10 Best Pre-WWE Daniel Bryan Matches

10. VS James Gibson (Ring Of Honor's Glory By Honor 4)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftVrvCeq3Hs This was a historic match, because it was the match that saw Danielson win the RoH World Title, starting a 462-day reign (third-longest in company history) where he successfully defended the belt 38 times (tied for the most in company history). He dropped the title nearly eight years ago, but the overwhelming majority of RoH fans still view his title reign as the greatest that the promotion has ever seen. On top of that, this match saw the debut of Danielson using Europe's "The Final Countdown" as his entrance music, something that people continue to hope and wish for in WWE. James Gibson is better known as Jamie Noble of WWE fame, both from his "trailer trash" gimmick several years back, and for his "corporate stooge" act that he currently has with Seth Rollins on WWE programming. What many wrestling fans don't know about him, though, is that he can go in the ring. This match is all the proof you need of that, as Gibson matched Danielson hold for hold, and counter for counter, for nearly 35 minutes. If you watch WWE and/or TNA wrestling, you'll see the occasional match with multiple counters, especially when it's a big pay-per-view of some sort, but those counter sequences tend to only last a few seconds. Here, we got what seemed like minutes at a time where it was just counters, reversals, near falls, and finisher attempts. Some people knock the match a bit because they feel the outcome was never in question. It was known that Gibson was on his way to WWE, so everyone was expecting him to drop the title to Danielson here, but those people forgot who Gibson beat to win the title in the first place... CM Punk, who had a WWE contract, and not only won the title, but successfully defended it a few times before finally losing. That left just enough doubt to keep drama involved, and all of those counters and reversals only added to it.