8 Ups And 6 Downs From WWE WrestleMania 36 (Part 1)

5. What Is This, Survivor Series?

WrestleMania is always the time you see wrestlers’ immunity get turned up to max, when they’re suddenly able to absorb immense amounts of punishment and kick out of each other’s finishers multiple times.

So when Daniel Bryan was felled by a single boot to the face, you almost had to think of a different PPV – Survivor Series, where wrestlers used to lose a fall in the elimination matches to the simplest of moves, like a clothesline.

Bryan had literally only taken a clothesline and a couple chops during his Intercontinental Championship match with Sami Zayn. He dove off the top rope at Sami, only for Zayn to lift his boot and kick Daniel in the mush… and cover for three.

The announcers tried to spin it as Zayn hitting a Helluva Kick – which is a running boot to the face, not lifting your foot at an incoming opponent – but it just felt anticlimactic. It almost would have been better if Bryan had been distracted by Cesaro & Shinsuke Nakamura and Sami rolled him up with his feet on the ropes.

It was a rather ignominious defeat for the former five-time world champion.