FEATURE
WWE AS YOU’VE NEVER
SEEN IT BEFORE
Wrestler Daniel Bryan’s hemp championship belt has
divided opinion
DANIEL
B R YA N
DANIEL
B R YA N
WO
RL
D H
E
AV
Y WEIG
92
VAPOUROUND CBD MAGAZINE
MP
ION
advocate routinely chastises the crowd, his competitors
and the sport for their supposedly unethical ways.
His speech following the 2019 Royal Rumble was no
different and instantly garnered international headlines.
“This is a symbol,” the long-haired, bearded cardigan-
wearing Bryan said, holding the gold-adorned leather
championship belt.
“It is a symbol of excellence. But it is also a symbol
of excess. It’s gaudy, it’s made from cheap labour and
worst of all it is bound to the skin of a cow whose life
was taken from her. I like to give that cow a name. In my
mind, the cow whose life was taken, her name was Daisy.”
A chant of ‘Daisy! Daisy!’ swept through the crowd, in
what we can only assume was a WWE first.
Hemp and wrestling are not the most natural of
bedfellows.
Certainly, their associated stereotypes could not
be more different from one another. Perhaps this is
why WWE wrestler Daniel Bryan’s latest antagonistic
persona has proven to be such a hit.
Bryan returned to the ring in 2018 following a three-
year hiatus after a serious injury threatened to end his
career. In his former incarnation he was known as, to
quote his WWE profile, a ‘scrappy underdog’ – the
kind of athlete the neutral can get behind.
But the ‘new’ Daniel Bryan has proven to be somewhat
more divisive.
The environmentalist, vegetarian and animal rights
HT
A
CH