On a recent edition of The Steve Austin Show (transcript credit wrestlinginc.com), Steve Austin spoke about Daniel Bryan’s retirement. Here are the highlights…
On Daniel Bryan Retiring: “Just a big shout out to a hell of a body of work that he leaves behind and I’m sure we’ll see him in the [WWE] Hall of Fame, but it was a very emotional night and I dare say, I will say, I had a tear in my eye watching that kid say goodbye.” Austin added, “every time he went out there, the kid was knocking it out of the park, doing world class work. He could work any style of wrestling.”
On What Made Bryan so Special: “From what I’ve seen out of him, it’s just bad ass work. He tells a great story, sells his ass off, makes everything look good, goes through great sequences, great psychology, sells his ass off. He’s the real deal and I could see, just being in the shoes that I was in, I was never the chosen one, man. When I rolled into WWE or when Eric Bischoff fired me, I was kind of a good hand in the ring, a good mechanic with this long straggly blond hair and ‘this kid’s not going to be a star’. Finally, I get an opportunity in WWE, but when I showed up there, man, it was the land of giants. A lot of the big men were still there and I had to have that conversation with Vince [McMahon], ‘hey man, if you take my personality from me, I can’t compete’. But then, finally, I got opportunities and I was able to get over through working the way I did. And so, Daniel worked at a faster pace than I did, that cruiserweight style, and, I mean, they tried to hold him down forever and the crowd organically just got behind this kid because they could see true talent. And I think the IWC had something to do with that because they were going to make their voices be heard that, ‘hey man, you weren’t giving this guy a chance or you don’t want him to succeed or you’re not booking him to be the guy, but this is the guy because we like what he’s doing.’”
On Bryan Being Similar to Bret Hart: “Daniel Bryan’s run kind of reminds me to a similar degree, or just the way he presented himself almost in a vein, he was a smaller version of Bret Hart because Bret was never really going to be the chosen guy. All of a sudden, he got the opportunity and he was an understated guy, wasn’t over the top. I always liked Bret Hart’s promos. He felt he was a little weak in them. One of the greatest workers in the history of the business. And finally he got his time. He got his just due, and all of a sudden, that was the transition of the bigger guys [to] the guys that could really work, [and it] opened the door for guys like Shawn Michaels and so Daniel Bryan, just his persistence, his determination, and the fact that he was consistent every single time he went out there, he delivered and it’s fine to see the big guys with the charisma going through their stuff because everybody wants to see the heavyweights clash, but also, people want to see bad ass wrestling and to me that’s what Daniel was all about. And he always had fire. He really learned how to work the crowd, that ‘yes’ chant going, and it turned into him getting a run as world champion.”
