Daniel Bryan Opens Up On His Motivational Struggles

As previously reported, Daniel Bryan recently sat down with Amy Jo Martin for her podcast entitled Why Not Now? D.B. and Amy Jo discussed a variety of topics ranging from Bryan’s early days as a father, and his rehab that eventually led him back into a WWE ring. It was the American Dragon’s comments regarding his struggle to ask the WWE to make more of an investment in him that really stood out.

I’m very much somebody who just accepts things as they come for the most part. So in wrestling, I was getting very popular and the WWE still didn’t want to push me to the top level because of my size. I’m a smaller guy. A normal person looks at me, when I’m coming down the ramp to the ring, a normal person doesn’t gravitate to looking at me unlike a John Cena who is enormous or some of the bigger guys like a Hulk Hogan, or a Steve Austin, or The Rock, who as soon as they come down, it’s like, ‘wow! Look at that guy,’ right? And that’s what WWE typically wants in their top stars and I’ve never been very good at being like, ‘hey, you guys should do more with me’ or ‘you guys should do this or do that with me’. I’ve never been someone who is motivated by that or pushes himself towards that, or pushes myself towards financial goals, or pushing myself towards anything other than what I love to do. And I’m constantly having to remind myself, like, ‘hey, if you want to get to the next level where I want to be, you do have to do some pushing here.’ And so yeah, that’s a constant thing that I struggle with.

It’s humbling to see hear that despite all of his popularity and mainstream success (and it has been mainstream) Bryan still finds it difficult to find faith in himself. One wonders…if part of that is Bryan contemplating with his desire to wrestle elsewhere.

What do you think RingSiders?