5 Reasons why Daniel Bryan turned heel against AJ Styles on SmackDown Live
For the second year in a row now, the WWE Championship picture prior to Survivor Series has changed completely.
Last year, then-WWE Champion Jinder Mahal took on AJ Styles in a match for the Championship two weeks before the 2017 Survivor Series pay-per-view. On that occasion, AJ Styles was the one to come out on top and won the Championship.
A full year and some days later, on the go-home show to WWE Survivor Series 2018, AJ Styles finally lost the title. He lost it to long-time WWE Universe fan favourite, Daniel Bryan, who is now the new WWE Champion.
Heading into Survivor Series, this means that as WWE Champion, Daniel Bryan will face the Universal Champion Brock Lesnar in a Champion vs. Champion match at the pay-per-view.
However, one of the biggest questions the WWE Universe has after this week's episode of SmackDown Live is about how Daniel Bryan won the WWE Championship.
Throwing aside his fan-favourite image, Bryan turned his back on the fair manner of doing things and turned heel. During the WWE Championship match on SmackDown Live, a spot saw Styles crash against the referee when Bryan dodged the Phenomenal Forearm. Bryan wasted no time in taking advantage and hit Styles with a low blow. While fans were still gasping and absorbing what they just witnessed, Bryan hit the Running Knee on Styles and pinned him for the three-count.
So now, the biggest question for the WWE Universe is this. Why did Daniel Bryan turn his back on the WWE Universe and become a heel? What possible reason could he have to go through with this massive heel turn after so many years of being a fan favourite?
In this article, we attempt to answer exactly that question. Without any further ado, let's get into five possible reasons Daniel Bryan turned heel on SmackDown Live.
#5 Need to face Brock Lesnar
For the longest time, Daniel Bryan has wanted to face 'The Beast' Brock Lesnar. After winning the Championship at WrestleMania, he was finally supposed to do exactly that, but an injury he suffered meant that he would not be able to face him, and Lesnar faced Cena instead.
For Bryan, the Lesnar match was always as much of a Dream Match as it was for the WWE Universe.
At Survivor Series, the WWE Champion represents SmackDown Live and faces the Universal Champion who represents Raw. With Lesnar being the current Universal Champion, this was the perfect (and possibly only) opportunity that Bryan had to face the Beast.
So when the opportunity presented itself, he decided that no cost was too high, and immediately seized it -- even if it meant turning his back on the WWE Universe.