10 Things You Didn't Know About WWE Champion Daniel Bryan

3. RANDOM FACT: Daniel Bryan Once Suffered The Most Embarrassing Defeat In WrestleMania History...

Fast forward a couple of years from a young man returning to the indies, to a more confident, polished and assured WWE star on the receiving end of his first big push... By the time WrestleMania XXVIII rolled around in 2012, Daniel Bryan was serving his first stint as the company's World Heavyweight Champion. This belt, not to be confused with the regular WWE title, was ostensibly a revival of the WCW Championship that WWE legally owns the rights to (although, in practice, its lineage is sketchy at best). He had won the title via a 'Money in the Bank' stipulation and had defended the belt several times (nearly all occasions involved cheating on Bryan's part €“ his character at the time being an arrogant, yet opportunistic, heel). At WrestleMania, the Daniel Bryan character was put through a major test. ...And he failed. Spectacularly. Within 18 seconds, Irish brawler Sheamus 'Brogue Kicked' an unsuspecting Bryan in the face and covered him for the pin. It was a 'blink and you'll miss it' burial. Depending on whom you ask, this match is either one of the most surprising WrestleMania moments, or else one of the most sour. I'm going with the latter. The entrance music was longer than the match for Pete's sake! By my count, it is the second shortest title match in WWE (maybe even in all of wrestling) history. The first, of course, has to be Bob Backlund's 8-second drubbing at the hands of Diesel (AKA Kevin Nash) in 1994. Somehow, Daniel Bryan's career was not completely destroyed by this incident. We can only thank the great Gods of wrestling (and the notoriously short memories of WWE's writing staff) for this fortuitous occurrence...