Last year, Daniel Bryan was given a drastic new look when he was pulled under the ring by The Fiend and had his hair and beard torn out. It was a drastic change for the former WWE Champion but in a new interview, he's now revealed the story behind who came up with the change and the bizarre circumstances surrounding the way he was given his new look.
"Actually, it was my idea. And my idea was not the hair, it was just the beard. I had kind of pitched this to them as this idea of, ‘OK, how do we extend this story with Bray Wyatt,’ which is what they wanted to do, because he’s already defeated me cleanly, right? How do we do that? One of the things to me was that he’s changed people’s character so much when he’s faced them. And by him ripping out or cutting my beard, it would be this idea that he’s stripping me of part of my identity. That was my kind of pitch to them. What actually happened? They said, ‘Well, yeah, then he can cut your hair, too!’ And I was like, ‘No, I don’t really want that. I don’t want my hair to be cut.’ I kind of wanted my hair to be longer. Just wrestling wise, I like that."
That all sounds pretty simple, right? Well, while you might think that WWE would have found a bag of hair for The Fiend from somewhere that he could throw out from beneath the ring, it turns out that there were two barbers under there who legitimately started giving him a haircut!
"But then, the day of, we’re like, ‘OK, well, he will rip out some of your hair.’ You’d have to understand the mechanisms that are going on while this is happening. We’re in a live TV show, right? So, they pulled me under the ring, they’ve got two barbers there who are in charge of like, getting my beard off and getting hair off so there can be this appearance of him ripping out my hair and all that kind of stuff. And we have a minute and a half of TV time left on the live show. And there’s also a producer down there, who’s saying, ‘We need more hair, we need more hair, we need more hair!’ And it’s completely dark under there.
"We were all so crammed in this little area because there’s also like real stuff under the ring that needs to be under the ring. It’s just all in this crammed little area and these guys are cutting my hair and cutting my beard really quick and they’re supposed to just to cut X amount of hair off, which wasn’t as much as they ended up doing. But the one guy on one side did a great job. They actually both did a great job considering the circumstances. But one guy just went a little too tight and a little too high. And then, after the show, they did their best … they tried after the show for like 45 minutes to make it like not just a shaved head. But that was the best we could do under the circumstances."
What a story! Bryan's new look has certainly helped freshen up his appearance and added a new dimension to his rivalry with The Fiend. Now, we'll just have to wait and see how things play out for the leader of the Yes Movement as we head towards WrestleMania this coming April.
Do you guys think WWE should have let Bryan keep his long hair?