WWE Champion Daniel Bryan has reinvented himself as a Superstar and a large part of that is due to the decision made by WWE officials to turn him heel.
After being out of in-ring action for two years, he made his long-awaited return to the ring this past April when he teamed up with Shane McMahon and battle Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens in a tag team match at WrestleMania 34. This match saw Bryan and McMahon come out with the victory. Despite this return, after a few months, he cooled off until this heel turn.
While doing an interview with State Of Combat podcast with Brian Campbell, he opened up on this decision.
“I get there the day of, things are happening, and it’s a day-of decision. After that, it’s like, wow, I get a completely clean slate to do whatever I want now. Not whatever I want now — I have to get the company to agree to it [laughing] — but this is my opportunity,” he said. “I had re-envisioned and reimagined the way that I wanted to wrestle and all that kind of stuff; as I age, I really reimagined the way I wanted to wrestle, characters I wanted to be, stories I wanted to tell and that kind of stuff. This is my opportunity to do all of that.”
“A lot of the things the character Daniel Bryan says are a lot of things I think — not about other people but actually about myself,” Bryan admitted. “It’s using that mindset to tell people they’re the problem while fully knowing I’m also the problem.”