10 Weird Periods WWE Icons Would Like You To Forget

5. Daniel Bryan (2011)

Daniel bryan Money in the Bank
WWE.com

2011 may have been the year that saw Daniel Bryan win the Money in the Bank briefcase and subsequently the World Heavyweight Championship, but boy did he have a rough time outside of those two individual matches. Bryan wasn't just irrelevant before winning the briefcase; he was as good as irrelevant while he held the thing.

Bryan did start the year as United States Champion, but he wasn't exactly doing anything with the belt. He didn't defend it on television once, after all. It was no surprise when he dropped it to Sheamus just before WrestleMania XXVII, and his subsequent demotion to the purgatory of SmackDown's midcard seemed to signify the limit of his possibilities in WWE. Sure, he won the briefcase, but there was no sign that it was going to be the start of anything positive. If anything, it seemed obvious that Bryan was going to be the first man to fail in his cash-in attempt.

While holding onto the case, he lost to Sin Cara, he lost to Cody, he lost to Wade Barrett. Just two weeks before successfully cashing-in on Big Show, he lost in two minutes to Alberto Del Rio. Clean. No interference, nothing, just a cross armbreaker and a frantic tapping.

Daniel Bryan's 2011 booking is a great example of how tired the Money in the Bank concept is, and an even better example of how little interest WWE had in one of this generation's greatest talents.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.