20 Greatest Moments Of Daniel Bryan's Career

2. Cleanly Beating John Cena

Much like Hulk Hogan and Steve Austin before him, John Cena rarely loses cleanly. And by rarely, I mean practically never. In typical WWE fashion, having their biggest babyface lose in a decisive, fair and clean way just doesn€™t happen. At whatever cost, their top guy is protected no matter what. So with that said, it was a truly monumental moment to see Daniel Bryan get a straight-up clean 1-2-3 over John Cena, defeating Big Match John for the WWE Championship at SummerSlam 2013. Sure, this title celebration was short-lived when Triple H screwed Bryan and allowed Randy Orton to cash in his MITB briefcase and take the gold, but the list of guys to cleanly go over uber-babyface Cena is limited to literally a handful of guys. And at the top of that list is Daniel Bryan, reflecting the regard in which the WWE now viewed him.
In this post: 
Daniel Bryan
 
Posted On: 
Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.