Daniel Bryan is confident that he is better in the ring than the current WWE Universal Champion.
On the December 26 edition of Talking Smack, Paul Heyman asserted that his client, Roman Reigns, is the best fighter and wrestler in the world today. Bryan joined the show to refute the claim and send a warning The Tribal Chief's way, saying the following (transcription via Wrestling Inc.):
"Paul, I don't lay claim to being better than many people at certain things, but I'll tell you this; I am a better fighter than Roman Reigns, and I'm sure as hell a better wrestler than Roman Reigns. If I win the Royal Rumble and face Roman Reigns at WrestleMania, and he's still the champion, I will beat him for that championship. Here's another thing, If he's not champion, somewhere down the line I'm going to beat him down, anyway."
Following his victory over Jey Uso on the Christmas Day episode of SmackDown, Bryan declared himself as the first entrant in the Men's 2021 Royal Rumble match. Earlier in his appearance, he shared an interesting anecdote about how he has never won a Battle Royal and how this might be his last chance to do so.
"You know, in my 20 plus year career, I have never won a Battle Royal. Isn't that crazy? I've wrestled in crazy places where people aren't very good, right? Like in Battle Royals with a bunch of people that you would have never heard of. And for whatever reason, some of them were good for whatever reason. I could never win a Battle Royal. But this might be my last chance. So, I'm making it a goal to win the Royal Rumble, to win a Battle Royal. If that happens, if I win the Royal Rumble, that means I will go to WrestleMania and face whoever's the Universal Champion."
Fightful will be keeping an updated list of Royal Rumble participants here.
Roman Reigns successfully defended his title versus Kevin Owens for the second time in a week, when he emerged victorious from their Christmas Day cage match. You can catch up on all the action by checking out Fightful's post-show review with Sean Ross Sapp and Jeremy Lambert.