Yes!

by Daniel Bryan

  It would happen in the main event, in which John Cena’s opponent was to be picked by the fans whose choices were Rey Mysterio, Jack Swagger, and CM Punk. They thought Rey winning was a pretty sure thing, but when you leave things up to the fans, you never know what you’re going to get, and Punk ended up winning the vote. I’m not sure how much Punk was briefed on what was going to happen, but after all eight of us got into our ring gear early in the day, if anyone asked why we were dressed, we just told them we had to shoot some photos. We lied to everybody, including people we trusted. I even lied about it to Regal.

  While Cena and Punk were wrestling, the winner of NXT, Wade Barrett, came strolling down the ramp. Shortly thereafter, the rest of the Rookies, including myself, came through the crowd and jumped over the barricade. Punk had the Straight Edge Society with him, so we beat up his associate Luke Gallows, and Serena ran off. Punk got out of the ring, and we beat him up, too. Then all of us hopped on the apron and stared down Cena, the biggest star in WWE. We all slowly stepped into the ring, and the eight of us surrounded him. That’s when the mayhem ensued and the Nexus was born. We all beat up Cena, then got out of the ring to destroy everything in sight. We tore apart the ring, exposing the wooden beams underneath; we beat up security, we cut up the mat, we tore off the ropes, and we ripped apart the mats on the floor. We created chaos, and in the process, we even beat up ring announcer Justin Roberts, stripping off his jacket and shirt. Vince and Michael had told us directly that they wanted a “gang-style beatdown,” and that’s what we gave them.

  Keep in mind that I hadn’t been in WWE very long. I knew some of the rules, like no bleeding, and I knew it was a PG company, but I didn’t know what exactly was PG and what wasn’t. In the middle of this “gang-style beatdown,” I saw Justin Roberts lying there, no shirt on and tie still around his neck. In moments like this, I always thought violence was good for believability, so I grabbed the long end of his tie from behind and pulled it back. Hard. The cameras picked up on it right away because it was a great visual: Justin on his stomach, being choked by the tie around his neck, his face turning purple. Some people thought he was just selling goofy, but he wasn’t. I don’t trust nonwrestling people to sell very well, especially when it comes to a big, important angle, so it’s better to be a little rough, as long as you don’t hurt them. I pulled on the tie so hard it left long red marks on his neck.

  Amid the melee, somebody from the production crew came to me on the side, saying, “No choking! No choking!” I stopped and heard it just in time, because I was about to choke somebody else with one of the cable wires at ringside. When we broke the ring, Heath Slater grabbed one of the ring ropes and was about to wrap it around Cena’s neck, but John whispered, “No choking!” to him as well.

  Inside the ring, we were all given a moment to shine, with each of us hitting Cena with a signature move, mine being a simple kick to the head as he rested on his knees, execution style. Prior to this whole fiasco, Cena pulled me aside and said the most important thing isn’t the move, it’s what you do before the move. Looking back, I assume he was probably thinking of some sort of hand motion or something. Instead, I looked him dead in the eyes and screamed, “You’re not better than me.” I then spit in the face of WWE’s biggest star and kicked him in the skull.

  When we got back through the curtain, everybody thought the beat down was awesome. Then somebody shouted, “Who was choking Justin Roberts?!” They couldn’t see because the camera was focused exclusively on Justin’s purple face.

  I stepped forward and said, “Uh, that was me.”

  “And who spit on John Cena?!” they asked.

  “That was me, too,” I responded.

  Apparently choking and spitting are two of the things not allowed within the PG guidelines of WWE programming, but I had no clue. Of course, we didn’t need the choke, nor did we need the spit, but elements like that showed our disdain and added to the brutality of the whole thing. The fundamental reason our characters did all of that was that we were pissed off after being treated like jokes for an entire season of NXT, and I just did the most violent and malicious things I could think of. The parameters of PG never crossed my mind.

  I apologized to everyone and made a special point to apologize to Justin and Cena. Neither of them seemed to care, and part of me thinks Justin thought it was pretty cool. I’d known him since 2002; he loved wrestling, and I think he was happy to have had such a memorable part in the moment, despite the marks on his neck.

