50 Greatest WWE Raw Moments Ever
25. Daniel Bryan Leaves The Wyatt Family (January 13th, 2014)
Daniel Bryan daring to get more over than everybody else on the WWE roster doomed him to all sorts of creative malpractice in 2013 before, post-Royal Rumble 2014, the company had no choice but to donate WrestleMania 30 to his cause.
From the prior SummerSlam onwards, the booking had done everything to avoid being left in that situation, without once stopping to realise that de-pushing was going to have the opposite result. The "Yes Movement", whatever it even was in the earliest incarnation, was a result of Bryan being squashed by Sheamus at WrestleMania 28. A year and a half and a few fleeting minutes with the WWE Championship later, the man constantly referred to as a goat rather than the one was even more popular.
Losses and/or screwy finishes with Randy Orton didn't dilute the love, but served as kayfabe justification to filter him down the card and into a tag feud with The Wyatt Family. The original incarnation of the act was struggling to take off after a disastrous debut feud with Kane, but Bray himself seemingly brainwashing Bryan might have resonated if audiences hadn't flatly refused to embrace any kayfabe that wasn't their guy being crowned Champion.
The whole sorry ordeal bottomed out at the Royal Rumble, but Bryan and Bray's undercard match at the pay-per-view did at least have the best possible angle to build it. After weeks portraying a comatose version of himself alongside the family, he ditched their group, their aesthetic, and the company's penultimate attempt to quash him in one of the era's most (and only) iconic scenes.
With hypnotic conduction, Bryan led the building in cult-like "YES!" chants as he booted Bray's head off, and again as he straddled the cage to exit. It still wasn't his escape from the midcard, but it was at least evidence of why his continued position within it was untenable.