Daniel Bryan continues to make the media rounds ahead of his high-stakes match against Roman Reigns at this Sunday night’s WWE Fastlane 2021 pay-per-view at the ThunderDome inside of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.
In a new interview with Bleacher Report, the WWE veteran spoke at length about the topic of dream opponents in the pro wrestling business. The leader of the “Yes!” movement would go on to name talents that interest him outside of WWE, wrestlers in AEW and NXT that interest him and more.
Featured below are some of the highlights of the new interview.
On dream opponents outside of WWE: “[Kazuchika] Okada, from the time I got to WWE until now, he’s gone from someone you didn’t know much about to one of the best wrestlers in the world. I’ve actually wrestled Shingo, and he’s fantastic. I always loved him in Ring of Honor, and I wasn’t even 30 years old yet, but for whatever reason, I wrestled Seth Rollins in one of his first big singles matches in Ring of Honor, and it was really the story of the veteran versus the young up-and-comer. I’ve always loved doing that sort of thing and those kinds of matches.”
On talents in AEW and WWE NXT that interest him: “When you look at the AEWs or whatever it is, somebody like Jungle Boy or MJF or Darby Allin. Those guys are really interesting to me. When you look at NXT, he’s not young, but I’ve always wanted to wrestle Kushida. That guy’s great. Kyle O’Reilly and I, I don’t know if we’ve ever wrestled. I’ve always wanted to do a singles match with him because he’s gotten so, so good. Finn Balor and I have wrestled on the independents once or twice, and I’d love to do a match with him in WWE. There are just so many guys.”
On other dream matches: “The problem is, guys are so good now and I like wrestling so much, so when you start naming names, then other names come up. In Ring of Honor, there’s a guy named Jonathan Gresham. He’s fantastic. I’d love to wrestle Jonathan Gresham. There are all these great guys. When people say that, one thing I don’t like about that is that sometimes it minimizes how many guys in WWE I’d like to wrestle. I’ve never wrestled Matt Riddle one-on-one. I’ve never wrestled Ricochet one-on-one. I’ve wrestled Johnny Gargano one-on-one before I came to WWE, but it was mostly a comedy match where I got my pants pulled down and my butt was probably out for a full five minutes. A Kushida match, a Kyle O’Reilly match, there are so many great guys. William Regal’s son, Bailey Matthews, just debuted on NXT UK. I’d love to do a match with him. William Regal has helped me so much in my career. I don’t know, when you start talking about guys I want to wrestle, I get really fired up, so it’s hard to limit it to just a few.”
Check out the complete interview at BleacherReport.com, and make sure to join us here at eWrestling.com on Sunday night for live WWE Fastlane 2021 results coverage.
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