by Daniel Bryan
Not only that, but most importantly, the crowd’s reaction changed the direction WWE was headed. They really had no plan for what they were going to do with me, and they were going to put Sheamus in a story with Alberto Del Rio. But WWE couldn’t ignore the people, and they extended my story with Sheamus for another month, keeping me in the main event picture.
I had a great time working with Sheamus. We did the two-week European tour shortly after WrestleMania, and we main-evented every show. The crowd reactions were a trip. Some nights they’d be intensely behind Sheamus; other nights the crowds were more like the one at Raw after ’Mania and were firmly behind me. Either way, we had great matches every night, and every night we did something different based on the audience’s response.
That month, we did another World Heavyweight Championship match at the Extreme Rules pay-per-view, and we were given the time that we thought we should have had at WrestleMania. It was a two-out-of-three-falls match in front of a hot Chicago crowd, and though it was overshadowed by the excellent Brock Lesnar–John Cena main event, it’s still one of my favorite matches in WWE.
After the Sheamus story played out, I wasn’t sure what was next. I was in a weird position where I was a very popular bad guy. The fans kept cheering for me and chanting “Yes!” which made it a challenge for whichever good guy I was wrestling. That’s why when WWE moved me into a story with CM Punk, I thought it was perfect.
I first met Punk in 2002 at a sixteen-man tournament called the Jersey J Cup. I’d heard about him and Colt Cabana because the two of them were tearing up the Midwest independent scene, but had yet to meet either of them. At the show, we exchanged a passing hello, but there were several different locker rooms, and Punk was changing in a different one than I was, so we never really got a chance to chat. All of a sudden, after his second-round match with Reckless Youth, I saw both Punk and Cabana rushing out of the building in the middle of the show. It turned out that Punk had fractured his skull during the match and had to head to the hospital immediately. Fractured skulls, kids: That’s one of the many reasons you don’t try this stuff at home.
Punk later became a very important part of Ring of Honor, too. The company was in the doldrums after a scandal in 2004 involving owner Rob Feinstein, but a three-match rivalry between Punk and Samoa Joe that created great DVD sales almost single-handedly lifted ROH out of its funk. Punk and I did a lot of the same shows, but for some reason we didn’t wrestle very much on the independents, though when we did, it was fun. We once wrestled for Full Impact Pro in Florida for nearly forty-five minutes in front of fewer than thirty people. That’s why it was all the more special when we got to face each other several times on pay-per-view for the WWE Championship.
CM Punk wasn’t just the perfect opponent because we’d known each other for so long. The hardcore fans sometimes turn against people they perceive to be pushed too hard by WWE, like what happened with Sheamus after WrestleMania. But Punk wasn’t one of WWE’s chosen ones. He had climbed his way to the top by consistently being the most entertaining person on the show with both his wrestling and his interviews. The same type of fans who were cheering for me liked cheering for him even more. When you’re trying to be a bad guy, you absolutely need that.
At the time, Punk was in a strange position as well. Most of the top bad guys on the show were positioned to face John Cena, like Brock Lesnar was. Then, after John beat them, somewhere down the line, they’d wrestle Punk after they’d already lost momentum. Even though I’d lost to Sheamus, I was getting stronger and stronger reactions from the crowd and seemed to be coming in on an upswing, so I was a good fit and even better opponent for Punk at the time. WWE was comfortable putting us in championship matches on the pay-per-views but didn’t think we could carry the main event position. Our first title match, for example, was at Over the Limit 2012; we had a great match, but the show was main-evented by John Cena versus John Laurinaitis.
We were, however, entrusted with being the main event at nontelevised live events—the first of which actually turned into a disaster. Prior to the match, I addressed the crowd and did my best to get them to boo me, but my promo just ended up getting goofy. Punk did a goofy bit after that, and though none of it was bad, our main event match was a street fight. We made the mistake of taking comedy too far, and it was impossible for people to get into the violence of this match. Unfortunately, we were never able to get them back. Afterward, John Cena asked me what I thought of my match with Punk, and I admitted we didn’t get the reaction we needed. He responded, “That’s right. That was not a main event.” And he was a hundred percent correct. The crowd came to be entertained, and they enjoyed some of the comedic elements, but it took them away from the purpose of the match. I’ve always been confident in my ability to regain control of matches when they seem to be flying off the handle, but I’d let it go too far, and that was not a good thing, especially as a relatively new main event player.
