Daniel Bryan's First Clean Loss: Is His WWE Return Already Ruined?
The plague of 50/50 booking is again forcing WWE's star-making machine to malfunction. Roman Reigns is being laughably scripted as the scourge of Vince McMahon thanks to his persistent failures to win the big one, whilst Braun Strowman has - instead of losing - been subjected to midcard comedy and enjoyable (though utterly meaningless) cartoon destruction in order to remove him from a theatre of high level conflict. Both have been knowingly reduced in stature to protect an insane financial and creative investment in busted flush Brock Lesnar as Universal Champion. In order to protect them, the likes of Finn Bálor, Elias and most recently Samoa Joe were all handily defeated in main event dalliances. The nearly men can't beat the big stars, and the big stars can't beat each other. Daniel Bryan has regrettably jumped on that treadmill.
By his own doing, Bryan became part of the rank-and-file on SmackDown Live!, but had to assume he'd quickly be inserted at the top of the card instead of joining the misdirected herd. His crowd responses were electric when he replaced his sports coat for kickpads, and were rooted deeper than the usual fondness generated by an in-ring absence. But even he wasn't immune to the company's Network-era desire to super-serve their audience and under-serve their talent. He wrestled AJ Styles on his first night back as a full-timer, has sold house show tickets on the promise of a clash with The Miz and has now fallen short against Rusev just days removed from a frustratingly pedestrian midcard pay-per-view clash with Big Cass. A more homogenised CV on the main roster you'll likely not find, despite the 'special attraction' and fantasy booking appeal Bryan held in the run-up to WrestleMania. That he broke an all-time Royal Rumble record in Saudi Arabia is already only gaining criminal indifference rather than the respect it warrants.
His return and this loss could and should form part of a much bigger story of his secret physical fragility, and few presumably really wanted to see him risk re-retirement in a multi-man ladder war anyway. But in a company so slack-handed with longterm storytelling, there's the chance the defeat will just be lost to the dreaded churn by this time next week. Like Reigns, Joe and Bálor before him, his persona will tacitly suffer the damage of these inconsequential losses and leave the fanbase instead to do the heavy lifting once again. If they don't voice their collected disapproval, this particularly Happy Rusev Day may prove to be the night he became normalised for life.