Daniel Bryan and Talking Smack are perfect together. While it’ll never be the same as his epic, Tout-sponsored 2016 – 2017 run on the show with Renee Young, DB’s appearances on the rebooted show have been pretty great.
His latest visit to the SmackDown post-show had it all. Bryan continued the work he started when he was a Talking Smack guest in December, and has kept up on Friday nights and in interviews since, setting himself up for “one last run” from tomorrow’s Royal Rumble to the main event of WrestleMania 37. Here he did it by contrasting his love of pro wrestling in its purest form to Universal champion Roman Reigns more business-like, mercenary approach to the squared circle.
“There’s a couple things that you got wrong, and it has to do with motivation and what drives me. I’m not interested in glory. I’m not interested in the adulation of the fans, despite all the yes chants. Do you know what I loved? I loved when we were at the Performance Center, wrestling in front of zero people with zero noise, just wrestling. Do you know what made people love me? I don’t know if you remember the 2015 Royal Rumble? I don’t know if you remember that? I lost, very quickly. That’s the one that Roman Reigns won. It was in Philadelphia. I was in the ring for maybe 5 minutes. 5 minutes total in that Royal Rumble, but when Roman Reigns won, everybody booed. The Rock congratulated him. The Rock saying, ‘oh man, you’re the man,’ and The Rock putting Roman over, people booed.
“I have a theory as to why that is, and it’s this. I think you’re right, Roman Reigns might be the best right now. He’s performing at a whole different level than everybody else, but he doesn’t wrestle with his heart. It’s a facade, always has been. He came out there when he debuted in this company wearing a vest, a bulletproof vest so you couldn’t see his heart. I have a theory that why they connected with me, this happens every night, I put my heart out there. That happened on SmackDown, right. I’ve been wrestling for 21 years, Paul. You go out there and you’ve been out there for 30 minutes,45 minutes, a lot of guys that have been in this business as long as I have, they’d get on the apron. I get in there with a chance to fight The Miz, who I absolutely hate, and there’s no place in the world I’d rather be. So the big difference is not about who’s the best or who wants glory, it’s who’s willing to go out there and fight with heart.”
But that’s not all! We also got some of the weird Bryan – you know, the guy who wrestles bears and always had a sexual double entendre ready for Renee on the old Talking Smack. Here, my man reveals that his hip and glute-focused workouts with Chad Gable & Otis at Alpha Academy will allow him to “toss off so many men” in the Rumble, and… yeah.
Gable & Otis don’t just serve as comic foils do Daniel can serve us that Team Hell side of his personality. The also serve as back-up for the men who sit at Reigns’ table. You ready for Alpha Academy vs. The Usos on the Road to DB vs. Roman at WrestleMania 37?
Watch Bryan’s near-perfect appearance on the Jan. 30 Talking Smack and let us know what you think in the comments below