"YES!" by Daniel Bryan

BOOK TITLE: YES!: My Improbable Journey to the Main Event at Wrestlemania
AUTHOR: Daniel Bryan (with Craig Tello)
YEAR: 2015
GENRE: Nonfiction
SUBGENRE: Pro-Wrestling Memoir
GRADE: Pass


In this David vs. Goliath life story, little Aberdeen, Washington boy Bryan Danielson gets hooked on wrestling from watching The Ultimate Warrior, Bret Hart, Chris Benoit, and Dean Malenko on TV. He became so passionate about it that after graduating high school, he got in his car and traveled to San Antonio, Texas to learn how to wrestle. He went from wrestling in Wal-Mart parking lots to the Tokyo Dome, from high school gyms to reputable American arenas, from English carnivals to his ultimate destination, the New Orleans Superdome, where he won the WWE World Heavyweight Championship by defeating three future Hall of Famers in one long, grueling night.

What makes this life story so amazing is that nobody expected the now christened Daniel Bryan to make it as far as he did. There are hundreds of thousands of wrestlers all over the world and only a select few of them achieve universal fame and fortune. Daniel Bryan is way under six feet tall, only slightly north of 200 lbs., and has more facial hair than a Serengeti lion. Against much bigger opponents, Daniel seemed like the ultimate underdog. He took a lot of beatings and suffered many horrific injuries along his path to success, but that’s what paying your dues in the wrestling industry is all about. Not only had Daniel Bryan paid his dues, but he paid 100% interest.

Daniel is the kind of person you want to see succeed and part of it is because of his personality. If you were to approach this man on the streets, you would find him to be a friendly, laidback, humble human being. He knows wrestling doesn’t owe him anything, in fact, he owes wrestling everything. Underneath all of that modesty is a fiery passion that pushes him through the worst obstacles in his life. Whether those obstacles are amassing a ten match losing streak on a boring WWE sideshow or losing his father and crying relentlessly because of it, Daniel Bryan will not stay down for anything. He’ll tell you everything’s okay one minute and burst into passionate flames the next. It’s part of his Gemini Syndrome, or his dual nature as most people call it.

If you’re in an absolute hurry to get through this book, don’t worry, it’s a fast read. It may not feel that way with Craig Tello’s play-by-play introductions at the beginning of each chapter, but over time you get used to having an extra writer there to narrate the action. Daniel Bryan’s own writing style is no-nonsense and to the point, which is a style most fast-paced writers employ. However, with too little description and liberal use of the word “very”, it’s easy to tell that Daniel Bryan doesn’t write for a living. I’m not saying this is a badly written book, because it’s not. But if you’re expecting a celebrity memoir, you’ve got one.

I’ve been a Daniel Bryan fan ever since I started paying attention to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards in 2008. I hadn’t seen one Daniel Bryan match prior to NXT in 2010, but apparently he’s famous in the online community for being the Best Technical Wrestler, Most Outstanding Wrestler, and having a Match of the Year. The first two awards he won multiple times over many years and eventually became the Most Outstanding Wrestler of the Decade for 2000-2009. It also helps matters that Daniel Bryan is an environmentally conscious animal lover who rubs shoulders with poor people. The fact that a mere hungry man like Mr. Bryan can accomplish so much through hard work and passion is a story that epics are made of. We love the underdog story and always will.

Evil Character, Nice Guy

My best friend Zero Urrea introduced me to a site called TV Tropes and on this site I learned about the theme of the “Evil Character, Nice Guy”. You know what that means? It means that just because George Carlin joked about the possibility of Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd, doesn’t mean he would actually go out and rape somebody himself. Just because Daniel Bryan emotionally abused AJ Lee in the WWE, doesn’t mean he’s an even worse lover to his real life girlfriend Brie Bella. Just because Derrick Green growls like a monster when he sings Sepultura songs, doesn’t mean he’s a grunting monster in real life. George Carlin, Daniel Bryan, and Derrick Green all have one thing in common: at one point they were considered to be villainous characters, but in real life, they are the friendliest people you’ll ever meet. Before his death in 2008 (rest in peace), George Carlin was a loving family man who had a whirlwind romance with his first and second wives Brenda and Sally respectively. He even had a daughter named Kelly, who to this day celebrates her father’s legacy by promoting his comedy whenever she gets the chance. As far as Daniel Bryan goes, he went through his entire wrestling career praised for being a nice guy in the locker room. In fact, Jim Cornette, Bryan’s former ROH boss, came to his defense when Bryan was first fired from WWE. Mr. Cornette said that Bryan was a “model employee, a pleasure to be around, an all-around nice guy, very respectful to the veterans”, things like that, which are all good reasons to keep somebody as an employee as far as I’m concerned. Derrick Green? Well, he’s part of an unfortunate stereotype that heavy metal fans and singers find themselves in just because they’re associated with aggressive and angry music. These stereotypes include, but are not limited to, being evil, being a devil worshipper, hating the world, being depressed, and cutting themselves. Derrick Green may have monstrous vocals when he sings with Sepultura, but he is far from evil. I’ve never met the guy myself, but I’m putting it on my bucket list. He already has a reputation for being an animal lover, so he gets brownie points for that. So I guess I should get straight to the point when it comes to the message of this blog entry, and that is to never judge somebody by what they do on TV. By the same token, don’t judge an author by the transgressive nature of his stories. Stephen King is a master of gory literature as everybody knows, but he’s never actually committed murder before. Imagine that: you can actually be a gory writer and a nice guy at the same time! Who knew?!

　

***CARTOON QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

-Winnie the Pooh-