreciate the small nuances of that. And selfish as it is, I’m not doing it for anyone else but myself [laughs].”
Make sure to follow us on Twitter @BodySlamNet and on Instagram @BodySlamDotNet
Also, check us out on Facebook and give us a like and share by clicking HERE
