Daniel Bryans latest career-threatening injury is a major downer for 2015, but its his premature return to action that is drawing this criticism. Bryan had been shelved since May 2014, but he returned to action just ahead of the 2015 Royal Rumble and entered the match. It seemed like the storybook tale from 2013 was going to play out again. And then it didnt. WWE booked uber-fan favorite Bryan to enter the Rumble in Philadelphia, no less and then have him get eliminated midway through the match and have Roman Reigns win. Bryans mere presence in the match was enough to overshadow everything else that happened. Unless Bryan won the Rumble, fans were going to crap all over it, and they did. Bryan then challenged Reigns for the #1 contenders spot at Fastlane, giving fans another glimmer of hope. That hope was then ripped away when Roman won the match. D-Bry got the consolation prize of competing in the Intercontinental Championship ladder match at WrestleMania, and while he won that bout, fans couldnt help but feel that it was a poor substitute for the title he never lost. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ3m9waPHkA Bryans injury that forced him to surrender the IC title this spring was the latest chapter in a confusing and disappointing 2015 for the goat-faced warrior.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
