Back in May, I wrote an editorial called “Talk About Bad Luck” that described the unfortunate journey of Daniel Bryan. One that started off as what appeared to be a dream-come-true, but quickly turned into an absolute disaster.
After being held down for so long, the fans finally decided Bryan was their guy and they began rallying behind him. This led to Bryan being added to the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match at WrestleMania XXX, a match he ultimately won. The next day, he was set to get married to the woman of his dreams — the lovely Brie Bella.
It was all downhill from there.
Bryan received the unfortunate news that his father has tragically passed away without warning. Then, his “Make-A-Wish” kid and his personal guest at WrestleMania passed away.
From there, he was paired with Kane for his first program as champion. He was booked to run away and look almost cowardly with his wife, sprinting away from the “Devil’s Favorite Demon” while his wife screamed in fear.
That was only the beginning.
Bryan then received the news that he was going to need neck surgery. This would keep him on the shelf for an unknown amount of time, which resulted in WWE booking a story line that saw the leader of the “Yes! Movement” ultimately have to choose between his wife and his life-long dream of being the WWE Champion.
While Bryan never chose his wife, she voluntarily quit, as to avoid forcing Bryan to make the difficult decision. As it turns out, it was all for nothing, as on Monday night’s edition of RAW, “The Authority” stripped him of the title.
So to summarize, Bryan wins the title, loses his father, has a crappy first program as champ, breaks his neck and is forced to sit on the sidelines and ends up getting stripped of the title anyways.
Ouch.
The worst part is, to fans who don’t know any better — young fans or fans who don’t read the internet, fans who simply follow WWE on television and only know what they see on RAW and SmackDown week-in and week-out, Bryan really comes off horrible in all of this. To them, the way things were booked, it clearly seemed as though he was going to return at the Money In The Bank pay-per-view and defy the odds once again, much like he did at WrestleMania when he was attacked and had to win two matches in one night — against a total of three different people — with an “injured” shoulder.
This time, however, he watched as his wife got axed, he couldn’t come back in time from his neck injury and lost the title without putting up a fight. That’s the long-and-short of it if you’re one of the fans I described above.
As I noted in the aforementioned “Talk About Bad Luck” editorial, if Bryan didn’t have bad luck, he wouldn’t have any luck at all.
For his sake, I hope when he is physically able to recover, that he’s able to regain the momentum he had spent his entire career building, and doesn’t become victim of WWE using all of this as an opportunity to move on without him and push the guys they want, considering the fact that he wasn’t exactly their first choice as “the face of WWE” in the first place.
Only time will tell.
What do you guys think about Daniel Bryan’s long and unfortunate journey? Leave your feedback in the “Comments” section below. You can also hit me up at Facebook.com/MattBooneWZR and/or follow me on Twitter @MBoone420.
