WWE SmackDown General Manager Daniel Bryan recently spoke with The Philly Voice about various topics. Bryan just like AJ Styles made his name known outside of WWE. Bryan explained that he didn’t even know Styles had signed with the company until he showed up at the 2016 Royal Rumble PPV.
“I didn’t know he was signed until he kind of showed up. I heard rumors or whatever. So there wasn’t that kind of like, ‘OK, they officially announced they’ve signed AJ Styles. Oh, no. What are they gonna change his name to?’ Whatever, you know. There was never that period. He’s so adaptable. He’s done short TV matches in TNA. And he’s done long matches. I know in WWE that he’s got the kind of style and kind of personality where I knew he was gonna do well. It was just a matter of how long it was going to take him before people within the company started to see how good he is. It was relatively quick.”
Bryan had to retire from pro wrestling as an active wrestler earlier this year due to concussions. WWE brought Bryan back in July as the GM of SmackDown Live. Bryan explained that there are pluses and minuses to being back on TV.
“It has its pluses and minuses. I love being around it. I love that part of it. I love being around my friends. I’ve grown up wrestling, right? I started when I was 18. So my friends are wrestlers. Which is how it works. I still have friends that I grew up with, but those friends are people that you see a couple times a year as opposed to these people that you see 200 days a year. So, yeah, it’s good to be around my friends. I like getting out in front of a live crowd and that sort of things. Sometimes when a crowd reacts too good, then now I just want to wrestle. So, yeah, it’s got its plusses and minuses, but it’s been really fun being back.”
Bryan has a big role on WWE TV as the GM of SmackDown Live. Bryan was asked about the brand extension and SmackDown competing with RAW.
“So we try, especially with the brand extension and especially with SmackDown, because it’s always been taking a second, like ‘Oh, it’s SmackDown… Raw is our flagship show, what’s gonna happen on SmackDown? Meh, we’ll see when we get there’ for the last several years. Now we’re really trying to change that perception. Still, I feel like those of us that are responsible for SmackDown, we still got less guys. Raw got three picks for every two picks we got. As far as a lot of the “up and comers,” for example like Sami Zayns or whatever, you know, we didn’t get a lot of those guys. But we’re very happy with the crew that we got. To me, the most important thing in wrestling is making the most use of the people you have. Look at the Philadelphia wrestling scene in the ‘90s with ECW. How good were those guys? Meh… they weren’t that good. But Paul Heyman saw, ‘OK, what makes this person really good? What part of this person can I really accentuate to make people care, and what are the negatives that I need to downplay? Right? Sandman – not a great wrestler. But, [he was] captivating when he would come through the crowd with the cane and all that kind of stuff. The presentation and everything. So, with SmackDown, we’re really trying to put our best foot forward with every guy that we have, because we have a lot of guys who have been on TV for a long time. When you have people like Dolph Ziggler and Miz, and you have those kinds of guys – we were talking about this with guys like Zack Ryder. Zack Ryder has been on WWE TV longer than Hulk Hogan in his initial WWE run. Hulk Hogan came in 1984 and was gone by ’93. Ryder has been in WWE over 10 years. So, when you think of that – and it’s not like he’s been a main event guy – he has this kind of stereotype that he’s in this position, what do we do to try to elevate him? What do we do to try to elevate Dolph Ziggler? What do we do to try to elevate Miz? [We have] all these different types of people. But we also have John Cena, who’s only here sometimes. So we really try to think, ‘What are the strengths of these people and how do we push them forward?’”
Bryan also talked about NXT and more. You can read the entire interview here.
