Daniel Bryan personally requested that WWE change his WrestleMania opponent

Kofi Kingston defeated Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 35 in April 2019 to win the WWE Championship for the first time in his career.

However, as Kingston recalled on this week’s episode of Corey Graves’ After The Bell podcast, he was not originally supposed to be involved in a featured match at WrestleMania.

Instead, WWE originally planned for Kevin Owens to challenge Bryan for the title, but the company’s decision-makers changed their booking direction due to the ‘KofiMania’ phenomenon in the weeks leading up to ‘Mania.

Kingston revealed to Graves that, as well as the fans who pushed for him to challenge for the WWE Championship, Bryan personally asked WWE officials to let him defend his title against the New Day member at the biggest PPV of the year.

“I haven’t said this on any interviews before, but he [Bryan] pushed for that to happen, because the plans weren’t for me to be at WrestleMania. I’m not sure who it was for Daniel to face, but it wasn’t me. Daniel went in and went to bat for me and for the situation, for the title match between us to happen, so he had a big part in it too.”

(If you use quotes from this article, please credit After The Bell and give a H/T to Sportskeeda for the transcription).