Daniel Bryan continues to get mainstream publicity. There’s an article up on Rolling Stone’s website. Bryan was interviewed for the article and made some good points about the reason for his success. He noted that if Hulk Hogan had came around in a different era that it might not have worked. The same would apply for Stone Cold Steve Austin.
The article notes that Bryan was inspired by Dean Malenko before joining Shawn Michaels Texas Wrestling Academy in 1999. The article also mentions the incident that got him fired back in 2010 when choked Justin Roberts with his tie. At the time it was a big deal internally because they did not want to do anything reminding people of Chris Benoit (ie. choking an opponent, applying the crossface).
You can read the article by clicking here.