Daniel Bryan On Which Two NXT Stars Should Be On The WWE Main Roster (Video)

In a quasi-kayfabe discussion with Michael Cole as part of WWE.com’s weekly interview series, Daniel Bryan talks about his time as General Manager of SmackDown, doing commentary for the Cruiserweight Classic, and why Brock Lesnar was his dream opponent.

But most notably, Bryan had interesting comments when asked about Finn Balor’s recent shoulder injury. Bryan thought that Balor should’ve been on the WWE main roster long before he was called up, and thinks the same for Samoa Joe and Shinsuke Nakamura.

The most tragic part, that kind of stuff happens… the most tragic part to me is it happens as soon as he gets up here. And I think one of the things that really upsets me about the whole situation is that Finn Balor should’ve been up here a year and a half ago.

And I understand that NXT is a very important part of our programming, a very important part of the Network, but he was a superstar when we signed him. And some people have to adjust to the WWE style, but for a guy like Finn Balor that takes no more than six months.

So, he’s in the prime of his career right now, like he just turned 35 the day he debuted on Raw. Right? Like, he should’ve been here a year and a half ago. Samoa Joe should already be here. Shinsuke Nakamura should already be here. Those are guys in their primes and they’re down on NXT right now, and they should be here… either on SmackDown Live or on Raw.

And the longer we wait, the more bumps they take, the more bruises they get, and the more susceptible they are to injury. Everybody knows there’s a finite number of hits you can take in your career, you don’t know what number that is. And the more times you take those hits down on NXT, the less hits you’re going to be able to take when you’re here.

Also of note, there was no mention of Bryan’s heated exchange with The Miz from last Tuesday’s edition of Talking Smack.