Bryan - Yes!: my improbable journey to the main event of WrestleMania

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I wish to extend my sincerest gratitude to Bryan for welcoming me into your WrestleMania journey and three decades of very personal detail. This has been an incredible experience, a true pleasure, and a dream of my own fulfilled. I raise my reusable water bottle to you and your abilities, humility, and beliefs. Thank you to Bri as well for your openness and enthusiasm for this project.

Very special thanks to photographer Rich Freeda, WWE books aficionado Steve Pantaleo, and the St. Martins Press team, most notably, Michael Homler.

To Bret Hart, whose Sharpshooter on Curt Hennig at SummerSlam 91 widened my eight-year-old eyes to what would become a career with WWE.

To every WWE talent who ever entertained a pitch or responded to an interview question of mine: thank you for your collaboration and the inspiration you evoke.

To the ever-diligent WWE.com staffpast and presentwho consistently prove to be wildly talented, often underestimated storytellers. Hat tip to all WWE employees, whove helped power the machine daily. Thank you to Vince McMahon and, most especially, Stephanie McMahon for giving me my first opportunity in this world ten years ago.

I thank my loving mom for her sacrifice and always demonstrating the powerful combo of heart and hard work. Thanks to Stacey, John, and Anthony for their boundless support and love. Thank you to my entire familyJersey side and Poland side. To Chris, who believed so much in me and made me know that I could accomplish anything.

At last my deepest love and appreciation to my marvelous wife, Monika, who inspires me to be the best me, every minute of every day. And to our beaming baby girl, Ruby, who I hope to see chase and realize her own vivid dreams one day long from now. Kocham cie, my boos.

TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 201410:06 A.M .

This is a sight no one was supposed to see. Be it by fortune or the bureaucratic design of WWE brass, all signs suggested WWE Superstar Daniel Bryan would surface at WrestleMania 30 in a memorably competitive match yet in a far less marquee position than the main event bout for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Hed have been a contender for show-stealer but not positioned to make history, just a midshow blip on the radar of fans around the world during the thirtieth edition of WWEs grandest event.

Instead, Bryan is emerging from a private car parked at the mouth of New York Citys Hard Rock Caf e . Hes about to make a grand entrance into not just this mornings press event but what will be the most significant week in his career.

That signature beard is unmistakable, though the crisp suit hes wearinga rarityfeels only slightly Bryanized by the shade of his shimmering maroon tie. Cameras flash, and members of the press squeeze in tight to capture a modest, five-foot-eight former vegan who quite quickly stirs a supportive reaction from a notoriously opinionated Big Apple crowd.

Yes! Yes! Yes! A simple, direct, and infectious string of words serves as entrance music for Bryan as he crosses the red carpet and pauses beneath a telltale marquee beaming WRESTLEMANIA in its LED glow. The synchronized Yes! chants drown out the late-morning Manhattan traffic in Times Square, and Bryan joins the throng for a brief, impromptu rally of sorts.

At this moment, Bryan stands a mere dozen blocks from the site of the inaugural WrestleMania, which emanated from world-famous Madison Square Garden almost three decades ago. Then, Vince McMahons first major event was the symbolic underdog looking to sink its teeth into pop culture and create a worldwide phenomenon. Its fitting that Daniel Bryans own fifteen-year journey to the main event of the Show of Shows, WrestleMania, makes this all-important stop in the heart of New York City.

Bryans forged his share of memories in this metropolis, yet this day is different. This is the beginning of a week even he perhaps never believed hed live. On his Road to WrestleMania, this moment marks the final steps toward his ultimate destination: the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match at the biggest WrestleMania ever.

Theres the ring within which hell compete, and then there are the lingering visions of the ring hell slide onto his fianc es finger in eleven days. Bryans experiencing the most significant moment in his professional career, but in his personal life, hes in the middle of wedding-day preparations with WWE Diva Brie Bella. A beloved couple in the eyes of adoring fans around the globe, Braniel is still negotiating table assignments for their nuptial celebration while readying themselves to compete at WWEs Show of Shows. There can be no more meaningful monthweek, reallythan this if youre Aberdeen, Washingtons bearded son.

In Bryans case, in mere days, thirty years of WrestleMania culminate simultaneously with a squared-circle Manifest Destiny, a Yes! Movement. On that day, a fairy tale unfolds for Daniel Bryan, and the so-called Face of WWE stands to become a bit more bewhiskered.

WWE recently asked many of their successful Superstars to take a personality inventory. In theory, these tests are able to assess personal qualities, such as sociability, prudence, and interpersonal sensitivity. The idea is that different professions require different personal characteristics, but these sorts of analytics had never been done with professional wrestlers. If WWE could find out the personality traits of their most successful Superstars, perhaps when they were recruiting, it would give them more information about the likelihood of a new signee being successful. I was one of the many people chosen to take the test.

The test involved reading many different statements and then indicating if the statement was true or false. For example, one statement would be: I would want to be a professional race car driver. My answer: False. I would not want to be a professional race car driver. Another example: I rarely lose my temper. My answer: True. Stuff like that. You respond to hundreds of those types of statements and voil! Therein are your personality traits. In theory.

I actually enjoyed taking the test and was interested to hear the results. The next day I met with a woman to talk about them. Everything was done on a percentile basis, and as we went over the results, she became more and more baffled. In all the primary markers except one (learning approach, for which I was in the eighty-fourth percentile), I scored low. And I mean very low. For interpersonal sensitivity, I was in the bottom eleventh percentile. For the adjustment category, the bottom ninth percentile. Sociability, bottom third. But the one that really puzzled her was my score for ambition, which was the lowest she had ever seen in her history of administering this kind of testing and data. I was in the bottom one percentile.

She asked me how I had managed to be so successful given that I seem to have no drive, few social skills, and an inherent apathy toward most of the ideas our modern business culture seems to find so important.