7 Ups And 8 Downs From WWE Survivor Series 2019

3. Bryan Does What Rollins Couldn’t

The Fiend Bray Wyatt Daniel Bryan
WWE.com

Thank God for Daniel Bryan.

After two disastrous matches between Seth Rollins and Bray Wyatt, you had to wonder whether The Fiend was dead in the water. Their matches at Hell in a Cell and Crown Jewel were likely designed to be like a horror movie, but they didn’t play out quite as well, and they descended into self-parody – only WWE wasn’t in on the joke.

Enter Bryan, who challenged Wyatt for the WWE Universal Championship at Survivor Series Bryan went on the offensive right away, to no effect, but he stayed after The Fiend in what was a more competitive match that featured more conventional moves (unlike Rollins, who stomped Wyatt’s head a dozen times, spamming his own finisher).

Bryan nailed his Running Knee finisher once for a two count, then broke out of a Mandible Claw and charged for another knee, only to get caught with a claw and pass out into a pinfall. Simple and effective.

Fiend looked dominant, while Bryan looked like a game challenger who was outmatched by an unearthly villain, but he didn’t look like a doofus hitting his opponent in the head with a sledgehammer after 23 curbstomps.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.