Credit: The Classical
Daniel Bryan recently spoke The Classical regarding wrestling’s relationship with MMA and more, here are the highlights…
On Appearing on Total Divas and Being Called a Reality Show Star: Oh my gosh, it’s so surreal. If you would have asked probably anybody in my high school who was the least likely person in our graduating class to be on a reality show , I probably wouldn’t have [been] the top as far as the least likely, but I would be up there in the top 10 percent, you know what I mean? [Laughs] Even my friends from the independents: ‘Hey, will Bryan ever be on a reality show?’ ‘No, he has no interest .’ It’s just very surreal. [The cameras are] not following me around, they’re following Brie around, so it’s not exactly the same thing. But [considering] just that I’m in it, my friends and family are like, ‘This is crazy.’ [Laughs]
On His Relationship With Brie Bella: We very rarely get time off, so for us, it’s mostly just recovering from wrestling. A lot of times , I’ll leave on Friday and I don’t get home ’til Wednesday, so then I have the rest of Wednesday, which I’m exhausted [for], and then Thursday, [for] which I spend a lot of the day packing for the weekend. We don’t go on a lot of dates per se. Our lives are relatively boring in comparison to what you would think. But when we do get some time off, like for Valentine’s Day [2013], we had like four days off, and we went to Sedona, Arizona, which is like a little piece of Heaven. We did some stargazing. We went hiking. We went on this guided spiritual tour thing. It was so much fun. It was beautiful. It was out in the mountains and all that kind of stuff. That’s kind of the thing that we’re into.
On Wrestling’s Relationship With MMA: Well, originally, pro wrestling made a significant contribution to MMA. If you look at a lot of the early mixed martial arts fights, [they] involve Gene LeBell, and Antonio Inoki against Muhammad Ali, and stuff like that, so there’s a history there. [In] Japan, pro wrestling came before MMA and it was almost seen as the same thing. Pro wrestlers were seen as the toughest fighters, and then the pro wrestlers got into MMA. Obviously, if you’re doing pro wrestling full-time as opposed to going against somebody who’s fighting full-time, the guy who’s fighting full-time is going to have an advantage clearly, but [it’s about] that sort of thing. A lot of us have been fans, and so much of it transfers over. A lot of what we do is an entertainment version of MMA. That’s why there’s so much of it. A lot of us [wrestlers] have histories of training. For me, the “Yes!” Lock or “No!” Lock or LeBell Lock or whatever you want to call it is a legit submission, and it’s a move that I get all the time when I’m grappling ‘cause I’m a fan of the omoplata. [Wrestling] just has so many great crossover characteristics to sports, so it’s pre-made.
