Daniel Bryan talks 'Yes!: My Improbable Journey to the Main Event of WrestleMania' and more

I had the pleasure of talking to former WWE World Heavyweight champion Daniel Bryan about his new book titled Yes!: My Improbable Journey to the Main Event of WrestleMania and so much more.

Here's the full transcript of the interview:

Q: How has this book experience been for you?

Daniel Bryan: It's been fun. [The book] came out on Tuesday. [Wednesday] was the first time doing stuff with it as far as like signings and that sort of thing. It's always great to meet our fans. We have some of the best fans in the world.

[Wednesday] I actually posted on my Instagram a guy, who is fan that's like a master Lego builder. He made this portrait of Brie [Bella], my wife] with Legos, and like there's shading in it and all that kind of stuff. It's really incredible. Meeting our fans … they're the best fans in the world.

Q: Writing a book about yourself doesn't seem like something you would do, but here we are talking about a book you have written about yourself. What was it like when you were approached about writing this book?

Bryan: It's super weird [laughter]. It's super weird. It's funny because it's never something that I would just do on my own. Just to say, "Oh, my life has been so incredible I need to write a book about it," I never once that. Like, "Oh, my story is something that needs to be heard.

But when they approached me about it, I thought, "Okay." I just had my neck surgery and as far as timing goes, there's not a better time than right now when I've got so much down time at home. So yeah, I thought I'd go do it and see if there's anything, and yeah, the book was produced.

Q: You seem pretty candid book. You didn't really hold back on your thoughts. Were you worried about getting heat or getting into some trouble?

Bryan: I wasn't really worried about it. I thought that if I wrote something that they didn't like they would be like, "Hey, we don't like you writing this [laughter]," before it was published and I don't know if it actually got into those hands to where it's like, "Hey, maybe you shouldn't write this."

I wasn't really worried about it. I don't really talk bad about anybody as far as I could tell. I'm not vindictive about anything. This is my story and this is how it is and if you don't want me to write that then there really is no story here [laughter]. Everybody within WWE has been super cool and super supportive of the book so that's been great.

Q: How did you go about writing the book? How did you get into that mode and what was it like for you?

Bryan: It was interesting. At first, I was going to write it myself, but I was going through so much physical therapy and all that kind of stuff after my neck surgery last year, I would come home and just be physically exhausted. I would try to write something and I was like, "I need to write 500 words a day," and I was just not being able to do any of it.

Then I talked to William Regal, and if you read through the book he's my mentor, he's written a book and he said that he used a ghostwriter and he felt like his book was better because of it because he can't express himself how he thinks. The ghostwriter was able to do that better for him than he could have done himself, and I was like, "Oh, okay."

WWE had asked me if I had wanted a ghostwriter and I was like, "Okay, I'll try that and maybe that will be better." Well, we work with the ghostwriter and it goes all the way until the first draft of the book is written and it's not that it was bad, it just wasn't me. The voice wasn't me. Then we're at November and this book … [WWE] was trying to get this book out by WrestleMania this year, but that obviously didn't happen. The next due date was January 15 and I was like, "I need to re-do this."

I essentially had two months to write 70,000 words [laughter]. Then I was going through it. I had my neck recovery and I was getting ready to come back to WWE and all that kind of stuff, so that part of it was almost stressful. It was just like, "I've got to write 2,000 words a day every single day and just get through it."

It is not easy to do, but again, it's good that I wasn't on the road trying to do 2,000 words a day because that would have been impossible.

Q: Speaking of the road, are you going to be back on the road sooner rather than later?

Bryan: It's impossible for me to say because it's not an issue of me feeling better. It's just me going through medical clearance hurdles. Because the WWE is looking out for my best interest, these hurdles are many and large. I have no idea. I have no estimate on a timeline, but I feel great.

Q: Obviously, you want to get back in there and do what you want to do, but is it frustrating knowing that you could be working with all of this new talent but you're unable to?

