Whenever the name Daniel Bryan comes up in association with the word “bear”, my mind immediately goes to his since-blacklisted commentary work from the old Saturday Morning Slam show, or the early episodes of the YouTube series The JBL & Cole Show (and some fanfic I read on tumblr, but this is a family blog, so let’s stick to those other two things for now).
About a month ago, however, while DB was a guest on Michael Cole’s current YouTube interview feature, the voice of Raw brought up a different Bryan bear-related project:
Cole: I’ve been hearing all these rumors that coming soon to WWE’s Facebook page and many other platforms - we’re finally going to get the documentary that’s been two years in the making, “Daniel Bryan vs. the Bear”.
Bryan: Yeah, I mean, everybody thinks WrestleMania 30 was the biggest moment of my life, right? The biggest moment of my career, um, but the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do was wrestle a bear. That’s what... we’re gonna document the whole thing. That was my plan for WrestleMania 32. I wanted to come into Dallas stadium, and I thought that would have been the biggest match on the card - Daniel Bryan returns from his injury and goes out there an wrestles a bear. And, we documented the whole thing, so fans will get a chance to see what happens.
That was on Aug. 26th. Since then... nothing. Until last night, when the General Manager of SmackDown Live interrupted Renee Young on Talking Smack to give us an update on the project:
I want everyone to know that I have been held back. And what I mean by this is that I... we did a documentary building toward my WrestleMania 32 match that never happened. WWE refuses, absolutely REFUSES to release this documentary. It’s like those banned books that are too controversial to release. So, like everything else in my career, I’m asking the people, I’m asking you guys to DEMAND that they release this documentary. You can do that by going on Twitter and using the hashtag “ReleaseTheBear” [Daniel and Renee Young chant #ReleaseTheBear]. Or you could just say #ArnAnderson.
If you want to see @WWEDanielBryan's @WrestleMania 32 documentary, tweet #ReleaseTheBear!! #TalkingSmack pic.twitter.com/nSUK0uKxBv
— WWE Network (@WWENetwork) September 21, 2016
He would go on Twitter a short time later to try and jumpstart his latest populist uprising:
It's time for my road to WrestleMania 32 documentary be released. You can help by mentioning @WWE and using #ReleaseTheBear
— Daniel Bryan (@WWEDanielBryan) September 21, 2016
While it seems pretty clear this is a marketing ploy to generate buzz for whatever Daniel Bryan vs. the Bear turns out to be, it’s worked on me, because there are questions to which I want... no, need answers:
- Why isn’t the video being released?
- Are real bears involved?
- Is Arn Anderson involved?
- Was Bryan medically cleared to rehearse this match?
- Who was booked to go over?
- What did Vince McMahon think of the bear?
- Is Miz working on his own bear movie just so he’ll have something else to lord over his nemesis?
And probably a lot more, but I’ve already spent a not inconsiderable amount of time this morning thinking about Bryan’s bear flick.
Hopefully WWE will just #ReleaseTheBear and I can get back to living my life.
Are you gonna Tweet about it, Cagesiders?