10 Ups & 7 Downs For Daniel Bryan’s WWE Career
Ups…
1. Day One Ish
Bryan’s first WWE stint proper was so !*$% weird.
He entered a more competitive performance opposite Chris Jericho (05:54) on NXT’s suicidal, screwball first season than he did against Darren Young (1:51). That match with Jericho, his televised introduction to WWE, opened many an eye; physical, tense, Bryan accomplished that rarest of feats: in crashing against the announce table with a hellish bump, he created a highlight reel moment on his first night in.
It didn’t open Vince’s eyes. Jericho, glowing with praise, walked to gorilla. He told Vince he had a real star on his hands.
“Him?” came the incredulous reply. “He doesn’t even eat meat!”
A nerd who couldn’t beat Michael Tarver on NXT, he also moonlighted on RAW as a match for top heel Batista in a shockingly competitive and dramatic affair. It was among the best short matches in company history.
Bryan’s in-ring IQ is as high as the company was once low on him. Far smaller than his opponent, and essentially a jobber in contrast to Batista’s superstar, he had to wrestle with a keen intelligence to convince the crowd that this was anything beyond an absurd, cruel mismatch. Showing immediate guile by flooring Batista with a drop toe-hold—and guts by surviving the subsequent, fury-driven onslaught—Bryan in a tremendous flash sequence managed to apply a slingshot sleeper hold, somehow making that most tired of tricks as dramatic as all hell.
This match demonstrated Bryan’s unreal ability to maximise the strengths of any dynamic handed to him.