Smackdown Live’s current general manager, Daniel Bryan, has been taking some vital paternity leave, but he’s set to return on Tuesday night. (Where he’ll make a decision-slash-announcement regarding the controversial women’s Money in the Bank match, which I expect will just be one big, exaggerated shrug.)
But thankfully, he hasn’t stopped being outspoken about the WWE product in the meantime.
Although Smackdown Live has touted itself as “the land of opportunity,” it still has a long way to go before it stops being “Raw, also.” Bryan believes that the entire presentation of WWE Superstars needs to change, because people need to care more about the characters and wrestlers beyond what we see in the ring. Hey, kind of like what NXT has always done, which is why NXT fans like that show more. He explained during an interview with NBC Sports:
“I think a change of presentation is absolutely necessary. I think the way that we present our Superstars probably needs to change. Years ago they went through with this idea of having as much live stuff as possible on the shows, but I think when you watch say UFC for example, some of the things that are the most endearing, that make you care the most about the fighters are these backstage vignettes that get to show their real personality. You’ll see great fights that people will cheer maybe because they’re great fights, but the fights that have the most impact are the ones with fighters who people actually care about. I think one of the things that really endeared me to people was that people got to view more aspects of my personality than most because of the different things that I did within WWE.
“Seeing performers frustrated and being able to show that on TV and being able to show their experiences, their reactions to what’s happening to them on the show and doing backstage vignettes. There was a great one on NXT about Roderick Strong recently about being a new dad and all of that kind of stuff. Since I’ve been gone, they’ve been doing some really fun stuff with the Fashion Police. Not that there needs to be more of that exact kind of stuff, but it helps people get to know their personalities. I think one of our failings on Smackdown Live was American Alpha. They’re great and on NXT they did all of these fun little interview segments with the two of them that got to show the people behind American Alpha. (They saw) who Chad Gable is, who Jason Jordan is. I’d like to do more of that kind of stuff.”
I mean … yeah. There’s really nothing there to disagree with. It’s kind of wild seeing a WWE authority figure say stuff like “yeah we totally screwed the pooch with American Alpha,” but that’s Daniel Bryan for you. This is just another step on the long road to D-Bry playing out his contract, but the dude ain’t wrong.
