Daniel Bryan Blu-Ray Review: 14 Interesting Observations
2. His Summerslam Main Event With John Cena Didn't Do Enough PPV Buys
Bryan considered it an honour to wrestle John Cena at Summerslam 2013, in his first singles main event for the WWE Championship. It was the second biggest show of the year and WWE were trusting him to close the show. Plus there was the small matter of having to follow CM Punk vs Brock Lesnar on the Summerslam card!
He felt this was bigger than when he wrestled CM Punk for the WWE Title in 2012 as their matches weren't in the main event position of the show. Even at Over The Limit 2012, Punk and Bryan lost out to John Cena vs The Executive Vice President Of Talent Relations, John Laurenitis (a non-wrestler)!
Bryan thought his and Cena's storyline was very powerful: it was simply two guys who were competing to see who was the best. He felt that Cena was giving him the title shot out of charity, so Bryan responded by calling Cena a parody of wrestling.
Unfortunately, the PPV had a poor buyrate, which Bryan thinks spawned the 'B+ player' insult that Triple H and The Authority continued to throw his way in the following months. The attitude was 'we put you in the main event against John Cena; arenas everywhere chant 'yes'; but when it comes to getting people to buy the PPV, it didn't work'.