5 Forgotten WWE Debuts Of Indie Superstars

While many in the WWE Universe seem to be under the impression that Daniel Bryan’s first televised bout in WWE came against John Cena on the February 8th edition of Velocity in 2003, the future leader of the "Yes Movement" also appeared on WWE programming one month earlier on January 12th, 2003.

In a hugely entertaining match up, Daniel Bryan (then wrestling under his real name of Bryan Danielson) would lock horns with the criminally underrated Jamie Noble, in a bout that wouldn’t look out of place on PPV today.

Unlike a traditional enhancement match, this contest is genuinely competitive from start to finish and Noble does a stellar job of showing the WWE audience exactly what his young opponent can do between the ropes.

Noble is very generous in this match, allowing his Danielson free reign to make a name for himself bell-to-bell. As a result, the match is high tempo from the get go, with “The American Dragon” displaying glimpses of his technical mastery interspersed with a myriad of his trademark strikes; including some stiff kicks, uppercuts and forearms, as well as a few headbutts thrown in for good measure.

Eventually Noble would get the better of his indie foe, countering a clothesline attempt into a swinging neckbreaker for the pin. Bryan would go on to appear twice more that year, facing Rico on Heat and John Cena on Velocity the following month; however, he wouldn’t get his big break in WWE until the launch of the original NXT format seven long years later.

Meanwhile. Jamie Noble would find himself on Danielson’s home turf just two years later, switching brands and wrestling for Ring of Honor under his real name of James Gibson in 2005. Gibson would capture the ROH World Title that same year on August 12th before losing the gold a month later to the very same Brian Danielson in a perfect full-circle moment of poetic justice.