10 Ups & 7 Downs For Daniel Bryan’s WWE Career
WWE Creative: You’re gonna get your f*cking head kicked in.
Bryan Danielson’s journey through pro wrestling was a fascinating and revolutionary one even before he went to WWE, in which the apesh*t hit the fan.
Danielson became such a revolutionary scientific marvel that the Wrestling Observer Newsletter named the Best Technical Wrestler Award after him. Fusing immaculate technique with a vicious, witty in-ring character, Bryan also influenced a new breed of wrestling chant, one imported from English football hooligans.
“You’re gonna get your f*cking head kicked in,” the Ring Of Honor fans used to chant at his opponents before an inevitable barnstormer of a match. You could believe it, too: the man was such a master craftsman that, shy of six feet and not particularly defined, he convinced his adoring cult public that he was a match for anybody—and, latterly, the nobodies.
Danielson’s work on the Independent scene elevated it to a realm of critical acclaim seen only in Japan to that point, and, in drawing several jaded eyes to this bold new uprising, helped pave the way for its latter-day boom in popularity.
Daniel Bryan’s is arguably the most fascinating story in WWE’s rich history—and to underscore the dismal creative nadir of its most recent chapters, fans had to remove the pen from its hands, and put creative in the LeBell Lock…