AEW Star Purposely Cut Hair For WWE Storyline

AEW star Bryan Danielson has revealed that he purposely cut his hair for a WWE storyline back in 2010.

Before going on to have a Hall of Fame worthy WWE career, Bryan Danielson (fka Daniel Bryan) was first introduced to WWE audiences as a “rookie” on WWE NXT Season One back in 2010 – with The Miz serving as his “mentor”.

Considering Danielson’s wealth of experience on the independent scene before arriving in WWE, the idea of former reality TV star The Miz being his mentor was something widely criticized by hardcore fans, but in reflection of the storyline, Danielson thinks the idea was “great”, albeit one WWE didn’t invest enough creative energy into.

Speaking with Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Danielson revealed that he cut his hair to appear more “generic” for his stint on NXT to purposely lean into being the polar opposite of The Miz and his ideas of what a WWE superstar is.

Danielson said:

“I thought it was great (being The Miz’s rookie), because what you want in WWE is some sort of story. So this is one of the things that I had a hard time with. When they signed me, I had longer hair and a little bit more of a wilder look. I liked that look, but they said, Okay, you’re gonna do this thing with The Miz. You’re gonna be a rookie. So I really without anybody asking me to, and maybe that’s one of the things that I should have said was, ‘Hey, how much are we going to play [into this?]’ The reality was they didn’t put much thought into that show at all. So it was like, looking back on it, it’s like that was their main priority was they’d film SmackDown on Tuesdays. Their main priority was SmackDown, then they just threw NXT together before that.

“But I thought this is, and it was, a huge opportunity to be on TV. So what I did was cut my hair more to look more generic. I tried to look as generic as possible with the idea, and me and Miz were collaborating on this stuff.

“Of some ideas, Miz was great about pitching ideas to the writers and all that kind of stuff about all these things of, okay, I can’t learn wrestling from Miz, but he’s going to teach me to be a Superstar, and me being frustrated like, ‘That’s not important. The only thing that’s important is the wrestling.’

“That kind of thing that people think that I actually think, or that people think he would actually think, this could be a really good TV dynamic, and we both thought that, and then none of it ever happened.

“So then I just looked like a nerd for no reason. Not to say that I’m not a nerd. I’m just saying that I went out of my way to look less.”