WWE star Daniel Bryan recently did an interview with Brandon Collymore to promote that he’ll be featured in WWE 2K19’s Showcase Mode. The game mode will allow fans to play through Bryan’s WWE journey. It has been a tremendous year for Bryan.
He served as the SmackDown Live General Manager before finally getting medically cleared to return to in-ring action after several years. Bryan made his highly-anticipated return at WrestleMania 34. He and Shane McMahon defeated Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn in a Tag Team match.
Now he’s back on SmackDown Live as a weekly competitor on the show, currently feuding with The Miz. During Bryan’s conversation with Collymore, he discussed a segment on Raw that once occurred that holds a special place in his heart. That segment was the ceremony for a WWE and WWE World Heavyweight Championship unification ceremony that took place in Seattle – Bryan’s hometown.
The crowd continuously chanted Bryan’s name during the segment despite the fact that he wasn’t involved in any major way at all. He was simply one of many Superstars who came out to witness the ceremony. The fans’ love for Bryan, isn’t why he holds the moment so close to his heart, however.
It’s because that show was the final show that Bryan’s late father was able to watch him wrestle live:
“I think my favorite moment actually happened in KeyArena and it was even me wrestling,” Bryan said. “They were doing a championship ceremony with Randy Orton and John Cena where they were unifying the titles.
“It was supposed to be all about Randy Orton and John Cena but the Seattle crowd just chanted ‘Daniel Bryan’ through the whole thing. That’s super cool, but that’s not the reason why I love it most because that was the last time my dad got to see me wrestle before he died.
“So it was really cool because after that, it was the last segment on the show and afterward my dad ran up to the barricade and I got to give him a big hug and he was with his boss, right? So not only did he get to see it, but his boss got to see it and his boss’ wife was like, ‘This is Daniel Bryan’s dad!’
“My dad’s why like me so he’s like, ‘Ah stop it’ and people were walking up to him like, ‘Can we get your autograph?’ and he signed it: ‘Buddy Danielson, Daniel Bryan’s dad.’
“So he told me about it and how special it was but when I really knew it was special to him was when he told it to my sister and my sister was like, ‘Dad just talked about it for forty-five minutes about how — because he had never gotten to see me get that kind of reaction before — and I think as a father and me as a father now it’s like that holds a special place in my heart.”
H/T Wrestling Inc. for the transcriptions
