He was probably not shirtless and holding multiple championship belts at the time. The confetti totally happened, though.
In 2014, two burglars made the stupidest breaking-and-entering decision since the guys who tried to rob Dolph Lundgren's house, by targeting the house of wrestling superstar Bryan "Daniel Bryan aka The American Dragon aka YES! YES! YES! Dude" Danielson. Bryan and his wife were walking back to their house when they noticed two dudes exiting with sacks full of their valuables. Like any responsible homeowner, Bryan was rather miffed about this development. Unlike most homeowners, his immediate reaction was to flip the fuck out and give chase to the potentially armed and dangerous criminals. He caught one of them after a spirited run (the other was able to escape, presumably thanks to the weight he lost from evacuating his entire bowels in abject horror). Then, Bryan locked the terrified thief in a rear naked choke, and held him until the cops arrived.
Held. Him. Until the cops arrived.
Let's pause for a moment to appreciate the scenario. You are being choked out by a furious Daniel Bryan. There are no ring ropes you can reach for a 5-count. There is no referee to tap out to. There is no escape. There is just you and the angry yeti playing your spinal cord like an accordion, and in some distant, glimmering point in the future, a bunch of equally angry cops whose presence will nevertheless come as a welcome respite. I'm told that the burglar spent most of the waiting time apologizing profusely, which is actually pretty badass because if faced with a 30-minute sleeper hold from an enraged Bryan, roughly 90 percent of the WWE's locker room would have just pooped in resigned silence until they fainted.
Bryan later said that he felt a little bad about the incident, and conceded that chasing possibly armed robbers and going to town on their necks was "probably not the best thing to do because you don't know what is going to happen." However, in the very same interview, he says that his reaction was spontaneous and he was genuinely furious, leading me to believe that he was talking strictly about what might happen to the next fucking guy he catches carrying away his stuff.
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