"Taking that off my plate was such a blessing" - Bryan Danielson on former WWE Superstar helping him through dark period
Bryan Danielson's WWE career was filled with extremely high and low points, sometimes both around the same time. His stardom peaked during WrestleMania 30 season and only in a matter of weeks, Bryan was stripped off both the World Championships he won at the show due to injury.
Despite dealing with neck injuries on the Road to WrestleMania, his intense style of wrestling and submission holds at the time never amounted to him getting hurt. The leader of the "Yes Moment" has Jamie Noble to thank for it.
In an interview with The Ringer, Bryan recalled how important of a role Jamie Noble played as the producer of his matches. Noble produced safe matches for Bryan as the former WWE Champion navigated through a difficult time health-wise. This was in stark contrast to his on-screen achievements at the time.
“In the lead-up to [WrestleMania 30], my neck was so bad and the shooting pain down my arm. And there was one point where I had to wrestle, like, I don’t know how many matches, it was in one night on a Raw. I was exhausted because I had done a whole weekend of live events and I was just having problems putting things together." [H/T: The Ringer]
Bryan continued:
And Jamie, because, one, he’s so good, but two, he knows all my stuff, he essentially put the matches together for me, and the ability to just focus on getting physically ready and not have to mentally put together a match, that was such a blessing at the time. … I love putting matches together, you know what I mean? I did then. It’s just that when you only have so much energy and you’re in so much pain, it’s like him taking that off my plate was such a blessing.”
Chills. https://t.co/nZ9CSmKMQZ
Bryan Danielson states Brock Lesnar's WWE Championship win demoralized him
At 41-years-young, Bryan Danielson's WWE career may be done and dusted. Looking back at some of his fond memories, which feature a dozen shining moments for many fans, Bryan singled out dropping the WWE Championship to Kofi Kingston as his favorite.
While speaking to The Ringer, he even stated that "the most demoralized" he had ever been was seeing Kofi drop the championship to Brock Lesnar in seven-seconds at the season premiere of SmackDown on FOX.
“To me, the whole thing was magic,” Danielson explains. “And you look at the live events, like the number of shows that he did for WWE, the amount of TV time that he filled in every time, going out there and always having a positive attitude and all that kind of stuff. What a great human being, you know what I mean? Like I said, it was my favorite match. I think the whole thing was my favorite part of my WWE career. And conversely, the most demoralized I ever was was seeing him lose it to Brock Lesnar the way that he did.” [H/T: The Ringer]
Kofi Kingston hasn't bounced back to main event status since. Needless to say, KofiMania remains one of the best WWE stories of the last decade.