5 Potential Replacements For Daniel Bryan As WWE SmackDown GM

Many questions have been raised following news that Daniel Bryan is to return to active competition, chief among them: who will he face at WrestleMania? Will he now renew his WWE contract? When is he going to get in the ring with AJ Styles?

Slightly neglected, however, is the issue of who will fill his shoes as SmackDown general manager if, as expected, he steps down from the role in order to resume his wrestling career. Matches aren't going to make themselves, and it's highly unlikely that he'll perform both functions simultaneously (fictionally speaking, anyway).

Plenty of names are bound to crop up between now and the SmackDown following WrestleMania (where conventional wisdom suggests the company will unveil its new man or woman), and the appointment of Kurt Angle to the Raw hot-seat last year is perhaps evidence that none of them can be ruled out for certain.

With so many legends, and ex-general managers, still on the WWE payroll in some capacity or other - or, at the very least, still appearing on TV occasionally - both conventional and left-field picks are very much on the table.

Teddy Long's credentials as a general manager are there for all to see: he's already had two stints in the SmackDown hot-seat - including, between 2004 and 2007 the longest tenure of any GM on the blue brand - and he briefly took charge of ECW in 2008.

He's got great rapport with he fans, he knows how to dance, and he's got a thing for booking two-on-two matches in his main event, something that's sure to help the occasionally promising SmackDown tag division get back on its feet.

Importantly, he's also the kind of GM who - outside of that brief period where he turned heel and got kidnapped by The Undertaker - fades nicely into the background. After 18 months of Bryan and Shane being all over TV, it wouldn't hurt to have the authority figure become less hands-on going forward.

The only snag is his age. Long is 70, at the point in his life that may not want to travel around the country week on week to film the show. Then again, Vince McMahon is 72, and he still seem to be as passionate as ever, so it probably can't be ruled out on that basis.