Daniel Bryan Talks the Hardest Part of Being Smackdown GM, Calling the WWE CWC with Mauro Ranallo, Returning to WWE TV and More

WWE star Daniel Bryan recently spoke with FOX Sports to promote his new role as Smackdown Live GM, and below are some interview highlights:

A few months ago you were crafting barn doors and now you’re back on multiple shows each week. How hectic has your life become over the last couple of months?

Yeah it’s been really crazy. So my wife and I were actually planning on spending the summer in Washington State, and like I had signed up for this horticulture design class course which is like a sustainable agriculture course, and I was going to do all that … and then all of a sudden, now we can’t stay in Washington because the house is two hours from the Seattle airport, and Seattle isn’t the most convenient airport to begin with given that it’s in the northwestern-most corner of the United States. So it just changed a lot of our plans, so we haven’t been able to do some of the stuff that we would have liked to do, but also it’s given us opportunities that we didn’t have before.

Obviously you’ve been around wrestling forever so you probably had a good idea of what you were getting yourself into, but what’s been the hardest part of your new role?

The hardest part actually is not the task of being the GM, it’s moreso being around wrestling and not being able to actually wrestle. That’s the hardest part. The other stuff is …. I feel like I’m not the greatest general manager in the history of general managers, but I do OK and I’m learning as I go. I try to just do my best with it.

Calling the WWE Cruiserweight Classic with Mauro Ranallo:

So Mauro and I called two or three practice matches together, and then he and I the night before the first taping of the Cruiserweight Classic went out to dinner together, and we were just talking about our views on wrestling, and our views on commentary is and what commentary should be and that kind of stuff. And that was pretty much it. One of the great things is that Mauro is fantastic at his job. Right? So like, people have been really complimentary toward me as far as my job as a commentator, but in reality if Mauro weren’t there, I wouldn’t sound so good, right? When you know the intricacies of it – I’m just now starting to learn it – you see how much Mauro sets me up for stuff. Mauro sets me up to make me sound good [laughs].