As Daniel Bryan has a serious chance of being crowned WWE champion on Sunday, it’s probably time to ponder on a WWE onscreen career that has only lasted four years but is already one of the weirdest in WWE history. Parallels have been made with Stone Cold Steve Austin (both are best known as anti-establishment faces whose rise has been fuelled by massive fan support), but Bryan’s career is unlike any other.
Using his real name, Bryan Danielson had 10 years’ indie experience under his belt, mostly working for Ring of Honor, although he had spells in both the UK and Japan as well. In other words, he was the kind of seasoned indie star who wasn’t necessarily a good fit for WWE. WWE famously prefers to groom its stars in-house, and retains the belief that indie stars who are big IWC favourites cannot work well as ‘sports entertainers’. There was skepticism that WWE would use Danielson well, although optimists pointed to the fact CM Punk, another former RoH star, had achieved success in the big leagues.
However, from the first moments of the first episode of NXT, it was clear something was wrong. The show started with all the season one contestants lined-up. The Miz, Danielson’s mentor, picked him out, identifying him as ‘Daniel Bryan’, his new name. It was clear that Bryan was going to be singled out for onscreen abuse because of his roots and the fact that at 5ft 10 and little over 200 pounds he did not conform to WWE’s musclebound ideal. Also, Danielson had been wrestling far longer than Mizanin, so the choice of mentor looked like a genuine attempt to humiliate him. When heel commentator Michael Cole joined in the abuse, regularly trashing Bryan and indie wrestling in general, it appeared as if Bryan had only been signed in order so that Vince McMahon could have an extended joke at the expense of other promotions. Never mind that Bryan had wrestled in front of packed Japanese arenas, Cole never failed to remind us that there is nothing outside the WWE except the stereotype of failed wrestlers performing in school gymnasiums in front of 50 fans, who are spotty geeks still living with their parents….It’s a little much when a wrestler’s burial starts on his first appearance.
This was absolutely dismal and unnecessary, and it looked like Bryan had made a big mistake after all. Week after week, he piled up a string of defeats as the insults continued. And yet….there was also good news eventually. When the pros mentoring the NXT contestants first voted for who had impressed them most, Daniel Bryan came top of the poll. This made little sense in kayfabe, as he hadn’t won a single match. But wins started to come, and eventually, Bryan even got his revenge on The Miz, defeating him clean. This I think shows that, while Bryan’s fans believe that WWE is hell-bent on screwing him, the truth is a little more complicated. WWE clearly has respect for him too, as he is a very talented performer who has successfully adapted to the WWE style. Compare and contrast with Lo Ki / Kaval, whose stiff style simply not work there, and whose career at the company was short. There seems to be contradictory feelings within the company about his exact worth. In short, he has suffered from perhaps the biggest problem of modern WWE career arcs - stop/start booking. It’s just that he has suffered a more extreme version of this than most midcarders.
More strangeness was to follow at the end of the first season of NXT. A bold decision was made to move all the season one candidates to the main roster as a new heel faction, the Nexus. On the edition of Raw aired on June 7, 2010, the Nexus invaded the main event between CM Punk and John Cena and attacked both wrestlers and ring officials. For his part, Bryan pretended to choke ring announcer Justin Roberts with his own tie. This was considered to be too violent for PG-TV and the following day Bryan was released. Becoming Bryan Danielson again, he returned to the indie circuit. His first night on Raw was, apparently, his last...except, of course, that it wasn’t.
Two months later, at Summerslam, a seven-on-seven match was made between ‘Team WWE’ and the Nexus in an attempt to quell the rebellion. Team WWE’s mystery seventh member was unveiled on the night as….Daniel Bryan. He had apparently been forgiven, which makes me wonder whether his firing was a work. He certainly was rehired awfully quickly. Indeed splitting from the Nexus worked in his favour, as the Nexus was eventually buried deep by (sigh….) John Cena. Today, Wade Barrett is a non-wrestling antagonist with an endless stream of bad news, Heath Slater is a comedy jobber and Darren Young has been in a lower mid-card feud with former tag partner Titus O’Neil. Only Michael McGillicutty and Husky Harris have flourished to any degree, after being remodelled as Curtis Axel and Bray Wyatt.
