10 Great WWE Moments We Came Agonisingly Close To
1. Daniel Bryan Vs. Brock Lesnar - Night Of Champions 2014
We replace ‘SummerSlam’ with ‘Night Of Champions’ on purpose.
The enforced change, to Brock Lesnar Vs. John Cena, followed the planned layout move for move. The idea was thus: to put Brock Lesnar over as a total monster, and to deprive Bryan’s passionate fanbase of a competitive match, Lesnar was to annihilate Bryan with German suplex after German suplex after German suplex in an antagonistic meta affair. WWE aimed to break our hearts…
…only to repair them—and Bryan’s credibility—somewhat at the subsequent Night of Champions pay-per-view, at which Bryan’s long-held dream of his ultimate match would come to fruition. Bryan has laid this match out in his mind since 2012: a gruesome shoot-style war beyond the WWE norm laced, given his history of neck issues, with the most heart-wrenching stakes imaginable in the context of the squared circle. Bryan’s struggle and technical ingenuity here, in the face of such a terrifying, ultra-strong entity, would have cemented his babyface legend even more than his New Orleans triumph did.
Unbelievably, we are days away from an utterly bizarre subversion of this match—but not quite the same ultimate David Vs. Goliath story.
It’s still going to be amazing though, he writes, knowing full well that this version of Lesnar could very easily just dust him in five repetitive minutes.