1. Play The Ball, Not The Man
http://dai.ly/xujf9s Continuing on from our Saturday Night Slam fix of earlier, heres the pinnacle of Bryans interaction with the WWEs short-lived kids show: a five minute slapstick wrestling match between Daniel Bryan and Tyson Kidd, from October 2012. The purists among you may throw your hands up in the air, witnessing two of the WWEs three best technical wrestlers of that time wasting their time mugging for the camera in vaudevillian family-friendly hilarity. Thats just silly. Wrestling is entertainment for all walks of life - from this, to the NWAs dramatic claret-fests of the seventies and eighties - and youd have to have a heart of stone and the sense of humour of a fossilised walnut not to find this one of the most entertaining things you've ever seen. You think nothing's going to beat the spin - or Kane's reaction to it - but then Bryan inexplicably turns into a football. Watching Kidd desperately roll him around, trying to get both of Bryans shoulders down at once to pin him, before giving up in amused frustration? Thats one of the greatest moments the squared circle has ever seen. Bryan used to do similar things to make everyone laugh on the house show loo,p when feuding with Ted DiBiase Jr, one of his favourite opponents:
I was wrestling Teddy on the live events, and we were having really fun matches... My favorite was a spot where I would put Teddy up on my shoulders to airplane-spin him as many times as I could (which was usually around thirty rotations). Hed be so dizzy that he would try to pin the referee, and Id count to three and hed think that he won.
Thats Owen Hart levels of ridiculousness, right there and only one of many, many reasons why were all going to miss Bryan Danielson.