It’s good to be the heel.
For as much as fans wanted Daniel Bryan to return from retirement in any fashion, the heel version may be what WWE truly needed.
Bryan has transitioned from one of the company’s best underdog baby faces to smarmy heel with the greatest of ease.
In a new interview with Newsweek, Bryan opens up about how much he’s loving his life as a heel. The WWE Champion talked about how difficult it was turn heel than have to go out and face Lesnar on short notice.
“Yea it’s an interesting dynamic because this was my thinking going in and it worked. Get people at first, because I want to be the most hated guy in the company. I want to be more hated than Brock Lesnar. Some people want to cheer for the bad guy. I don’t want them to cheer, I want to be hated. So far I’ve had two jumpers at live events [laughs] and that’s an old school kind of mentality. You don’t want those guys to jump but you want them to hate you. You want them to pay to see you get beat. Or pay to see you get beat up or at the very least enjoy seeing you get beat up. That’s my thing.”
Bryan would add
“In the Brock Lesnar match, specifically, before we got to do much, I wanted people to see Lesnar kick my ass. But then I want them to be concerned about Brock Lesnar kicking my ass, and then I kick Brock Lesnar’s ass. And then when I lose, I still want [the fans] to be like “I wanted to see him win but you know what, I hate him. What a despicable human being this guy is” [laughs].”
During the rest of the interview Bryan talks about his title defense versus AJ Styles, his indie run as a heel, and he really dives into the science of working over a live crowd.
Fresh off of burying the Baby Boomer generation on SmackDown, it feel likes The New Daniel Bryan is just scratching the surface.
How long will WWE let Bryan continue his current run as one of the best heels on the roster?