10 Scrappiest WWE Underdogs

4. Daniel Bryan

In any other company, Daniel Bryan would never have been considered an underdog. In Ring Of Honor, it was the fans that began chanting that he was the best in the world, and his intense, stiff technical style was booked as being fearsome to behold. But, as I€™ve mentioned, WWE traditionally expect any wrestler under six foot tall to earn his spot ten times over in order to be considered for the main event, and Daniel Bryan was no exception. To have the former 'American Dragon' (who was obviously one of the most legit professional wrestlers in the entire company from day one) come across as an underdog required some significant, specific booking choices. So: he was booked as a wrestling nerd who didn€™t know anything about women, real life or how to make it in the big leagues, and was routinely and deliberately buried by the announcers. He would lose at WrestleMania XXVIII in 18 seconds; he would express major self-doubt while in a top level tag team with WWE veteran Kane the following year; he would lose his feud with Bray Wyatt in early 2014, only weeks after spending the second half of 2013 in the main event chasing a WWE Championship that WWE didn€™t want him to keep hold of. He was called a farmyard animal, a garden gnome, and his very real relationship with Brie Bella was mocked on camera. Bryan€™s ascension to the very top level of the company was an accident, and his glorious WrestleMania moment only happened at all because the original plans sucked so hard that the office was worried that the fans would hijack WrestleMania XXX as they had the Royal Rumble. Bryan would receive the ultimate underdog moment when he jerked the curtain and worked the main event at the show, defeating three quarters of Evolution over the course of the event to win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.