Interview: Daniel Bryan on His Career Goals, Dream Opponents, More

ESPN held a recent interview with Daniel Bryan and some of the topics discussed included his career’s future, wanting his daughter to see him wrestle as a career goal, and his dream opponents.

On the topic of the future of his career, Bryan stated he hopes he is able to continue wrestling until he is 70 years old. He also stated he wants to transition into a safer style of wrestling to help achieve his career longevity goal.

“Realistically, I want to wrestle until I’m 70. That’s a goal to people that sounds insane, but there’s a MMA trainer, Firas Zahabi, he trains Georges St-Pierre and he was on Joe Rogan’s podcast and I love what he said because this is how I envision my life. He said, ‘I want to be grappling and doing jiu-jitsu the day before I die.’ He wants to live to be 90 years old, but he loves doing this so much he wants to physically be capable of doing it until the day before he dies because it brings him joy and that’s how I feel about wrestling. For me, my goal is to enjoy this moment that I have in the WWE spotlight because that doesn’t last forever. That really has taken hold since I was forced to retire. You have to appreciate every moment of this, but I also have to transition my style in a way that I could still be wrestling when I’m 70 years old. I want to transition my style slowly to something that’s a little bit easier on my body.”

On the topic of his little daughter, Birdie, Bryan stated a big career goal he currently has is for his daughter to have fond memories of watching him wrestle.

“I’m hoping to wrestle long enough where she can remember seeing her dad wrestle. It’d be really cool for me to experience that. I’m looking forward to having Birdie really understand what she’s seeing and me still being able to wrestle and her knowing what her dad did and what her dad loved. The WWE has been very accommodating to me in terms of reducing my schedule so I have a better life balance now as far as spending time at work and spending time at home with my baby.”

On the topic of who he considers to be dream opponents for his WWE career, Bryan stated AJ Styles, Goldberg, Johnny Gargano, Roderick Strong, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Andrade “Cien” Almas as his choices.

“I actually do have a list of guys and it ranges from guys like AJ Styles and Goldberg to Johnny Gargano and Roderick Strong, who are down at NXT. I want to wrestle AJ, I want to wrestle Shinsuke Nakamura, I want to wrestle Andrade Cien Almas because I love Lucha. So Andrade is a true luchador, who main evented arenas in Mexico as a luchador and I want to go out there and I want to wrestle him. I have all these dream scenarios in my head where I would love to do this and that. I think that’s one of things that’s makes me so passionate about wrestling — the variety.”