Daniel Bryan says WWE wrestlers would benefit from wrestling elsewhere

Despite nearing the twilight of his career, SmackDown star Daniel Bryan is still one of the best wrestlers in the world, a distinction he has held since his time on the independent circuit.

As you would expect, Bryan’s time touring the indies has informed his perspective on how beneficial that experience can be for a pro wrestler, as doing so affords a wrestler the chance to work with a variety of opponents who have varying styles.

While the current WWE roster is filled with wrestlers who have taken that same path, there are still plenty of workers in the company who have only learned how to work the WWE style. That formula had produced some success stories (Roman Reigns, Bianca Belair), but Bryan thinks many of those folks could become more well-rounded performers if they tested out wrestling for other promotions.

Daniel Bryan says that WWE wrestlers going other places to hone their craft would be good for them.

Appearing on Robbie Fox’s My Mom’s Basement show, Bryan talked about how beneficial wrestling in other promotions can be while touching  on how the perception of some wrestlers would change if they were outside of the WWE bubble (h/t to Fightful’s Jeremy Lambert for the transcription):

"I don’t think people truly understand how great a lot of WWE superstars are because we don’t necessarily put on a pure wrestling product, we put on a sports entertainment product. If all of a sudden you saw Cesaro in New Japan, people would be like, ‘This guy is the greatest.’ If you put Otis in New Japan, people would be like, ‘Holy cow, this guy is amazing.’ Like, Vader from the 90s type vibe. It’s just a different presentation. I think it would be a cool and unique contribution in wrestling, as far as giving back. I also think it’d be good for WWE and wrestling in general for them to go and learn at other places. I wouldn’t be the performer that I am today if I hadn’t wrestled in Japan or the UK, where it was all comedy. All of those things add to your depth and when it’s time to put you in a top position, you can do a number of things.”"

With the success of wrestlers like All Elite Wrestling’s Tay Conti (who was a WWE Performance Center trainee for years), WWE’s developmental process has come under fire from a lot of fans, though, again, there have been a few wrestlers who have shown some upside within the system, such as Xia Li.

As for Bryan, he will get another chance to unseat Roman Reigns as Univeral Champion on this Friday’s episode of SmackDown. If Bryan comes up short again, he will be banished from the Friday night brand.