10 WWE Number One Contenders Nobody Actually Thought Could Win

9. Kane

Cain Velasquez Brock Lesnar
WWE

Daniel Bryan's quest for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship was exhilarating. The leader of the YES! Movement went from antagonistic heel to the most beloved babyface of an entire generation in the blink of an eye, leading crowds around the world in rapturous chants of the most simplistic kind. WWE didn't want it to happen but you can't stop destiny. Bryan finally ascended the mountain at WrestleMania XXX, overcoming Randy Orton and Batista to become champion of the world (and hearts worldwide).

The journey was a long one, and thoughts immediately turned to Bryan as champion as opposed to Bryan as underdog challenger. Fans began to wonder who lay in Bryan's future. Brock Lesnar? Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns or Dean Ambrose? A rematch with John Cena, or a reprise of his feud with Bray Wyatt? There were plenty of options, and Kane sure as sh*t wasn't one of them. The Big Red Machine was positioned as Bryan's first challenger, much to the excitement of approximately no-one.

Saying that, it would have been an extremely 'WWE' thing to have Bryan overcome all the odds before being shafted out of the title by Corporate Kane. Thankfully it didn't happen, although injury soon stopped DBry from competing at all. For a few years, at least.

Contributor
Contributor

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.