In an interview with CBS Sports, WWE Superstar Daniel Bryan spoke about how he was excited to wrestle in front of no fans at WrestleMania 36 one year ago. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On wrestling in front of no fans last year: “I cannot tell you how excited I was when we were wrestling at the Performance Center in front of no people with no added sound effects. I thought, ‘This is so cool.’ Nobody else thinks this and certainly as a viewer it’s less interesting. But for me, and I don’t know if I consider myself an artist, but what we do is art. This is a true exposé of how good you are at the art. I really enjoyed that challenge. There were a couple people who really enjoyed it. Me and Cesaro talk about it, and Drew Gulak. We talk about that, with no people, one of the positives is that you don’t have to entertain people live and can do some of the wrestling stuff better. It’s just the difference between theater and cinema, right? For someone who has been wrestling as long as I have, I love any sort of little change.”
On the return of fans this weekend: “But, yeah, I’m ready for the fans to come back. I’m ready for the instant feedback. There’s nothing like pro wrestling in front of a live crowd. It doesn’t matter if it’s 300 people or if it’s going to be 25,000 people. Obviously, bigger stadiums are cooler and you get this instant feedback to what you’re doing. Especially after coming back from my concussion stuff, it’s taken it kind of to another level, to where I’ll be in the match and sometimes get chills. I’m super excited, but I don’t want to diminish how fun it was for me to wrestle in front of no people because that’s right up my alley.”
On Roman Reigns: “When I watch the show and I watch Roman from a character standpoint and the way he has transitioned into wrestling in the ThunderDome, I was like, ‘That’s genius’. I don’t know if this translates well to a casual audience, but he has taken it and accentuated the positives of no crowd. Roman, from a character perspective, is just a different level from everybody else in this era.”