  The Nexus attack happened on Monday, then Tuesday we all went to SmackDown but didn’t do anything on the show. As I walked down the halls at SmackDown, I passed Michael Hayes.

  “Daniel, what did you learn last night?” he asked.

  “No choking, no spitting, “I replied.

  “That’s right. It’s OK to make mistakes as long as you learn from them,” Michael said.

  I thought I was in the clear.

  That Wednesday, WWE booked me on an FCW show down in Florida. Miz was on the show, too, and as we sat in the locker room talking about the whole thing, he reassured me not to worry about it. He said they would all forget about it by next week.

  Two days later—June 11, 2010—I got the second and last call I’ve ever received from Vince McMahon. I didn’t know it was him at first because it came from a blocked number, but as I answered, I had a sinking feeling that it wasn’t good news.

  When I picked up, I knew right away it was really Vince, and this time there was no feeling that it was a rib. He said, “You know, Daniel, I’m sorry I have to do this. I feel really bad, but we have guidelines as far as what’s PG and what’s not PG, and unfortunately, you broke those guidelines. I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to let you go.”

  As far as firings go, it was actually not too bad. It was way better than the first time I got fired when I lived in Memphis. I appreciated that he called me himself, and there wasn’t anything mean or malicious about it; it was completely different than what you would expect if you’ve seen Vince fictionally fire someone on television. He further explained that he had to do it to set an example. He didn’t want to do it. It was actually quite endearing.

  My reaction to being fired was different than even I would have expected of myself. I felt liberated, as if an enormous burden had been lifted off my shoulders. I thanked Vince for the opportunity, and after he expressed his regret one last time, I responded, “Don’t be sorry. I’ll make more money now this year than I did with you guys, so don’t be sorry for me at all.” It was a weird thing for me to say, because I’m not overly money-driven, but all I saw was opportunity. There is no better time to be fired than after a hot angle like the Nexus’s debut, especially because I essentially got fired for being too violent. And a lot of independent fans hated the sanitized version of wrestling that’s required to be PG. I knew they would see the whole thing not only as an injustice but also as proof that the only place they could see the kind of wrestling they liked was on the independents.

  I don’t know how soon after the incident Vince knew he was going to fire me. He may have been under pressure, considering the company’s many sponsors and partners who rely on WWE being PG-rated. Plus, there are all the kids watching the show. I learned that Vince didn’t tell too many people before he did it. I called John Laurinaitis after I got off the phone with Vince, just to clear up what this meant as far as me wrestling for other promotions going forward, but he didn’t answer the phone. Ten minutes later, Johnny called me back, and he was shocked by the whole thing. He told me Vince had called him about thirty minutes earlier and asked for my number (he didn’t say why) and had just then called him back to tell him that I was fired. It was a very uncommon circumstance; Laurinaitis was usually the one responsible for calling and letting talent go.

  The comment I made about the money must have really reverberated with Vince, because Johnny asked me, “Did you tell Vince you were going to make more money on the indies?” I told him I did. And it was the trut
h. There is a lot that people don’t understand about our lives as WWE wrestlers. For one, when we sign our contracts, we are guaranteed a certain amount of money, called your “downside.” With the exception of top guys, usually it’s not very much, and my contract was for substantially less than I made working on the independents. In WWE, the idea is that if you are booked most of the time, you will make far more than your downside, but since I wasn’t on many shows, I only made the minimum. It was by no means a struggle to get by, but I wasn’t saving as much money as I had hoped. Also, in WWE, the wrestlers are responsible for paying for their own hotels and rental cars, whereas on the independents, all of that was taken care of. WWE takes care of those expenses for anyone under a developmental contract who’s brought up on the road for TV. I was actually the only member of NXT not on a developmental contract, but I was lucky to be able to jump in with the other guys.

