2. 1450 Minutes That Daniel Bryan Was WWE Champion
2013 was Daniel Bryan's year, and nothing evidenced that more than fans voting him WWE Superstar of the year. His matches were considered the best of the year, his ovations were the loudest of any wrestler, and his signature and simple catchphrase "YES!" was plastered all over t-shirts, signs, blog posts, tweets and everywhere else imaginable. Yet despite Daniel Bryan being arguably the most popular superstar in all of the WWE, his total time with the WWE championship in 2013 was 1450 minutes--10 minutes for his first reign, and (roughly) 24 hours for his second one. Bryan was heavily embroiled in a feud with The Authority and their chosen wrestler Randy Orton throughout the late summer and into the fall, but very suddenly the feud ended, and Orton (and the title) moved onto John Cena, while Bryan began a feud with the Wyatt Family. There are two ways to look at why the master of the "Yes Lock" held the title for such a short period of time. The first is what many Daniel Bryan fans fear, that the WWE does not view Bryan as a permanent main event player. They may see him as someone that can fill the gap from time to time (as he did in the fall when Cena was out injured), but for the most part, they like him as an extremely popular upper-mid carder. The other reason, though, could be that the WWE completely recognizes how popular Bryan is, and they feel that he does not need to hold the title when he already has such support from the fans. They may be thinking that Bryan is going to be popular regardless of if the title is around his waist, and so it's better to let other superstars who need one final boost to their credibility to be fighting over the title. This would certainly be a different line of thinking for the WWE, as for many years, the top wrestler carried the title. The Rock, Stone Cold, Hulk Hogan and Bret Hart were all the number one man in the promotion at different times, and this was illustrated through them carrying the championship gold to the ring. It will be extremely interesting to see whether Daniel Bryan can regain the WWE title in 2014, and if so, whether he will be able to hold onto it for a prolonged period of time.