Daniel Bryan's Title win: The Beginning or The End?

A decade ago, if you might’ve been wondering which all independent wrestlers would make it big in WWE one day, the names that came up would’ve included the lights of CM Punk, Colt Cabana or Samoa Joe.

Finally

But no one would’ve given even a bit of chance to the American Dragon Brian Daniel-son to be the top guy in WWE one day. Well that’s the story being put simply. He was the guy that no one saw as an A+ player, he was just someone who had a plethora of technical talent vested in him.

Bryan travelled across that world and stamped his name as a top dog when it came to Independent Wrestling. His epic encounters with his fellow Indy darlings caught the eye of the WWE talent hunters and Bryan soon ended up in the development.

Even after getting into the main roster, Bryan was seen nothing more than a cruiser-weight who had no future beyond the mid card. But Bryan proved everyone wrong there also and despite all the attempts of WWE to bury him including that infamous loss against Sheamus in WrestleMania, Bryan rose as a performer that the fans loved to see.

Underdog flourishing

His popularity among the fans and the influence of the Internet Wrestling Community when it came to making or breaking shows forced WWE to push Bryan which ended up in him being the ultimate underdog in the company.

He was seen constantly being dragged down by everyone that there was and then rose an Authority and Triple H that had nothing else to do that make Bryan’s life a living hell.

As the attempts to pull him down strengthened the fan backing he had also grew as everyone jumped in the band wagon and wanted to bring down the company down and see their representative reach the top.

And they also gave the bandwagon a name: The Yes Movement.

Yes Yes Yes

The whole beauty of the yes movement was that it was a struggle from the fans and they were coming back the harder they were set down.

But WrestleMania literally is going to change everything.

Bryan won the title, he is the champion, He is no longer an underdog, he is a champion, and he’s someone who reached his destination.

What will fuel the yes movement now? This is a question that WWE might be asking themselves now.

Champion > no one

Though a Bryan win was what the fans wanted, on a long term it wasn’t the decision that WWE had to take. Bryan winning the title now officially takes the sting off the Yes Movement and wrestlers like Randy Orton and Batista had not much of relevance without the title.

The whole main event structure is in a shaky situation after the Bryan win and the fan wouldn’t be eager to back up a champion like they were for backing up a guy who had nothing.

Apart from that fact, in the past, WWE has always given the underdogs their moments. Be it Eddie Guerrero or be it Rey Mysterio, they’ve all held the titles but never became a Steve Austin or a John Cena.

And most notably, a decade ago a similar situation happened.

A soar memory

There was a certain Chris Benoit who was almost a replica of Daniel Bryan. He had excellent skills and had a fan backing that loved him only for his performance and nothing else. Benoit wasn’t the regular WWE guy; he was short like Bryan and didn’t have those A+ level microphone skills as well.

But despite all the shortcomings, Benoit defeated Triple H and Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XX to win the World Heavyweight title and last night Bryan defeated Randy Orton and Batista.

No, I’m not going to tell about Benoit’s death and conclude that Daniel Bryan is going to end up like that. But I’m going to point out that Chris Benoit lost sting of his fan backing soon after he won the title. He dropped it to Randy Orton later that year and never found a way back into the main event scene.

Benoit was stuck in the midcard for almost rest of his career and Bryan seems to be heading in the same path as well.

Bryan surely is not going to be the face of the company in the future, he is just a performer that knows how to pop the crowd. And when he won the title, many said that the WWE finally gave a happy ending. Well they still used the word “ending” and the joy is only momentary.

For Wrestlers like Daniel Bryan, certain things are only like sky writings.