WWE star Daniel Bryan recently spoke with GameSpot, and during the interview, Bryan had the following to say the classic Talking Smack segment which featured him and The Miz:
“Miz and I know how to get under each other’s skin, and he was very frustrated at the time because he was the Intercontinental Champion. I think at the time, he was gonna have a PPV match with Apollo Crews. They didn’t even have anything on the show for two weeks before the PPV.
“So, it’s like he’s got this program. It’s super cold. He’s frustrated. I’m the general manager, so he starts mouthing off about all this stuff, and that stuff, and then so I start going in on the stuff. It kinda gets under his skin, and then he has stuff that really gets under my skin, and so that’s where the magic happens though, really, where people aren’t sure what’s real and what’s not real, and that becomes an interesting point of contention, as far as people [saying], “Wow, these guys, they really dislike each other.”
“It’s interesting because Maryse was there–who’s his wife–and my wife was there just backstage that day, and she thought I had legitimately wanted to quit. I had asked for my release at that point because I’d been cleared by these other doctors, and WWE medical wouldn’t clear me. So, he’s bringing up things like, “If you love .. you’re a coward because you’ve said… yada yada… why don’t you go quit, and go do the independents?”
It’s like, that really gets under my skin because it’s like, I asked for my release, and they said “No.” It’s like, here I am stuck doing this GM thing, and this thing that I don’t like, and it’s like, “Okay, either I’m gonna punch this dude in the face, or I’m gonna walk off,” so it’s one of those things where people can see the realness in that, and I think that that’s very powerful.”
GameSpot