10 Great Wrestling Matches You Didn’t Know You Wanted
9. Daniel Bryan Vs. Batista - WWE RAW, May 3, 2010
Intriguing on paper, few actually wanted to see this, not least of which Daniel Bryan’s ardent fanbase.
The poor b*stard, on NXT, was considered fodder for Darren Young, who had defeated him in under two minutes the previous month. We didn’t need to witness his slaughter at the hands of a bonafide superstar in the midst of a WWE Championship feud with John Cena; this was very much the “Stop! Stop! He’s already dead!” meme manifested as a pro wrestling match.
On paper.
In execution, this was as competitive as it was enthralling—one of the very weirdest, most contradictory developments of an NXT era in which the future stars of the company were ordered to carry kegs around the ring.
Exploiting that anxiety brilliantly, Batista easily hoisted Bryan up for the Batista Bomb at the opening bell—before Bryan used his grappling nous to slip out of it, and his submission nous to tease his deluded threat to “tap Batista out”. What followed next was proof of Bryan’s genius, not that WWE recognised it after the fact. He made a sleeper hold exciting by transitioning into it from a slingshot.
Bryan cycled through his expansive submission repertoire to maintain the improbable suspense, which a hoarse, spluttering Batista sold as if seconds away from passing out. As Bryan caught Batista in the LeBell Lock, children in the front row pounded the barricade in support, but in the SuperCena era, WWE refused to see them.
They’d be rewarded four years later.