By this stage, his career was finally progressing pretty well. He had a lengthy spell as United States champion towards the end of 2010, defeating The Miz again, he became a mentor on season four of NXT and later won a Money In The Bank briefcase in 2011. This shows that, at least at this point, WWE was behind Bryan quite strongly. He was regarded as an important mid-carder. At the end of 2011, he cashed in the briefcase to become World Heavyweight Champion by defeating The Big Show. It was all going very well. Towards the end of 2011, he developed a simple celebration, which involved pointing at the sky with both index fingers, jabbing the arms up while yelling ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’. It’s fair to say this got over, and his signature submission move, the Labell lock, was even renamed the Yes-lock.
He turned heel during 2012, becoming an over-confident braggart. At this point he was in the middle of a romantic tug-of-love triangle involving CM Punk and AJ Lee. This was particularly gratifying for fans of indie-wrestling, as Bryan and Punk were two former RoH stars having sizzling matches on the biggest wrestling stage of all. It also elevated AJ, whose unstable persona made her the most distinctive diva on the roster.
Then it happened. Of all the wrong-headed decisions WWE has made, the match Bryan had with Sheamus at WrestleMania XXIII to end his reign as Heavyweight Champion is particularly jaw-dropping. At the start of the ‘fight’, Bryan paused to take a ringside kiss from AJ. When he looked up, Sheamus delivered the brogue kick and scored an immediate pin in just 18 seconds. WWE had pulled off the impossible; it had booked a major PPV fight that was even worse and more insulting than the Victory Road 2011 main event, where Jeff Hardy was visibly too stoned to perform. This appalling burial attempt stopped all of Bryan’s momentum in its tracks...or did it? The audience had other ideas. They expressed their displeasure at being denied a fight many were looking forward by continuing to chant ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’. The Yes Movement was officially born. Interestingly, the squash was entirely counter-productive, as not only did the already-popular Bryan become super-over, Sheamus’ own popularity dipped badly. Today, though he usually wins (he’s HHH’s mate, after all), the Irish grappler is firmly back in the midcard.
Bryan’s fans weren’t pleased at all, and continued to treat him as a face, even though he was now a wild, angry and embittered heel. They were still chanting ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ approvingly when he appeared, so he started contradicting them by yelling ‘No! No! No!’ in denial of the praise. The Yes-lock was now the No-lock….
Many fans were disappointed with WWE’s next move, as Bryan was re-packaged essentially as a comic character. Placed into a chalk-and-cheese tag team with Kane (‘Team Hell No’), it emerged that, because of Bryan’s behaviour, he would be placed in anger management classes with a certain Doctor Shelby. Meanwhile, Bryan had made an interesting decision about his appearance. Realising that his look is rather too ordinary (he’s neither particularly good looking or ugly), he grew a huge, bushy beard. This was a little double-edged, as he certainly looked distinctive but commentators now joked about his ‘goat-face’ appearance. Jokes about his appearance appeared to show that he was regarded as comical relief. Fans were, again, not happy at this, and a quick analysis proves that this is more inconsistent booking. Bryan is, supposedly, an ugly troll, yet in storylines he has attracted the romantic interest not just of AJ Lee, but also from Gail Kim and the Bella Twins (he is, of course, dating Brie Bella in real life), so he has no problem in attracting glamorous women.
