Daniel Bryan, as a person, I think he is a good guy; I don't know him on a personal note well enough to say anything bad about him. As a competitor, he is a die-hard competitor. He is going to bring everything into this match that he can.
I've been an athlete and competitor my whole life, and there's nothing more that I get off on than competition.
I don't know if I'd call myself a prodigy, but I was a big forensics competitor in high school, and then during college I spent some time working at speech and debate camps as a coach.