First up is AEW wrestler, Bryan Danielson, who was formally known in WWE as Daniel Bryan. The fan-favorite talks about why he decided to join AEW after spending so many years in WWE, what he's most looking forward to doing in AEW, his relationship with Vince McMahon and McMahon being overly protective of him. Danielson also talks about why one particular night in his WWE career was so special to him, what he makes of the AEW vs. WWE narrative and much more.
Following Danielson, Andrew Marchand, sports media columnist for the "New York Post," joins the podcast. Marchand and Traina discuss the success of the Peyton and Eli Manning alternate Monday Night Football telecast, Al Michaels joining Amazon to call Thursday Night Football, the return of Gus Johnson to the NFL and much more.
Following Marchand is the weekly Traina Thoughts segment. This week, Jimmy and Sal Licata from WFAN and SNY read the latest SI Media Podcast reviews on Apple, talk about the NFL's taunting rule, why Sal hates laptops and much more.
Courtesy of AEW
The following transcript is an excerpt from The SI Media Podcast. Listen to the full episode on podcast players everywhere or on SI.com.
Jimmy Traina: I always thought it was fascinating as a wrestling fan that you seem like just the nicest guy in the world. And if people follow you on social media, you are an environmentalist, you've got the two kids, you seem like a great dad. And you once got let go from WWE because you choked someone with a cable wire or something, which I mean, I don't want to do the insulting thing and be like, wrestling is fake, but you weren't really choking the guy out with the wire. He wasn't going to die or pass out and you still got in trouble for that. It seems so ridiculous that that happened to you all those years ago.
Bryan Danielson: Well, to be fair, with that specific incident, I legitimately choked him
Jimmy Traina: Oh boy, maybe you should have been fired haha
Bryan Danielson: And I knew him a little bit, but I came from the background that we have to make this look good. And I can't trust him to be great at what I do, which is like the pretend part of it, right? And they wanted a gang-style beat down. So I wrapped it up and he had big, big marks on his neck.
Jimmy Traina: Oh really?
Bryan Danielson: Yeah, and so that's that. But I think that is an aspect of my personality that pro wrestling has really allowed me to explore, especially pre WWE is the more aggressive side of me because for the most part, I try to stay very calm and very chill. I don't want to be angry. But sometimes it's nice to be able to get that aggression out and pro wrestling allows you to do that in a safe way.
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