Even if this wasn’t necessarily respectful, there was actually much to enjoy. The bickering partners clicked well, and the segments with Dr Shelby were highly amusing. Not only did Kane show a previously-undiscovered humorous side, Daniel Bryan adapted to his new role with perhaps surprising relish. The pair worked against the odds, and to be fair, WWE noticed this and rewarded them with the Tag Team Belts. From this period, I recall fondly a neat ‘When Harry Met Sally’ parody also featuring Mae Young. More seriously, Team Hell No was placed in a program to elevate The Shield, a young heel faction which, unusually for WWE, has been booked pretty flawlessly. However, Daniel Bryan used the opportunity to deliver a number of fine, eye-catching performances. His work seemed far quicker than most WWE action, which has a tendency to be rather sluggish, and The Shield looked good simply because they could keep up with his pace. Bryan had perhaps not been where he wanted to be, but had made the best of his position, and this was clearly appreciated. During this run, he turned face again, and ended up on television more than almost any other wrestler in WWE. Not a bad result after all.
After Team Hell No disbanded in mid-2013, he continued to work with The Shield, proving that he was trusted in a Chris Jericho-style role to promote emerging talent. Meanwhile, it appeared that Bryan had an unexpected ally backstage in John Cena. Reports suggest that, while many senior figures in WWE have doubted Bryan’s ability as a top star, Cena has actually lobbied for Bryan to be a main-eventer. After apparently being screwed out of a Money In The Bank victory on July 14, Bryan had better news, as John Cena personally selected him on the following night’s Raw as his opponent at Summerslam for the World Championship belt. Cena proved committed to Bryan’s cause at least. At Summerslam, Daniel Bryan was permitted to pin Cena cleanly, a truly rare event. But wouldn’t you know it, there was a twist: special guest referee Triple HHH cheated him out of his moment of glory, attacking Bryan immediately after his victory, allowing Randy Orton to cash in his Money In The Bank briefcase. His first reign with WWE’s top title lasted a couple of minutes.
He was now feuding with Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. forming a new heel owner faction, ‘The Authority’. Both adopted a purposefully patronising tone towards Bryan, describing him as a ‘solid B-plus player’, but not on a level with the Authority’s chosen ‘face of the WWE’, Randy Orton. Fans were now split on whether this represented WWE’s real stance on Daniel Bryan, or whether it was an artful attempt to garner heat by playing on smarkish perceptions on internal WWE politics. Whatever, the Authority continued to thwart Bryan as he attempted to win back the title. Bryan did win back the belt at Night of Champions in September, but was stripped of it the following night, due to an alleged fast count by the referee. Fans were initially disappointed, but hoped that this was a storyline that would ultimately lead to Bryan overcoming the Authority. It was also commonly thought that Bryan would win the Royal Rumble in 2014.
Then another setback happened. Bryan was suddenly pulled from the feud, comically replaced by The Big Show, who is not in good enough physical shape to work a PPV-quality match. Show even stole the Yes chant, apparently reflecting WWE’s belief that the chant was more over than Bryan. They were wrong. Word was that Summerslam drew disappointing numbers, and the blame was firmly placed on Bryan’s shoulders. It should be noted that Randy Orton, Bryan’s co-headliner who had also headlined several other poor-rating PPVs, was not punished at all, and became unified World Champion. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
Bryan was not going to get his revenge anytime soon. Instead, he was put into a program with another new heel faction, The Wyatt Family. While it was obviously disappointing to see him thrown back back into the midcard, this was not a total waste of his talents. He had several fine matches again, and the experience surely helped bring along the quickly-developing talents of Eric Rowan and Luke Harper. Rather than being dragged down to their level, Bryan elevated the Wyatts to his level, and indeed, matches between Bryan and the Wyatts were occasionally Raw’s main events. He also had a moment of triumph at the actual Slammy awards, as the WWE universe voted him superstar of the year for 2013. Nor was this an isolated incident; in the readers’ polls of various magazines and websites for the year, Bryan swept the board, sometimes polling more votes than all other contenders put together.
As we enter 2014, it’s worth pausing to consider the concept of crowd mutinies. Increasingly, in recent years, crowds have become more rebellious, refusing to cheer the guys WWE push hard as faces. Witness the chorus of boos that often greet John Cena. More playfully, the Raw after Wrestlemania in 2013 saw the crowd decide that Fandango’s theme music was more interesting than whatever match Sheamus was involved in. However, the 'Yes Movement' was determined to make all previous mutinies look tame.