  Anyhow, Laurinaitis told me Vince said I could start working independent dates as soon as I wanted, as long as it wasn’t for television or pay-per-view. That was all I needed to hear. As soon as I got off with Johnny, I called Gabe Sapolsky, who was booking shows for both Dragon Gate USA and Evolve. When he picked up the phone, I said, “Gabe, we’re going to make a lot of money.” (As a side note, what I considered a lot of money, some people would laugh at. It’s all relative. If I showed Steve Austin how much I made during the time I was fired, he would not be impressed. My family, however, was very impressed, and so was I.)

  Gabe and I were both very excited. We discussed some ideas, and Gabe later got me hooked up with a graphic designer to quickly create a new T-shirt and launch a Web site that would basically be a vehicle to sell the shirts he was going to design. I had never been one to try to sell much merchandise when I was on the independents. I hated producing it, and I hated sitting out by a merchandise table trying to sell it. I knew, though, that if I didn’t do it, I’d miss out on the opportunity. In the span of a couple of hours, I turned into a full-blown capitalist.

  I put Gabe in charge of dealing with other promoters who wanted to book me. Given the circumstances, I could charge a lot more for appearances and bookings, but I didn’t want to haggle with promoters, so I left that to him. To start, Gabe booked me for the upcoming shows he had, then we decided to talk again the next day to figure out where to go from there.

  By the time I got off the phone with Gabe, WWE had announced my firing on WWE.com. All of a sudden, I got what felt like a million calls and text messages, including ones from Regal and Shawn Michaels. Regal, especially, gave me some great advice (yet again), which was to make sure I didn’t publicly disparage WWE. He had no doubt that if I kept my nose clean, within a year or two I’d be back, though I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be.

  In the wrestling world, my firing seemed like a big thing. At least, it was the most talked-about thing that had ever happened in my career. Within days, my schedule for the next three months was full: three shows per weekend, every weekend, for far more money than I had ever made before. For a full week, I lay low and just tried to appreciate the calm before my schedule got crazy busy.

  Ten days after I was fired, the Web site was up, and I couldn’t believe how fast the shirts were selling. It was actually quite stressful, because I decided to ship them out myself to save a little money, and the shirts weren’t going to be ready for a few days. I sold two designs: a gray one that said TEAM BRYAN on it, and a maroon shirt with my bloody face “Obamiconned,” a picture taken out of a Mexican wrestling magazine. Underneath my face, instead of saying CHANGE like Obama’s campaign poster, it said VIOLENT. It was perfect.

  My first show, two weeks after being fired, was in Detroit for a company I’d previously worked for called Chikara, itself a family-friendly company. Before I was announced for the show, they had fewer than a hundred tickets sold, and after the announcement, they ended up selling several hundred. The event was held at a swap meet, with no bathroom or shower in the dressing room, no bottled water or catering. I felt right at home. When I came to the ring, instead of throwing streamers into the ring—a Japanese custom that had been adopted by American independent wrestling fans—they all threw neckties.

  After the show, I went out to the merchandise stand to sell the shirts and 8x10s, and I was genuinely moved by the support a lot of the fans gave me. They were more pissed off than I was, seeing the whole thing as unfair and “typical WWE.” The way they cared for me warmed my heart.

  From there, I was off to the races. I had two shows back-to-back the next day in Cleveland, and the following weekend I wrestled several shows in Germany. Somewhere in there, WWE had its Fatal 4-Way pay-per-view, and I received texts from multiple people telling me the live crowd was chanting my name throughout the show, even during the main event. I didn’t care. I was already past it. I was excited to be back on the independents and elated to be back working with Gabe.

  Before I was signed by WWE in 2009, Gabe and I were talking about starting a new wrestling promotion together. We only talked about it a couple of times, but in that short window, I also came up with a name: Evolve. My concept for the whole thing was based on the idea that wrestling had, for the most part, become a parody of itself. Even in places like Ring of Honor, they kept the same tropes that had been going on in ROH for years. Same in Japan. Same in WWE. There hadn’t been much of anything brought to the table that was new to help wrestling evolve, and we were going to create something different that would, hence the name. Of course, with my signing, I never got to be a part of it when Gabe started Evolve in January 2010.

