10 Wrestlers Punished For Trying To Steal The Limelight
7. Daniel Bryan
WWE was once the organisation that welcomed opportunistic talent to perform beyond their pay-grade. As Executive Vice President of Talent Relations in the mid-1990s, Jim Ross hired Steve Austin and Dwayne Johnson asking only for them to do exactly that. The Attitude Era was forged on their competitive spirit.
Daniel Bryan wasn't cut from identical cloth, but had the incredible talents of both. Undermined at every stage of his WWE ascension, it was fittingly his most humiliating loss that triggered the start of an unstoppable force in his favour.
Falling to Sheamus in 18 seconds at WrestleMania 28 was the type of disrespectful booking that baffled audiences into action. The company tacitly tried to ease the hostilities by placing Bryan in the tag ranks alongside Kane until 'Team Hell No' got over on the strength of his incredible popularity.
Flattening him week after week in the months that followed SummerSlam 2013 were - despite WWE's retellings - not part of a bigger arc. He was everybody else's guy, but he wasn't theirs. Bryan's WrestleMania 30 coronation required untold heaps of happenstance before an injury inflicted the damage their callous booking never could.