Momentum really took hold a few weeks earlier thanks to seriously bad planning on WWE’s part. On December 9 2013, Raw was held in Seattle, the largest city in Bryan’s home state of Washington. A segment was booked to promote the title unification fight between John Cena and Randy Orton. As part of this, all previous World Champions (including Daniel Bryan) appeared onstage to act as a backdrop as Triple H, John Cena and Randy Orton supplied promos. So you have a partisan crowd watching a segment where their local hero appears but is not supposed to speak, and which is designed to set up a rivalry which is commonly regarded as being tired and played out. Seriously, WWE, what did you expect was going to happen? As soon as he started speaking, Triple HHH struggled to make himself heard above the chants of ‘Daniel Bryan’; he was noticeably rattled and thrown off his stride as he delivered his usual self-serving promo. John Cena, on the other hand managed rather better. Going off-script, he understood that he needed to get Bryan involved to get the crowd onside; he conducted a brief mock interview with Bryan, before making a contrast between the Aberdeen native, who had got where he was through hard work, and Orton, who had used family connections. Cena’s ability to think on his feet just about saved the segment, but this showed that a hijacking could help change the direction of a show.
In January 2014, the WWE tried one last attempt at a humiliating burial by having Daniel Bryan submit to Bray Wyatt and join the Wyatt family. The Wyatts lost matches, and the plan was to have Bryan submit to Sister Abigail’s Kiss (Bray’s signature finisher) at the end as punishment. This lasted just two weeks. Bryan was still getting much bigger crowd pops than the nominal faces he was up against, and WWE had no option but to abandon this. They at least at managed one memorable moment after Bryan turned on the Wyatts (he ended up sat on the top of a cage, leading the Yes chant), but this was clumsy, chaotic booking. It also harmed Bray Wyatt briefly, as he was made to look like an inept cult leader whose brainwashing skills are lacking. I think the lesson has now been learned, and WWE won’t pull another stunt quite like this. Daniel Bryan is truly burial-proof.
Nevertheless, Royal Rumble arrived as usual, and the Yes movement were ready to stage another hijack. The first match was a truly excellent, consistently exciting bout between Bray Wyatt and Daniel Wyatt. It didn’t seem to matter that Bray got the win, as both looked strong in the match. Besides, many reasoned, this would logically lead to Bryan becoming a surprise entrant in the Rumble match itself, getting a memorable win. The least said about the worthless Brock Lesnar / Big Show bout the better (repeated chair shots are no substitute for actual wrestling), but the trouble really started when, once more, John Cena locked horns with Randy Orton. Once again. The match wasn’t terrible, and had some memorable spots. but it was disjointed and lacked flow; several moves were noticeably rushed. Unfortunately, the opener had raised the bar too high, and this was always going to fall short. The inevitable ‘Daniel Bryan’ chants were soon joined by random chants designed to express the crowd’s displeasure. The most damning was ‘We want divas!’. Ouch! The hijack was under way.
The Royal Rumble match itself is a format that almost guarantees entertainment. This one started well. CM Punk and The Shield entered early and had good, long spells in the ring. There was less nostalgia than usual, but there was a worthwhile PPV debut for Alexander Rusev and the annual tradition where Kofi Kingston uses ingenuity and agility to avoid elimination was maintained. This was all very encouraging. But as time went by and the available slots were running out, the crowd was becoming restless. Number 30 arrived, Daniel Bryan was still nowhere to be seen, and the buzzer went….with Rey Mysterio’s music ringing through the arena. The likeable San Diego veteran, who to be fair had not booked this match, was roundly booed, and cheers were offered when he was eliminated. The crowd were actually then prepared to throw their weight behind Roman Reigns, showing that, if Bryan’s not around, they’ll accept another younger star instead. They just want change at the top. Unfortunately it was all-too-obvious that the 45-year-old returnee Batista (who had hung around MMA and Hollywood since leaving WWE) would be crowned as the victor. Although nominally a face, Batista was faced with an inevitable chorus of boos after winning the Rumble, and was visibly upset. He has since turned heel (again, WWE had no choice), but he basically has full X-Pac heat now.
