WWE News: WWE Chairman Vince McMahon Changing Up Daniel Bryan’s In-Ring Style?
WWE Superstar Daniel Bryan has not competed in a WWE ring in over 8 months now, but on WWE SmackDown he faced his rival Kane. The match was said to be great until a scuffle broke out involving other guys. The match resulted in a six-man tag match later that night involving Bryan and we’ll get to experience it this Thursday on SmackDown’s new night at 8/7c.
Bryan obviously had a really interesting, hard-hitting style. Coming from the Indys, he was never truly taught how to make a style up that would be safe for the body on a regular basis. So he had to do a lot of trial and error. Even in WWE, Bryan was considered safe to work with but risked his body far more than he should have.
This resulted in Bryan having a neck issue which had to be fixed. Even more issues came from that and it kept him out far longer than WWE wanted. So when he came back from his injury, it was speculated that his in-ring style would change up a bit. It appears like that is the case now, as WWE Chairman Vince McMahon himself made the call to do it. However, Bryan doesn’t feel that it’s much of a change by rather an evolution in his style.
Daniel Bryan spoke with Alternative Nation about this among other things.
“I will(change the style), but not necessarily because of my injury. It’s something where your style has to constantly evolve. I like to look at wrestling as the most artsy of all the martial arts. It’s a very creative process, what we’re doing is artistic creative combat. So as such, it needs to evolve. Being able to sit at home for the last 8 months and watch the product, and I see things where there’s too much of this, or there’s not enough this, and here’s what I can bring to the table that’s different, and more exciting for the fans. So yes, my style will be changing. Will it be any easier on my neck? I have no idea (laughs). Yeah, my style will be changing, but it’s not necessarily going to be physically easier.”
Bryan then went on to speak about Vince’s comments about the current crop of talent lacking ambition.
“You know it’s funny, because one of the things that he had mentioned was, he said something about the Millennials not having any ambition, right. It’s funny, because the WWE does this personality test with some of their more successful superstars, where they rank you on all of these scores, like your desire for power, and your personality, and all that kind of stuff. One of the things they ranked was ambition, and it’s funny, because in this personality assessment, I got the lowest score for ambition that the lady had ever seen. So they do it on a percentile basis, so from 0 to 100, I was in the bottom 1 percentile of ambition.
It’s funny because the lady was like, ‘How on earth are you so successful given that you seem to have no ambition?’ I said, ‘Well, that’s where there’s a flaw on the test. I have no ambition for what society says is important as far as things like money, and all that kind of stuff.’ What I am ambitious about is I want to be the best wrestler that I can possibly be, and I think there’s some sort of mistake in generations, as far as what he thinks as far as our generation lacking ambition. Our generation just wants different things than what his generation wants, and I think that’s a societal thing as well.”
At the end of the day, Daniel Bryan had some interesting points involving his style and ambition. Many feel Vince is out of touch with what is going on today and Bryan pretty much said that without actually saying it. However, when it comes to safety he does value that for all talent. Many know that he would not ask any WWE Superstar or Diva to do anything he wouldn’t be willing to do himself.
We’ve see he and Shane McMahon do things that no one in their position should have done, but they did anyway. It was the love of the product, which Vince still has. Bryan does things he shouldn’t be doing, so in his evolution of style, he will probably work safer. While again, he is safe to work with, he is not technically safe with his own body. That has to change.
Should Bryan change his style completely? Probably not. He should, however, work safer so he can be around longer. WWE officials still doubt how long Bryan can last. He is popular and due to the fact that he can draw for events, he does have a job with WWE as long as he can work. Yet the question is, how long can he last? A year, 10 years?
Time will tell how long Bryan can last in WWE. Many want it to be a long time, so maybe the style change will end up adding time to his career where there won’t be a question about his health anymore.
[IMG Credits: WWE.com, Sports Keeda, Fansided]