Because our match was so bad, the next evening, Punk and I moved to the spot before intermission and Cena’s match slid into the main event instead. Punk was furious. He knew we didn’t have a good match, but also knew we could fix it. He fought for us to be in the main event, and he got it. We didn’t do any goofing around that night and focused exclusively on tearing down the house, and we did. From then on, he and I were in the main event at the live events.
My last match with Punk was a no-disqualification WWE Championship match at the Money in the Bank 2012 pay-per-view event. We had what I thought was a really good match, but that’s not what I remember most about it. When I found out about how short my WrestleMania match was going to be a few months earlier, I anticipated a need to change my character. I wanted to become unhinged by the loss and move toward a more crazy, militant, revolutionary type—like a crazy Che Guevara thing. So I talked to my friend Jill Thompson, a comic artist, and she created this awesome gear that would match this mentality. It included a new logo with a “DB” placed within an anarchy symbol and ripped into the back of a green military jacket. Maroon paint came out of those rips and out of torn kickpads, creating an image of the gear bleeding. I loved it, but since the crowd changed everything, it never felt like the right moment to bust out the new gear. I thought a no-disqualification match might be the right moment.
I knew people within WWE wouldn’t like the gear. It was too much of a departure from what I’d been wearing before. So I hid the jacket all day and wore shorts over my trunks until right before I went out. (Keep in mind, this is about as rebellious as I get, wearing unapproved gear.) I passed through the curtain into the arena, and when I got to the ring, referee Chad Patton leaned in and told me to take the jacket off. I wasn’t quite sure I heard him correctly, so I asked, “What?” Chad told me Vince himself had directed him to tell me, “Take that jacket off!” I did as I was told. Afterward, I felt bad because our producer Dean Malenko was the one who really got yelled at for the whole thing, and he didn’t even know about it. And, unfortunately, I’ve never been able to wear the gear since.
Bryan’s sole night in the “bleeding” logo ring jacket, 2012
That was the last televised match I ever had against Punk. You can never say never, but I suspect I’ll never get to wrestle him again. For some reason, I always thought that the two of us would someday have a WrestleMania match against each other, and it would be a modern version of the Bret Hart–Shawn Michaels ’Mania match that I loved when I was in high school. Some things just aren’t meant to be.
Around the time the “Yes!” chants really started taking off, Bri and I decided to move in together, which stemmed from Bri and Nicole departing WWE in April of 2012. Their contracts were expiring, and they became frustrated when the writers told them they had run out of story ideas for twins. Bri and Nicole wanted to wrestle and be in good stories, not just be eye candy. I encouraged Bri to do what she needed to do to make her happy, but her leaving WWE put our relationship in a bit of a pickle. Since she was living in New York City and
I was living in Las Vegas, we either had to accept that we would barely see each other, in which case our relationship would slowly dissipate, or we could take the next step and move in together. We, obviously, chose the latter and moved to Mission Bay in San Diego in a little apartment a couple of blocks away from the beach.
Initially it was very hard on me not seeing Bri on the road. I had gotten used to her being there with me in hotels and on long drives. She always makes a point to go to fun restaurants and do touristy stuff when she has a chance—stuff that makes life on the road a little bit more enjoyable. It was hard to convince the guys to do that kind of thing, and eventually I gave up.
That said, coming home to Bri in San Diego was wonderful. She’s a bit obsessive when it comes to cleanliness, so our place was always spotless. She’s a great cook, so there was always good, healthy food when I came home. With her doing all the housework, my days off became a true joy; we’d ride bikes together on the beach, go to the farmers’ markets, and really, truly relax. You need that when you’re on the road as much as we are. Most importantly, it allowed us to spend more time together in a nonwork environment, which made our relationship healthier.
