10 WWE Stars In Vince McMahon's Doghouse Right Now
2. Daniel Bryan
Something is off with Daniel Bryan's return.
One would think his improbable, magical return would inspire WWE to simply add the gloss and position him as a genuine main event-level talent. His story is something so perfect that a genuinely great craftsman would struggle to weave it, much less a Creative Writer. The issue is that we have lived through the first act already. Twice. Bryan's fictional underdog story concluded at WrestleMania XXX. His real against-all-odds story was an even greater and more uplifting convergence of unlikely factors.
And yet, we have arrived back at act one. Bryan remains the perennial underdog, battling larger stars and relying on the help of larger stars to battle yet larger stars. He is stigmatised as an underdog, in a betrayal of his immense range as a performer, and it can only resonate as a pale imitation. Is this typical WWE character work, in which the primary trait of a character is embellished to an often intelligence-insulting degree, or is his cloudy contractual status antagonising WWE to play hardball?
It feels as if Vince is challenging Bryan into committing, by way of giving him little reason to commit.