Daniel Bryan Reflects On Long Standing Rivalry With The Miz Heading Into WWE SummerSlam

Daniel Bryan is gearing up for his match against The Miz as they will finally do battle on a big stage for the first time in years.

The former WWE World Heavyweight Champion spoke with GameSpot.com to promote the upcoming SummerSlam pay-per-view event. This interview was purely dedicated to his feud with The Miz.

When asked when he thought was the breaking point between him and The Miz. Bryan noted that they’re polar opposites and do have a legitimate dislike of each other as some people backstage know that there’s always been that tension. He believes the breaking point where people actually care about is Talking Smack episode then it escalated from there.

“Miz starting to do my moves, really rubbing it in my face in a way that at the time nobody thought I was gonna get cleared again. So, there was no payoff to this. It’s just heat, for heat, for heat’s sake. So, I think that’s where everything–where the current incarnation, where people are really excited to see that–I think that’s where that comes from.”

Bryan touched upon when he felt the reaction from the fans of WWE to that Talking Smack segment. The former SmackDown Live GM noted that he was hoping that it would inspire WWE officials to look at his case to be cleared again more closely as he thought if they would clear him then maybe they could headline WrestleMania. However, that hope slowly faded.

“No. That’s what I was thinking. I was thinking in terms of like, “Wow, this could really benefit.” And [WWE creative] started using it a little bit on the show, and then what happened is people really wanted to see the match, and then they backed off of it because they had no plans of doing the match. So, that’s when I realized like, “Oh, man. They’re not gonna budge here.”