19
“HELL” OF FAME
SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 2014—7:34 P.M.
Couples congregate backstage at a small cloaked booth with pictures plastered all over its exterior. A special WrestleMania photo booth gives all Hall of Fame guests the chance to snap four quick pics to commemorate this night to remember and bring home something for the front of their fridges. “Braniel” keeps the mood light with peace sign poses (Brie) and feigned mean mugs (Bryan), then takes the opportunity for a sweet lip connection. The couple collects their print, then gets prompted to the lineup for their arena entrance. But first, a certain seven-footer seeks his own photo-taking fun with his enemy-turned-tag-team-partner-turned-enemy. Unmasked and thus channeling a good deal less of his “Big Red Monster” side, Kane cuddles up with Bryan in a seat too small for the Superstars. The unlikely allies and real-life buddies pose for posterity—which just happens to be the foundation of their friendship.
After falling out of the WWE Title picture when my story with Punk was over, I was concerned about what was next. In an effort to be more of a bad guy, I stopped saying “Yes!” and told the fans to stop saying it as well. Of course they didn’t, so I started saying “No!” when the fans would say “Yes!” and I pretended the whole thing drove me crazy.
My music would hit, everyone would start “Yes!”-ing, and I would run out and make giant motions with my hands, screaming “No!” It was a lot of fun, actually, and a big part of the fun was getting in screaming matches with fans at ringside, where we’d be going back and forth with the “Yes!” and the “No!” These bursts of anger changed my character entirely and made me more entertaining, something I needed since I was no longer in the main event scene.
I soon found out that the plan for SummerSlam 2012 was for me to do a match with celebrity Charlie Sheen. He was going through a very public mental breakdown at the time, and somehow WWE brokered a deal for him to perform against me. He taped a couple of videos for Raw insulting me, and even though it was a goofy match to be in, it would have put me in one of the top matches at SummerSlam. Unfortunately, whoever brokered the Sheen deal never got him to sign any sort of contract to do the event, and in typical Charlie Sheen fashion, he bailed. What came about as a result ended up being the most fun period of time I’ve had with WWE.
During my story with Punk, WWE interjected veteran monster Kane, and we ended up doing a triple-threat match for the title in June at No Way Out; we ran the same triple-threat match on live events for a month or two afterward as well. This made Kane an easy person to start a story with on short notice heading into SummerSlam, where I faced and beat him with a small package. At the time, I was doing my damnedest to become “Mr. Small Package”—a moniker I coined on the independents after claiming to have the “inescapable small package”—but it never caught on in WWE. Still, I used my flash win over Kane to get him more and more aggravated with me.
More important than our match at SummerSlam was a series of vignettes—filmed before SummerSlam, though they aired several weeks after the event—involving the two of us taking “anger management” classes, which was maybe not so ironically the name of Charlie Sheen’s television sitcom. We spent all day doing the shoot, and as we were filming the segments, I thought they would be rotten.
It was the first time I had done something with WWE that was filmed movie-style, where we shot the scene a few sentences at a time from a ton of different angles. Kane and I drew “anger collages,” did a “trust fall,” and essentially mimicked all the stereotypes you would think of about an anger management class. Although we thought they were awful when we filmed them, after they were put together, they turned out really well, and the fans liked them. Part of it was the entertaining dynamic between me, outrageously crazy and angry, and Kane, in his mask playing the more lucid, straightforward one. The funniest bit to me was Kane dryly recounting all the horrible things his character had done in the past, like electrocuting a man’s testicles.
What also made the series work was “Dr. Shelby,” an acting/drama teacher who played our therapist and was amazing in the role. He started off the vignettes as a therapist with infinite patience who saw the good side in everything, but just when Kane and I looked to have a “breakthrough,” we instead started fighting, causing Dr. Shelby to lose it and throw the best fit ever. He was only supposed to be a one-time character, but he was so good that WWE kept bringing him back to shoot stuff with us on Raw. The only reason we eventually stopped using him was because he had a limited number of days off he could use as a teacher.
