10 Ups & 7 Downs For Daniel Bryan’s WWE Career

3. 18 Seconds

Don’t give WWE credit.

WWE cared nothing about the Daniel Bryan character, at least as a main event proposition. This stunt of a match was designed expressly to get Sheamus and his Brogue Kick finish over. Iconic in how backwards WWE got it, the (would-be )damaging 18 second loss only reinforced the fandom’s love of the character. Battle lines were drawn in Miami. On that night, Bryan’s public knew that, to elevate their man back to prominence, they had to unify—and echo a rallying cry that, to that point, was a tactic designed to draw heat in an obnoxious, masturbatory vein disproportionate to what he had actually achieved in the ring. The events of April 1, 2012 forever altered the trajectory of Bryan’s WWE career forever. In that sense, it probably does warrant an ‘Up’.

But don’t give WWE credit. They have cleverly incorporated that night into Bryan’s story, but they didn’t pen that story.

He did.

We did.