Bryan: I'm not frustrated by this idea that there's all of these guys that I haven't really done stories with in the WWE now on TV. Guys like Kevin Owens and stuff like that. I've never really done a true story with Seth Rollins. That doesn't frustrate me as much as the lack of being able to wrestle frustrates me.

When I look at it career wise, if I'm out another four months, that actually means that there's more equity in all of these guys. There's more equity in Kevin Owens. There's more equity in Seth Rollins. Those stories might be better if I'm out longer, but my mind doesn't work like that. I want to be wrestling tomorrow, you know?

Q: What are your thoughts on what's going on in the divas division, which includes your wife, Brie Bella?

Bryan: I think it's awesome. To me, it wasn't necessarily a personnel issue. Although the NXT divas are very good and we need that, but it's more of giving the girls good stories.

For example, the Bellas: Are they good guys or bad guys because it seems to switch on literally a daily basis. It's not just the divas. It's everything. What we need is consistent storytelling, consistent storytelling that makes people care. What I'm hoping is because management seems to care more about this particular this story, that the story will be told better and that will help everybody.

That will help Brie and Nicole (Nikki Bella). I know that Brie specifically has been adamant about the NXT girls coming up because she wants those girls to wrestle with. She wants Sasha [Banks] and Charlotte and Becky Lynch and all of those kind of people to come up because that gives her more people to work with.

Q: Let's jump back to the book for a second, were there tough parts of the book to write? Were some parts tougher than others?

Bryan: Yeah. All of the stuff writing about my dad was very difficult. Writing the stuff about my dad was very difficult, but I read the audio version, I did the actual audio for my audio book, and reading the part at the end was literally say a couple of words, cry, say a couple of words, cry.

Then it was so strange as far as the timing goes. I just finished doing my audio book and I had just done the thing with my dad and that was the last thing we did, and then I check my phone and found out that Dusty Rhodes had past away. I'm very close with Cody [Rhodes], and I'm already in that mindset and my heart just melted again for him — that he was going through that same thing that I went through last year. It was very emotional.

Q: Talk about that entire buildup to WrestleMania 30 and the roller coaster ride you were on before and after the event. What was that like for you?

Bryan: The week of WrestleMania is always super busy. Brie and I had wanted to buy a house. We thought that, "You know what? Now we're so busy with the wedding and WrestleMania coming up that we're not going to do anything," but literally this perfect house came on the market like the Wednesday before we had to leave for WrestleMania. But we also had to look at this wedding venue and all of this kind of stuff.

So we found this house that we really liked, we put an offer on that and that got accepted. Then we go and do this thing. Then we're at WrestleMania and we're getting married. WrestleMania happened on a Sunday, we're getting married on a Friday, we're leaving for our honeymoon on the Sunday after WrestleMania and literally that two-week time period was the greatest two weeks of my life.

Then we come home the following Saturday, leave for Raw TV on Sunday, get to Baltimore and that Monday morning I found out my dad had passed away.

Connor Michalek, who I inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, passed away that Wednesday and my dad's funeral was that Saturday. Then I come back to TV on a Monday, but then maybe two or three weeks later was when I found out I had to have the neck surgery. Actually, I found out I had to have it 10 days later or something like that. It was a time period of extreme highs and extreme lows.

It was pretty crazy. I've never really gauged my life by what's going on in my professional career. I've always gauged it by even when my WWE career isn't going very well, if things are going well with me and Brie … when we first started dating, things weren't exactly skyrocketing at the time, but I was happy.

I talk about this in the book a little bit, but the live events with WWE are so fun and that was always one of the things that inspired my passion for wrestling. I could go out there and do what I want and have as much fun as I want, but then you look at how everything was going personally for me with Brie, I was very happy.

I was living in Las Vegas with my grappling coach, who I talk about in the book. Really, I was living a very fun life as far as like, "Okay, on my days off I'm going back and I'm grappling and Friday, Saturday, Sundays or maybe just Saturday and Sunday I'm doing live events, which is really enjoyable. Mondays and Tuesdays can be kind of a drag, but at least I get to see Brie."