I've never really been a character on TV. I think, if possible, you want to portray yourself. If you're in a situation where you're supposed to react, you need to react.
— Daniel Bryan
My favorite wrestler growing up was Dean Malenko. He was a very technical wrestler, and when I trained with Shawn Michaels, he wasn't that kind of a technical wrestler. So, when I finally met Regal in 2001, he was that kind of a wrestler, and all of a sudden, I could ask him things, and he would know what I was talking about and how to do it.
When I watch myself, I see nothing but faults, like, 'This I need to do different, this I need to do different,' and so if there comes a point in time where I'm like, 'Man, this whole thing is just getting really stale,' I am not opposed to being the bad guy again.
I've always thought Shawn Michaels's story is fascinating.
My No. 1 dream match is Brock Lesnar. And I want that to be a WrestleMania match. I don't know if the WWE will ever let that happen, because they might be afraid he might legitimately hurt me pretty bad.
The thing that I have to stay away from is sweets. I have a horrible sweet tooth. It's just the worst.
I've always respected and appreciated Punk, but we never really hung out. We came from the same route, but we didn't necessarily hang out in the same circles. I've always had a great appreciation and respect for his hard work.
I spent a lot of time over in England wrestling at Butlins holiday camps for Brian Dixon and All Star Wrestling.
I don't do really well in cities, which is crazy given that we're flying in and out of these major cities every week.
Wrestling is something that nothing else can replace for me.
I like having a bunch of different experiences. I don't want to do just one thing for the rest of my life.
I went from being a guy who was sparingly being used on television to being the World Heavyweight Champion and the focus of a lot of the storylines on Smackdown.
Part of me wants to stay involved in wrestling, because I love it. But the thing I loved most about it was the wrestling part of it. I didn't get into it to be famous or to be a TV star: I got into it because I loved the act of wrestling.
William Regal has been the most influential person in my entire career.
I don't want to live my life to entertain other people. I have other things that I'd like to do.
A lot of people don't understand how hard the girls on 'Total Divas' work. They're on the road, the same as the rest of us, and then when they get home, they've got to be filming this whole time.
Seeing your baby in pain and seeing them crying and that sort of thing, and you're tired, and you can do nothing about it - that's, like, one of the most demoralizing things I can think of.
When I was around nine, my parents took me to my first live event, which was a WWE show with Ultimate Warrior. From then on, I loved it.
I am a big Seth Rollins fan and have been for a long period of time.
To me, the funnest part of wrestling is evolving. If you stay the same all the time, you're eventually going to be left behind.
As you write about your life, there's a lot of things that you think about that you regret. It's interesting, because one of the things I regret the most is spending so much time focused on wrestling as opposed to focusing on my family.
I didn't really grow up playing video games. I had an original Nintendo after the original Nintendo was cool.
I think of Bret Hart as somebody who held the Intercontinental championship like it was the World Heavyweight championship. Every title match he was in felt important, like it was the most important thing on the show. The way he carried himself and the matches he had, it was just everything I thought a champion should be.
Wrestling is different to me. As I talk to other wrestlers, wrestling seems a little different to me than it does to a lot of them. To me, it's about an artistic performance and about honing my artistic performance in pursuit of these minute moments of perfection. These little encapsulations. And none of them are ever perfect.
One of the autobiographies I really liked was Bob Dylan's. It was interesting because he didn't do it in a linear fashion.
People who like hard-hitting wrestling and action, they'll like me.
I like going to Japan where they treat it like a real sport. I like doing the entertainment stuff with the WWE. I really like doing the small venue stuff, like Ring of Honor, because everything is so intimate. There's different feelings and different experiences, and you have to be good at different things to do all of that.
Sometimes, things just fall into your lap, and that's pretty incredible.
I'm a terrible actor. I would suck in films! The only way I would do well is if I was playing myself, which is what I did in my career.
I have to look at my career as 'it was what it was,' but I do wish there was more of it.
I'm not somebody who is genetically gifted when it comes to facial hair.
I love wrestling, and I love the entertainment aspect of wrestling, but the rest of my life, I just want to be able to live and enjoy my life. I don't want to be living it essentially for other people's entertainment.
I was very good in school, and my parents really would have really liked me to go to college. Instead, I went on this random journey to go be a professional wrestler.
I would define the new aspects of fatherhood like this: It is 75 percent amazing and 25 percent demoralizing. I think any new parent can understand exactly what I'm talking about.
I don't want to be away from wrestling even a little.
Being a bad guy is fun for me.
I've been wrestling since I was 18 years old. And within the first five months of my wrestling career, I'd already had three concussions. And for years after that, I would get a concussion here and there, and it gets to the point that when you've been wrestling for 16 years, that adds up to a lot of concussions.
I'd like to to do a major pay-per-view match with Seth Rollins. I'd love do a major pay-per-view match with Stardust.
What we do is entertainment. We entertain people. Sometimes we inspire people, but sometimes we are just a way to fill their time.
With ladder matches, you can't expect anything other than craziness.
I always try to live in the moment.
I get this anxiety in cities and places like that. When you grow up in kind of a small town and when you grow up around a lot of green and trees and nature and that sort of thing, sometimes I think it's a little mentally disconcerting to be around this concrete.
WWE was an opportunity to wrestle in front of thousands - in 2013, I did 227 matches, and almost all of them were in front of more than three or four thousand people, with a high of 70,000 plus. It was an incredible experience to be part of that.
I love wrestling, but to wrestle just one style for the rest of my life seems like it would really hold me down creatively.
I have no problem with people eating meat. I would just like it, for the people who do eat meat, for the animals to be treated better. To be treated humanely. Cows in pastures living the life that they're supposed to live. I have no problem with that.
I'm into environmental and ecological issues, so maybe that is an avenue to go down.
For some reason, the fans got behind me, and I don't know exactly why that is. I wasn't supposed to main event WrestleMania XXX, but the fans were so vocal about it that the fans had no choice but to put me in the match. I've had a lot of lucky breaks.
If you want to grow a beard like mine, the only thing I can tell you is that you have to have patience. You just have to let it grow.
My biggest concern with the whole deal with 'Total Divas' and with WWE - and, you know, they want you to be engaged with social media and all this kind of stuff - I don't want to live my life to entertain other people.
The best parenting advice I actually got was from Shane McMahon. He was great with me when Brie was pregnant and all that. He said, 'When you have that baby, make sure you take care of Brie first.'
