Why Daniel Bryan Winning Royal Rumble 2018 Would Be WWE's Biggest Ever Pop
The arrival of Steve Austin, as Mankind battled The Rock for the WWF Title on the January 4, 1999 RAW was as loud as it was impressive; those fans, having endured hours of marathon taped action, roared their heads off. The pitch was almost brown note-low. It was primal. The fatigue-induced delay that really brings it into focus, even after the umpteenth re-watch; the fans were too tired to register it, for a nanosecond, before the sheer love for the man stirred them from their slumber. Parents don’t even spark into life that quickly at the sound of their crying babies.
CM Punk’s entrance at Money In The Bank 2011 saw a convergence of life-affirming change and pure, intense regionalism magnified into a deafening din. Seth Rollins’ WrestleMania 31 Money In The Bank cash-in sparked a relief-driven cacophony. Triple H’s early 2002 return from a quad injury capped off a sentiment expertly massaged through sympathy-generating vignettes. Even a comparatively lesser star like Dolph Ziggler commanded a megastar reaction when he cashed in his Money In The Bank briefcase on the post-WrestleMania 29 RAW.
The Great Montreal Fake-out Of 2006 is the closest spiritual antecedent, in that Hart’s home crowd were promised by Shawn Michaels in a superb heel performance a hugely improbable and emotional return. When it didn’t happen, the cackling Michaels somehow failed to incite a riot. Mercifully, that era and that mentality had long since faded.
Bryan’s pop might even dwarf those volcanic reactions. The emotional drivers are both plural and incredibly potent; such a pop would conflate the aforementioned emotions and converge them into something unprecedented.
After the now-customary Big 4 PPV marathon, the Philadelphia fans will be fatigued, come the main event. Historical precedent suggests that genuine star power is immune to it. CM Punk was the hero of Chicago in 2011; Bryan reached the pinnacle of his popularity because he was so thoroughly relatable to the 99%. The relief factor, too, is immeasurable, especially since the Rumble match itself has, in recent years, symbolised both a regression to the past and an almost antagonistic vision of the future. The goodwill afforded to Triple H, forged through respect, turned him face. In the case of Bryan, it would turn him from hero to myth.
Since the Attitude Era, in which the heat sustained itself throughout almost every show, reactions are significantly more polarised in the more polarising modern era. This explains why, within the pockets of silence, comparatively smaller moments, like Dolph Ziggler claiming a glorified midcard title, are received with such noise. With the metric skewed through so much ambivalence elsewhere, a moment genuinely legendary in itself would positively drown out a pop driven by a game of catch-up. CONT'D...