Daniel Bryan recently spoke with the media is San Francisco to promote WWE’s WrestleMania 31. Below are highlights.
Bryan on consequences of tonight’s Ladder Match for the Intercontinental Title: “My fear in losing is getting lost in the shuffle, which happens all the time in the WWE and that is the worst place you can be in – lost in the shuffle and not having very much to do and that sort of thing. Winning, I see a huge upside in winning. When I came back, one of my goals was to win the Intercontinental championship. It is the only title I have not won since I have been in the WWE, obviously other than the Divas title, but also to make the Intercontinental championship something that can main event other shows.
“One of my friends is Shinsuke Nakamura, who wrestles for New Japan Pro Wrestling, and we used to room together. He did that with their Intercontinental championship to where at this last Tokyo show the Intercontinental championship main evented over their Heavyweight championship, which if I win the Intercontinental championship that would be my goal. I want people to be more excited to see what I am doing with the Intercontinental title than anything that is going on with the Heavyweight title.”
Bryan on health concerns in competing in a ladder match so soon after returning: “It is interesting as this entire process of me coming back has been a testing of my neck. So OK, I am going to do this, now I am going to do a little more, and push a little more. I think the WWE is concerned about how far I am going to push it. Even Shawn Michaels spoke to me yesterday and said: “You know, this ladder match, you know there are more important things than that”. But I worry about that like any time I step in the ring now as far as, how is it going to hold up? It is not really worrying, it is testing it. I have taken German suplexes on my head now since I came back and you know what? It hurt like a normal German suplex getting knocked on your head. It did not hurt any worse than that, so I am pretty confident for Sunday.”
