Daniel Bryan fala do que esperar para 2015 e quais os seus objectivos para o Smackdown

Daniel Bryan deu uma entrevista ao CraveOnline.com. Eis os highlights:

CraveOnline: NXT has garnered a lot of praise lately with a lot of independent stars landing in WWE. Do the indie guys look at you as a trailblazer who made it possible for them to succeed in WWE after great indie careers? Do they come to you for advice?

Daniel Bryan: They don’t necessarily come to me for advice. A lot of them are my friends. I’m friends with Sammy Zayn, friends with Finn Balor, I’m friends with Hideo Itami. It’s hard for me to remember. It’s weird when you meet people and they’re one name and then you go to WWE and they’re a different name. My friends were confused on what to call me when I came to WWE and I was no longer Bryan Danielson and now I’m Daniel Bryan. Like Hideo Itami, I wrestled him in Japan as Kenta and they don’t necessarily come to me for advice but we just talk. We just talk about “Hey, what do I need to do from where I’m at now to get to where I’ve been and back up to the main roster” and the steps for that sort of thing. It’s interesting because I can give people what I think but I can’t give people a road map. I don’t know how I got here myself. A lot of it is just luck [laughs]. For some reason, the fans got behind me and I don’t know exactly why that is. I wasn’t supposed to main event WrestleMania XXX but the fans were so vocal about it that the fans had no choice but to put me in the match. I’ve had a lot of lucky breaks.

There are so many good guys who I have wrestled on the independents who are down there and are now up on WWE TV. You have Seth Rollins, you have Dean Ambrose, you have Cesaro all those guys I wrestled on the independents and down in NXT, you got the Finn Balors, the Sammy Zayns, Kevin Owens, and the Hideo Itamis. You can see that these guys are different and that these guys are awesome and would make great additions to the WWE roster.

CraveOnline: You declared your intentions of winning the Royal Rumble, who would you like to face for the championship at WrestleMania?

Daniel Bryan: I want Brock Lesnar. It’s funny. Ever since I got my surgery and even before that, if somebody said “Hey, who would you want to wrestle if you were to main event at WrestleMania 31?” I’ve always said “I want to wrestle Brock Lesnar for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.” That is my dream match for WrestleMania 31 and it’s because Brock is the ultimate monster. He’s legitimately a beast and I’m the ultimate underdog. I think it would be a great story but I also, think it would probably be the most physical match you’ve seen in WWE history. We could do something special and something great. That’s the match I want and I think it’s the match the fans want to.

CraveOnline: You’ve had an epic career so far. Are there any plans for a Daniel Bryan DVD that you can speak of?

Daniel Bryan: You know what, I think there actually is. I’m actually supposed to be doing..I don’t even know if I can say this. They tell me things but they don’t tell me what I can tell you guys but what I can’t tell you guys. [Confirmed later there will be a Daniel Bryan DVD]

CraveOnline: What can the WWE Universe expect from Daniel Bryan in 2015?

Daniel Bryan: I think they can expect the best Daniel Bryan they have ever seen. I think some people may be thinking that I’ll come back and my style is going to be different because I had a neck injury and that sort of thing. My style will be different but it won’t be because of the neck injury. I think I’m going to come back better than ever and more excited than ever and I have some fun things in store for the WWE Universe so its going to be a great 2015.

Your injury might have kept you out of the ring and off most WWE programming, but the YES! Nation was able to keep up with your life outside of the ring through E! Network’s Total Divas. What has doing the show been like for you and your career?

Bryan: It’s interesting because it’s exposed me to an entirely new audience. I went from somebody who didn’t even own a television, to somebody who is now on reality television. It’s just a strange change in circumstances. It’s funny because people who watch Total Divas aren’t necessarily WWE fans, but they’re becoming WWE fans [through Total Divas].

I was in Chipotle and this mom and daughter walk up to me, and you would never peg them as being people who would watch Monday Night Raw, but they came up to me and they’re like “Oh my gosh, are you Bryan?” and that’s how I know that they’re watching me on Total Divas and not WWE. WWE fans say “Are you Daniel Bryan?” where Total Divas fans say “Oh my gosh, are you Bryan?” and I’m just like yeah. So this mother and daughter tell me, “We love Total Divas and now we occasionally watch Monday Night Raw, and we occasionally watch Smackdown and now we want to see the big events like SummerSlam and WrestleMania,” so I think its given me exposure to a lot of people who I normally wouldn’t get exposure with.

Looking past WrestleMania 31, what are your hopes and goals for 2015?

Bryan: I have a lot of hopes and goals for 2015, one of which [has a lot to do with Smackdown]. With Smackdown coming to Thursday and with me coming back, I would like to be the main guy on Smackdown and have Smackdown start beating Raw in the ratings. That’s really what I want. I’ve been very open about that with management, and told them “let me be the face of Smackdown, give me the opportunity to show what I can do and by the end of the year Smackdown will be getting just as many viewers as Raw if not more.”

Now that you mention becoming the face of Smackdown and leading the Smackdown brand on to larger ratings, if you had the chance to become the Smackdown General Manager -be it for one night or for a longer period of time- what would be the first thing on your agenda to bring back to Smackdown?

Bryan: That’s interesting. I would like to have the King of the Ring tournament on Smackdown. The King of the Ring tournament is something that the WWE used to do on a usual basis, and they’ve gotten away from it.

One, I love tournaments. Two, I think if you do the tournament exclusively on Smackdown the fans will get really excited about it and they’ll get geared up for it. Then crowning a King of the Ring champion on Smackdown, I think that would be awesome. That’s one of the many ideas I have for Smackdown in 2015.