10 Uplifting Wrestling Moments To Cure Your 'Mania Hangover
1. Daniel Bryan's Impossible Victory
Daniel Bryan wasn't meant to capture the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania XXX.
He debuted on NXT in 2010 as a figure of scorn - an avatar for the vocal fan WWE had yet to reluctantly acknowledge. The company evidently saw something in him. He scored big wins over The Miz later that year, and was given the fading Big Gold Belt one year later, but as was drilled repeatedly into the minds of fans throughout his feud with the Authority faction in 2013, Bryan was only ever meant to be a "good little hand" - a man with the workrate required to elevate the supposed real stars, like Sheamus, into the headline ranks.
WWE listened to the fans who connected so fully with him, when his "Yes!" schtick turned from self-aggrandising rallying cry to klaxon of overarching fan sentiment, and booked him to dethrone WWE Champion John Cena at SummerSlam 2013 - but his subsequent dispute with Triple H was somehow never the plan for WrestleMania. His act was transferred to The Big Show (!), his WrestleMania role transferred to CM Punk.
A confluence of factors - Punk's sudden exit, the rejection of Batista as a returning hero - forced WWE's hand. They were dragged, kicking and screaming, into crowning Bryan as the man in New Orleans.
WWE ballsed up the build big time, but redeemed themselves with the execution. Bryan's two matches, a technical war with Triple H and an emotional and suspenseful brawl with Randy Orton and Batista - were both classics, threaded with the agonising subplot of his injured shoulder.
When he eventually raised both titles aloft, it was a victory for change as much as it was a victory for him - total euphoria on a micro and macro level.