7 Moments That Will Define Daniel Bryan's WWE Career

3. SummerSlam 2013 - Beating John Cena

Daniel Bryan 2014 Royal Rumble
WWE.com

The list of superstars who have beaten John Cena clean in the last five years can be counted on one hand. The Rock, Kevin Owens, CM Punk, Brock Lesnar, Daniel Bryan. That's a pretty prestigious list. It bodes well for Kevin Owens, to say the least.

Cena went into the match injured, so there was some confidence that Daniel Bryan would walk out of SummerSlam in 2013 as the WWE Champion, but clean as a whistle, in the middle of the ring? This wasn't expected.

The match was as good as any WWE main event in memory, and the crowd support for Bryan was something to behold. Both men took each other to the absolute limit. Just when it seemed that nothing could possibly bring the match to an end, Bryan busted out a Busaiku Knee and that was it. John Cena was pinned, 1, 2, 3. To this day, I still say this was as brutal as the Knee Plus ever looked.

Bryan wouldn't walk out champion however, as Randy Orton turned heel by cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase thanks to the assistance of Triple H. The seeds that had vaguely been scattered by Bryan's humiliating experience at WrestleMania XXVIII were about to start growing, and growing fast. 

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.