1. He Was Fired For Choking Justin Roberts And Spitting On John Cena
It's weird to think about how a really nice guy like Daniel Bryan could get fired for being too aggressive in a wrestling ring, but that's what happened on the June 7, 2010 edition of Raw. Bryan was a part of the Nexus group of eight NXT wrestlers that attacked John Cena during the main event of Raw. They destroyed the ring, they wrecked things all around the ringside area and of course they kicked Cena's ass. During the course of the beating, Bryan ended up choking ring announcer Justin Roberts with a tie. He also spit on Cena in the ring. In July of 2010 while he was still fired by WWE, Bryan wrote about what happened on his blog.
"One of the reasons that I got fired in 2010 was for spitting in Johns face; it was two things that got me fired it was choking Justin Roberts with a tie and spitting in Cenas face right before I kicked him in the head. It was those two things." "WWE is very serious about adhering to their PG guidelines, and apparently my actions during the NXT attack on John Cena, namely choking announcer Justin Roberts with his tie and spitting in Cenas face, crossed the boundaries of what is considered PG. Perhaps the choking was too violent or perhaps the spit was too demeaning. I apologized for both immediately following the incident; but I would be a hypocrite if I apologized for putting everything I have into the attack. I would much rather have gone too far than to come up too short."
He mentioned on Chris Jericho's podcast this week that there was nothing wrong the next day at the Smackdown tapings, but on the Friday following the attack on Cena he received a call from Vince McMahon who told him he was released. Bryan ended up working indies after his WWE release. Shortly after his release, WWE let him know that they wanted to bring him back for a SummerSlam return and they told him to keep it quiet. They knew he was a great wrestler, but they had to fire him because they were worried about losing sponsors. If they let Bryan get away with actions like that then other wrestlers might do something similar. If you were watching SummerSlam 2010, Bryan received a big ovation as part of Cena's team against the Nexus although WWE never mentioned that he spit on Cena or choked Roberts. That's why it is the number one thing that WWE wants you to forget about Daniel Bryan. Who would you like to see featured in future editions of this column? It's been going on once per week for the last four months, so there have been plenty of people written about already. There are many others that can be covered too. Let us know in the comments below.
John wrote at WhatCulture from December 2013 to December 2015. It was fun, but it's over for now. Follow him on Twitter @johnreport. You can also send an email to mrjohncanton@gmail.com with any questions or comments as well.
