12 Ups & 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE SmackDown (Feb 5)

3. The Planet Needs Him

The New Daniel Bryan was at his most villainous last night, and he had to be.

SmackDown taking place in his home state (Washington) guaranteed a crowd reaction belying his alignment. Cheered when he emerged, and serenaded with "Yes!" chants as he spoke, Bryan would play the crowd like a fiddle.

He praised the audience for their intelligence in one sentence, then shot them down in the next. "Unfortunately, as WWE Champion, I speak to a global audience." This turnaround was followed by the usual array of chastisement and bile, claiming he was fighting an uphill battle against the crass, selfish masses killing the planet by "stuffing their mouths with deep-fried animal carcasses." Cue: boos from a crowd that were treating Daniel like a homecoming king just moments prior.

Rowan got a little microphone time too, saying that like Galileo, people fear Bryan for his ideas, before 'The Planet's Champion' retook the stick, completing a diatribe that dived deep into his new persona than in any of the previous weeks.

While the audience veered back towards positivity a number of times, Bryan deserves immense credit for keeping them negative for the bulk of it. Our only hope is that he doesn't turn into a cartoon character. This is always a danger when WWE lean too far into heavily-gimmicked characters, but Bryan's performances should be able to transcend any writing declines.