After failing to beat him at Survivor Series in late November, Daniel Bryan was attacked by Bray Wyatt on an episode on SmackDown when “The Fiend” dragged him under the ring through a hole in the canvas. But unlike his other attacks, Wyatt popped up holding clumps of Bryan’s hair, implying that he had ripped out Bryan’s hair and beard. The former WWE Champion returned at TLC the next month with a clean-shaven face and a significantly shorter haircut, which led to fans pointing out that Bryan looked like he hadn’t aged a day since he first arrived in WWE back in 2009. However in a new interview with MySanAntonio.com, Bryan revealed that his new look wasn’t part of the original plan for the storyline.
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“Actually, it was my idea,” Bryan said. “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.”
Once they got to the day of the segment, Bryan was met by two barbers hiding in a small space under the ring. But because a WWE producer kept demanding for more hair to be placed in Wyatt’s hands, Bryan wound up losing his long locks.
“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,” Bryan explained. “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.”
Bryan then said his wife, Brie Bella, wasn’t a fan of his new look.
“I knew I was in trouble, because my wife hates shaved heads,” he said. “She’s never liked them, and I texted her immediately after. I said, ‘You’re not going like this.’ And her response was ‘What did you do?’ And I know I’m in trouble because she knows that this idea of the beard thing was my idea. So, my idea has led me to this. And I tried to take a couple pictures before I FaceTimed her, but none of them were good. And I was just like, ‘OK, I better just FaceTime her.’ And then, you know those conversations that you have with your significant other where it’s like, they’re really quiet and you can just see the anger.”
Bryan will challenge Wyatt for the Universal Championship in a Strap Match this Sunday at the Royal Rumble.