It’s not the only way the audience has affected the direction of WWE’s programming. At long, long last, WWE has finally green-lighted a major push for our hero. On the March 10 edition of Raw, this became fully evident. Daniel Bryan walked out and delivered one of his most impassioned speeches about standing up to HHH’s corporate machine. He then revealed he was talking to members of the Yes Movement earlier, and together they hatched a plan to ‘Occupy Raw’ (a reference to the anti-capitalist international protests starting in 2011). A large number of his followers, all wearing the same t-shirt (a parody of the Barack Obama ‘Hope’ poster where Bryan looks curiously like Che Guevara) then flooded the ring. Triple H then furiously ordered them out of the ring, and Bryan responded that he would only leave when he was given a Wrestlemania match against the boss of The Authority. After Trips realised that neither security nor Damien Sandow were prepared to attempt to remove the occupants, he angrily agreed to Bryan’s demand. This surprisingly long segment showed that WWE accepted that Daniel Bryan was not only going to get his match at Wrestlemania, but that his feud with Triple H was now the main focus of WWE programming. At the end of the following week’s show, a handcuffed Daniel Bryan was viciously beaten down by Triple H at the end of Raw. He didn’t appear the following week at all (to sell storyline injuries), but reappeared right at the end of Raw the week after, which was the go-home show. There, he launched a sneak attack on Triple H as well as clearing the ring of Randy Orton and Batista. This sets up their Wrestlemania match perfectly.
This was a joy to watch, although I did note one point about Occupy Raw: whilst WWE was acknowledging the Yes Movement and giving us what we want, they were also having a little joke at our expense. The people in the ring (apparently a mix of real fans, WWE employees and catering staff from the venue) all looked, well, rather geeky. Apparently this is what the IWC looks like….No matter, it did seem as if WWE had changed its mind about Bryan as a main-eventer. But why? Well, the crowd’s restlessness is an obvious reason. Perhaps more importantly, the bottom line inevitably is important to WWE, and there was a feeling that Daniel Bryan didn’t shift enough merchandise previously. This surely was because of the company’s failure to monetise Bryan’s popularity properly; his t-shirts contained ugly, insulting caricatures. However, the new, better designs have led to a significant spike in sales, and that surely is a big factor here.
But one question remains. Although Daniel Bryan is now has a bigger standing than he ever has had, and is arguably the number one face in the company (interestingly, John Cena is now in a mid-card feud with the Wyatts), will WWE back him all the way to a big Wrestlemania moment? It’s hard to say. As a fan, I know how he’s been previously screwed, so I’m wary of too much optimism. The winner of Triple H vs Daniel Bryan is inserted into the World Championship title bout between Randy Orton and Batista. It makes sense for Daniel Bryan to at least beat Trips, as otherwise you have three heels in the match. But for him to take the title goes against the WWE’s current philosophy, which is to use the Performance Center to produce wrestlers who conform to the large body size WWE admires. The window which led to smaller indie workers getting signed has now closed; the decision not to sign The American Wolves, arguably the most exciting tag team in the USA today, is significant here. The future is more likely to look like Alexander Rusev than Adrian Neville. I will explain in my next post why this is a mistake.
In conclusion, I’ll just note the WWE now has a real dilemma. It can have Daniel Bryan fall short once again, and preserve its ‘bigger is better’ philosophy. The side-effect of this is more months of Raw hijackings and crowd disenchantment. Or it can forget all that, supply Daniel Bryan with an heroic victory and produce one of the biggest pops to end any Wrestlemania. I look forward to seeing which decision they make.