The vignettes turned Kane and me into a comedy duo of sorts. After they aired over the span of several weeks, the two of us were put in one of the weirdest segments I’ve ever been a part of. Occasionally on Raw, WWE gives the fans the power to vote on what they want to see. Usually it’s choosing somebody’s opponent or tag team partner, but in our case it was entirely different. The fans got to choose whether Kane and I would A) wrestle each other, B) team up together, or C) hug it out. As I walked to the ring, I didn’t know which one the fans had voted for, so I had to prepare for each. Resoundingly, the fans voted for us to hug it out.
I was a little worried about that one option because we had a ten-minute segment to fill. How on earth were we going to fill a ten-minute segment hugging each other? I’m not quite sure how we did it, but not only did we fill the time, we went three minutes over. We stood there in the middle of the ring and made several attempts to hug each other. We just couldn’t quite do it. The fans live in Chicago loved it and chanted, “Hug it out! Hug it out!” It was crazy. We were two grown men trying to hug each other not only in front of a packed arena but in front of millions of people on TV; one of us was in a full spandex leotard with a mask, and the other was in trunks as small as underwear and a T-shirt. When we finally did hug, the place went nuts. Of course we then started fighting—because, after all, it is pro wrestling—but when we walked back through the curtain, Vince was thrilled with it. Despite being worried the whole thing would bomb, I loved the segment, too. The “Hug it out!” chants followed us the entire time Kane and I teamed together.
WWE decided to do another fan vote to choose our name as a tag team, which is one time I wish they wouldn’t have left a decision in the hands of the fans. The live interactive fan polls are, by nature, unpredictable. You can guess what the fans are going to want, but often you guess wrong. A good example of that was the night of the Nexus attack: They used an online poll to see who would wrestle John Cena, with the options being Rey Mysterio, Jack Swagger, and CM Punk. They thought it would be Rey because of his popularity, but the fans actually voted for Punk. As a performer, given you don’t know about the results until the last minute, it can make things very challenging.
Kane and I didn’t want a fan poll to determine our team na
me. We really liked the name Team Friendship and had already come up with a few ideas for awesome T-shirts, which included cartoon drawings of each of us with clouds and rainbows. I’m sure it would have been a real winner, but we never got to find out. In a poll between Team Friendship, Team Teamwork (a name I actually used on the independents when I teamed with Austin Aries and suggested as a throwaway option here, knowing fans wouldn’t vote for it), and Team Hell No, the WWE Universe picked Team Hell No as the winner with 59 percent of the vote. I get why fans voted for it; Kane was supposedly a demon from hell, and I said “No!” a lot, so it would seem like a good fit. But from a merchandising perspective, we were a kid-friendly team, and very few parents will allow their kids to wear shirts that say “hell” on them. Sure enough, though we were a popular team, our shirts never sold as well as they should have, and I blame it on the name. Plus, how fun is “Team Friendship”?
Shortly after we started teaming, Kane and I won the WWE Tag Team Championship from R-Truth (whom I’ve known since he was thirty years old) and Kofi Kingston. At first we were just a comedy team who would argue a lot, and the idea was to break us up and have us feud shortly thereafter. Instead, since we clicked so well, we ended up teaming up for the next nine months. During that time I got to know Kane a lot better, but it was a slow process. Kane’s real name is Glenn, and I’ll refer to him as such from now on, because calling him Kane now feels really weird. Glenn is someone who is almost universally respected in the locker room. He debuted as the Undertaker’s evil younger brother Kane in 1997, though he wrestled previously in WWE as the “fake” Diesel doppelganger of the original character portrayed by Kevin Nash, and Isaac Yankem even before that. I graduated from high school in 1999, so it was my junior year when Kane first appeared in WWE, and a veteran like Glenn could be intimidating to young new guys coming in, like me. He’s also relatively quiet except with his closer friends, so I didn’t get to know him very well until we started working together. Once we did, though, I was able to see a whole different side to him.