  In Evolve, the wrestling would be different, the interviews would be different, and the production would be different. Gabe sent me a DVD of the first show, and when I watched it, I felt the main event—Davey Richards against Kota Ibushi—was excellent. Now that I was no longer with WWE, Gabe and I could get back to collaborating on the project.

  But it wasn’t just Gabe and me who wanted to bring Evolve into the future. Paul Heyman was interested as well. Paul always has a lot going on, and this period was no different. TNA was in talks with him about working for them, but he would only go if he would have complete control. TNA was also interested in signing me, but I would only consider it if Paul was going; otherwise, I’d rather be on my own. The more it looked like Paul wouldn’t be going to TNA, the more he talked to Gabe and me about Evolve. Heyman is a genius, and his ideas for marketing and promotion blew my mind. We talked about it a lot, but unfortunately, it never went anywhere. We were all pulled in too many different directions.

  The first Evolve show I did was in a tiny building in Union City, New Jersey, which gave the whole experience a Fight Club atmosphere. The following night, I returned to the famed ECW Arena in Philadelphia to wrestle for Dragon Gate USA. The throwing of ties during my ring announcement had caught on everywhere, and this crowd probably threw more neckwear than anybody anywhere else. That night, I had the best match I’d have during my return to the independents, against a Japanese wrestler named Shingo Takagi. The arena was hot and humid in July, but the fans didn’t care and neither did we. Shingo and I wrestled almost thirty minutes, and the audience was loud the entire time. It was my first time back working with Gabe in a long time, and it was a blast, even if it didn’t last long.

  If I may digress, I know some fans have fond memories of Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, so here are some quick stories. I was PWG Champion for a relatively short amount of time, yet it was important in the sense that it was a regular booking that I could count on to help me get exposure. The bigger PWG shows, which had a lot of tape or DVD marketability, were important because if you had a really strong performance that people liked, they’d talk about it and you’d get more bookings. There was also Internet exposure through various videos we’d release.

  I’ve done some really wacky promos, but the “American Dolphin” one I did in PWG with Paul London, who’d previously been in WWE, got a good deal of attention and a lot of views on YouTube. Paul was taking improv comedy class
es then, so he was saying the most random stuff (such as renaming the American Dragon as a water mammal, as part of the “Hybrid Dolphins” along with him and Roderick Strong). I’d instantly start laughing whenever he’d insert one of his zany lines. In recording it, we’d gotten to the fifth or sixth take, and the limiting factor in each of those takes was how much I was laughing, because Paul is hilarious. The final product that you’ll find online is the one where I laughed the least while shooting. My laughing actually got people asking me if I was stoned when it was recorded. I certainly was not stoned, but as for the other parties involved, I have no idea. More important than that, I knew that promo really worked because after the video hit YouTube, I was doing a show in Germany and instead of fans clapping or cheering, everybody just buzzed at me—something Paul and I encouraged fans to do at the end of the clip. It shows how the Internet was changing wrestling back in 2009.

  During this period, Chikara—an independent promotion in Philadelphia—gave me one of the coolest experiences of my career up to that point: being in the ring with Johnny Saint. It was me, Claudio Castagnoli (Cesaro), and Dave Taylor against Johnny, Mike Quackenbush, and Skayde Rivera. Johnny had been wrestling for more than fifty years at the time and wasn’t competing in many matches. Even in his sixties, though, he was still awesome. He’s an incredible English wrestler who did things in the ring throughout his career that guys can’t pull off today. Lots have tried to replicate his style of technical wrestling, but they can’t. As much as you can learn a move, you can’t learn the physical fluidity that he possessed. When I first met Regal in 2000, he told me that if I was interested in technical wrestling, I had to watch Johnny Saint. I had even bought a VCR that played different formats so I could watch Saint on old British wrestling tapes. Those were the lengths I’d go to in order to learn something new, because our generation of wrestlers doesn’t always have an opportunity to wrestle veteran guys to learn from.