411’s WWE Talking Smack Report: Daniel Bryan Wants The Universal Champion at WrestleMania, Paul Heyman Has Another Pep Talk for Big E, and More!

411’s WWE Talking Smack Report: 12.26.20

-The Road to WrestleMania is upon us as it is officially Royal Rumble season with Daniel Bryan being the 1st competitor announced. This needs to be his year to finally win The Rumble and Reigns/Bryan is definitely a WrestleMania worthy Main Event. Let’s get to it!

-Kayla Braxton welcomes us to Talking Smack, and she is joined by her co-host, Paul Heyman. Kayla is quite excited to announce that Big E is the new Intercontinental Champion. No loyalty to her former co-host, Sami Zayn. Next Kayla talks up how hard Kevin Owens fought tonight and if it wasn’t for Jey Uso, KO would have won the match. Heyman says that in the dog race of life if you are not in first place the view never changes. He says Roman is a better fighter, wrestler, husband, father and champion than KO could ever hope to be. He calls Reigns the head of every table throughout all of sports entertainment.

-Our first Talking Smack guest is Daniel Bryan and he is feeling good. Daniel heard Paul talking about people being better husbands, fathers, fighters. He isn’t the best father or husband in the world but he tries to be. He has a question for Paul and wants to know if Paul thinks he is a better fighter than Roman Reigns. Do you think I am a better wrestler…WRESTLER than Roman Reigns? Daniel says his fight with Jey may not have been for first place, but it felt like a fight. The energy from that makes him feel alive. That is why he loves this. He wants to be in fights like that and it makes him feel alive. Kayla brings up that Bryan mentioned he has never won The Royal Rumble. Daniel appreciates every moment because he was forced to retire and he cherishes every feeling since he has come back. He continues that in his 20 year career he has never won a Battle Royal. Even against guys nobody has ever heard he has never won a Battle Royal. This could be his last chance, so he is making it a goal to win The Royal Rumble. If he accomplishes that goal he will go to WrestleMania and face the Universal Champion. He stares at Heyman and tells him he is a better fighter and sure as hell as a better wrestler than Roman Reigns. If Roman is still Champion at Mania, he will beat him for his title. If he is not champion, then somewhere down the line he will beat him anyway. He switches on a dime, “Kayla I love that jacket.” Awesome! He talks about his kids enjoying Christmas, gives Paul a pat on the shoulder and is out. Daniel Bryan is life on this show!

-Charlotte and Asuka are out with their Tag Titles. Charlotte says the return and winning the tag titles hasn’t hit her yet. She felt like she had to come back and prove herself again. Heyman mentions he watched RAW to see Asuka and Charlotte as he really had no other reason to watch RAW. He wants to know who had the idea to form the team and Asuka excitedly rattles off the reason in Japanese. Heyman says that Kayla doesn’t speak Japanese and for her benefit wants someone to translate. Nobody translates as Asuka talks some more and Kayla just figures that Asuka was happy to team with Charlotte. We get a Sexy Muscle Friends reference as Charlotte wants to be her Sexy Muscle Friend. Charlotte talks about the growth of the division while she was gone, but she knows they are going to be a hard team to beat. They have seemingly agreed their team name will be Queens of Tomorrow. That’s actually kind of dope!

-Our final guest is the New Intercontinental Champion, Big E. Kayla and E are dancing to E’s theme and Heyman tells them that he can’t dance. Heyman congratulates E and gives him a hand shake. E says the words that Heyman spoke to him weeks back stayed with him and were very meaningful. E says that it has been 7 years since he has held the IC Title. He again thanks Paul for what he said because it hit home and reminded him that he has the juice. Heyman tells him he has always had it. E says there have been plenty of people that were classified as ‘what ifs’ and he doesn’t want that to be him. He doesn’t want to be that untapped potential. Kayla talks about the tough year as E smooches the title and rocks it like a baby. E isn’t sure it was the right decision to split New Day as Kofi became WWE Champion while they were a group. By no means is this the end as E says he has to work even harder to prove he deserves this and work harder to keep it. He also wants more. He feels he is on another level from the last time he held this title. Heyman asks if he is done with the false humility yet and turns to E to have another face to face talk. He knows E was raised to be a gentleman and he feels this has helped E with media, press junkets, charity work. He believes this is E’s first step and he knows E won’t say it because he is a gentleman, but he will say it. It’s his first step to Roman Reigns and The Universal Championship. Heyman says he told E he would be a champion two weeks ago and he mowed Sami down and took the title. He is going to love being a singles champion and the point will come that he will want to be a WrestleMania Main Event and Universal Champion. He would love to see E in the ring with Roman. When the year started if Roman asked about E, Paul would have said “tag team wrestler. Best one on the planet, but a tag team wrestler.” He can’t say that anymore. His trajectory has him on the way in 2021 and now his evaluation of E is: “It’s a new year, yes it is.” AWESOME!

-Wonderful show with the Bryan and E segments delivering and setting up 2 future challengers to Roman’s Universal Title. Heyman is just amazing on this show as he gets everything and everyone over while playing off the superstars so effortlessly. It then helps when you have Bryan and E who know how to use Paul and play off him as well. I am all for Bryan winning The Rumble, but the key to a great Rumble is having multiple people you can buy as winning and E is getting into the class as well. Go find the 23 minutes to check this show out as again this is the kind of stuff we need to hear on RAW and/or SmackDown. Thanks for reading!