In an interview with Zap2It, Daniel Bryan talked about his match with John Cena at Summerslam. Here are highlights:
On what led to fans embracing him at Wrestlemania 28: “It’s hard to say. I don’t know if you’ve ever read “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell. It essentially talks about how things catch on and how there’s a point, and it’s hard to tell what causes it or why it happens., but there’s just this point where something becomes really popular. Like, for example, Vans shoes. They were a very underground thing and then a couple stars started wearing them and all of a sudden everyone had Vans shoes. I remember in high school, I had Vans shoes. I didn’t skateboard, I didn’t surf, I didn’t do anything like that, but here I was wearing this skateboarding/surfing company’s shoe, right? It was just this cascade. I feel like my popularity is kind of the same thing. I shouldn’t necessarily be a popular character in a mainstream wrestling organization. But somehow those people in Miami at Wrestlemania brought it to other people’s attention and it just cascaded off of that.”
On if he ever saw himself challenging for the WWE title: When I came back at SummerSlam 2010 it was interesting, because it was the main event in a tag match. I thought ‘Wow, this is going to be huge! She sky is the limit!’ And then it wasn’t. [laughs] After that I won the United States Championship and performed on a couple pay per views in a row, but then I wasn’t in a singles match on pay per view for a year. It’s one of those things, when I’d gotten fired and then rehired and shortly after that you think ‘What can I do to get to the next level?’ A lot of the guys on the undercard are thinking ‘How do I break through and get popular with the fans? How do I break through in the management’s eyes? How do I break through and get to that next level?'”
On WWE fans wanting talent over size: “Yeah and part of that is because fans no longer accept the slow-paced wrestling matches. Most of the big guys can’t wrestle the action-packed matches. That’s what makes somebody like Big Show so incredibly special. You see him and he’s seven feet tall and between 450 and 500 pounds. Yet, when I was wrestling him I’d dropkick him in the knee and he’d flip all the way around. He’s an incredibly agile guy, and he’s been wrestling since 1995. The same goes for Kane, who goes to the top rope. If you’re a big guy and you can’t move well, you’re not going to last long in the modern WWE system.”
