Daniel Bryan is making it really difficult to have a wrestling column that doesn’t focus only on him every single week. This week seems a bit unavoidable with the big announcement that he will get his match against HHH at Wrestlemania 30. Not only that but Daniel Bryan will be added to the championship main event if he is successful against HHH earlier in the night.
Obviously nobody believes that this is exactly what WWE had intended when they left DB out of the Royal Rumble. The main evidence to support that would be that this was prior to CM Punk splitting and still going with the idea of him facing HHH at WM30. WWE had to have known that there would be fallout with the fans over DB not being included, I believe they just thought that anger would be aimed at Authority and not so much at their Rumble winner. To be fair, I wasn’t expected all that Batista backlash either, especially with him being such a returning big name because it takes a lot of effort (Chris Jericho) to make the fans boo returning nostalgic legends. But what if Roman Reigns had won instead? I can’t imagine fans being as nearly as outraged if that happened. Sure, they wouldn’t be thrilled that it wasn’t DB but I can’t imagine Reigns getting boo’d out of the building if he was standing as the Rumble winner.
Anyways, WWE made a big mistake not even including Bryan in the Rumble and I feel like that was a conclusion we realized immediately, let alone the fact that his momentum dictated that he be the only choice to win the match altogether. But the fans essentially turned Batista heel on their own and I don’t believe WWE wanted a heel vs heel match to close out the show. At this point, allow me to express how impressed I am that WWE resisted their urges to throw Cena in the championship match, we all know they were thinking it. What WWE did on Monday was right a wrong that they made back in January and surprised us all by doing so.
I was honestly growing concerned that DB’s championship chances were growing slimmer with each passing Raw because Bryan kept repeating his demand of “giving the people what they want” in reference to a match against HHH and then the crowd responded with cheers as I sat in my living room with my arms crossed and angry because that’s not at all what I want. Of course, it’s impossible to get the fans to oppose anything that Daniel Bryan says right now. If he really wanted to, I’m sure he could make the crowd in favor of the holocaust at this point. It just made me feel bad because it was obvious that good guy Bryan Danielson was simply being a good company man and running with what the company was giving him.
Over the past few weeks, Bryan didn’t mention anything that had to do with the championship match. Matter of fact, there’s hardly been any mention of Batista or Orton at all which added to my surprise when Daniel Bryan added that to his demands during his occupy segment. So WWE did what they were suppose to do and ended up finding a way to surprise us all in the process. It’s like WWE is that petulant child that is suppose to take out the garbage every week but refuses to do it. Then one day, the child actually does take out the trash on their own and then cleans their room without being told to do so. Congrats on doing what you were suppose to do all along. Is it obvious that I’m not a parent?
Obviously we can’t get too excited because there is that first hurdle Bryan must jump over and that’s beating HHH, especially when you know Trips keeps that shovel handy at all times. However, I feel like there’s at least a 85% chance that DB wins because that’s obviously the more interesting story line going into the main event, right? WWE knows exactly how something like this can elevate a top face to full-on hero status after pulling off the same thing with Bret Hart at Wrestlemania 10. Now when Bryan gets into the main event, that’s where it gets really difficult in predicting because, again, WWE has a history of giving into the temptation of putting their top belt(s) on a guy with big movies coming out BUT, Guardians of the Galaxy isn’t coming out until the summer. So WWE could go ahead and have Bryan win at WM30 and have Batista leave for a little bit (maybe like a month) and then comes back to team up with Bryan when he gets in a jam. Bryan eventually drops the belt due to shenanigans and a newly faced Batista wins it in time for Guardians’ release and WWE gets all the press they could possibly hope for.
Wishful thinking, I know. But realistically, I think Batista and Bryan both have a 50% chance of winning the championship match, let Orton do something else for a while after he loses his rematch at Extreme Rules.
All-in-all, well done to the WWE for making me interested in this year’s Wrestlemania for reasons beyond that it’s Wrestlemania. As long as Bryan gets past HHH, we’re guaranteed a decent show. Bryan wins and we’ll be looking at a great show.
Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do twice,
Chris
The Answer: I wanna be this guy when I grow up.
