I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. The good news is that Daniel Bryan is in a WWE title match at WrestleMania 31. The bad news is that it’s an intercontinental championship match, a match he would be far better off losing than winning.
[adinserter block=”1″]A year ago wrestling fans all united around Daniel Bryan, emotionally investing in his quest for WWE gold at WrestleMania. We need to unite around Daniel Bryan once again this year in hopes that Bryan does not win his title match this year. The I-C title has become a career killer and a reign as champion would mean the end of the Yes Movement as we know it.
15 years ago we would be excited to see Bryan in the I-C title hunt. I grew up at a time when the I-C title was the “workers” title. It all started with Magnificent Muraco for me and evolved to Randy Savage, Ricky Steamboat, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Curt Hennig, and so on. That lineage took a dark turn about six years and has been on the road to ruin ever since.
I was inspired to write this blog by a blog I read elsewhere which demanded Bryan win the intercontinental title at Mania. I read the headline and thought to myself, “My gosh, this guy is officially toast if he wins the I-C title”. Any objective look back at the last few years of intercontinental champions will conclude that the title that was once used to elevate rising stars has been nothing more than an anchor and albatross to those that appeared to be on the ascension.
You need not look further back than at your current I-C champion Wade “Bad News” Barrett. Barrett returned a couple of months back with a ton of momentum. Barrett reclaimed the title he vacated due to his injury back in January. Just in the last four weeks alone, Barrett has gone 0-4 on RAW. The pattern is predictable as every champion before him becomes an immediate loser the second they get the title. Dolph Ziggler before Barrett came out of the Survivor Series with a ton of steam only to be jobbed out constantly after he won the I-C title. It’s an epidemic and Daniel Bryan needs to stay as far away from this title as possible.
I can understand the initial reaction from fans who want to see Bryan win. Heck at this point you just want something to cheer about. But your wishes are selfish. Sure it would be fun to get up on your feet and chant “Yes, Yes, Yes” during Bryan’s match at WrestleMania. However, a true Bryan supporter would be standing on his or her feet yelling, “No, No, No” any time he climbs the ladder to retrieve the intercontinental belt.
[adinserter block=”2″]I’d love to know how this happened. How such a prestigious championship has turned into a legitimate curse. What is the logic in taking someone with a little momentum, giving him the title, and then jobbing him out? What is that really accomplishing. Sure, you can argue that Bryan is too talented to be jobbed out by the belt. Unfortunately the dark power this belt has over creative is greater than even the force known as Daniel Bryan.
So whatever you do when you are watching WrestleMania, chant for Wade Barrett, Cody Rhodes, Dean Ambrose, Luke Harper, R-Truth, Michael Cole, or anyone but Daniel Bryan to win the intercontinental title. A win at WrestleMania for Daniel Bryan is a curse that even the Yes Movement can’t survive.
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Daniel Bryan is a fantastic wrestler in the ring. Many moves, and brings it. He sucks with the mic and has zero personality. The fact that Roman Reigns is getting booed by everyone, is because of the bowel movement…excuse me, the “yes movement”. Demanding someone be the champ or I boo everyone else out of the building?
I sat a Road to WrestleMania event just a few weeks ago. In my section were a bunch of parents and we all got talking. None of those people, except me and one other guy, knew any of the wrestlers. They just bought their kid and themselves tickets because their kid wanted to go, and they took them. You don’t cheer for someone you don’t know, so when most people came out, they just looked on silently. Daniel Bryan comes out, and they see their kid pointing up in the air chanting “yes”. So they did too. So did I, even though I don’t like Daniel Bryan. Why? because as a parent, you want your kid to have these great memories at the event…with you. And my son will forever remember chanting “yes” with his dad. And all those other parents did too. It’s a chant, easy to get into, not a cheer. If you took away all the parents and people who only chant “yes” for their kid, the “pop” would be a lot less than it should be. Daniel Bryan has minimal talent outside of the ring.
Roman Reigns has heard every criticism that has been sent his way. He could have been working all these weeks to perform new moves if he was listening…and he is listening. I guarantee he has and would have worked hard on everything everyone thought he wasn’t. Now he gets booed out of the building by the “whine and snivel movement”. Brock resigned, he will now most likely retain the title and I’m sure Vince would love to have CM Punks days as champ erased from the books. You all just ruined the career of Roman Reigns for a garden gnome with no personality, love handles and man boobs.
As far as IC championship, would love to see R-Truth win, just because R-Truth or Luke Harper really have very little chance of winning…shock value win. Then have Ambrose win it on Monday Night Raw or the next pay-per-view and have a fantastic run with it.
Oh and by the way, Daniel Bryan charges kids $20 for an autograph and $50 for a picture. So while all mindlessly chant “yes”, Daniel is laying next to Brie Bella, having a drink, while he profits off of your kids and you all who buy “yes” shirts, not caring about what belt he does or does not have and certainly not caring about you…other than that you keep his pockets lined with money. YES! YES! YES! Fools
Love it
You can look at it another way though, maybe Daniel Bryan can be the guy to finally make the IC belt mean something again. Maybe the IC belt can go back to its former status of being a belt that is actually important. The only way to do that is to have someone like Bryan holding it.
If memory serves didn’t Warrior hold the IC title when he challenged Hogan? Wasn’t it the title that meant you automatically get a shot at the title? And there lies the problem. WWE wants more control over the story lines, they don’t want that belt to mean that much right now, they want a meaningful separation of the titles. That way they can give it to someone like R-Truth and not have to worry about Truth walking out on RAW possibly interrupting one of Heyman’s promos and challenging Lesner. Telling the crowd what this title means and that I get a shot at the world champ, and in saying that gives every other person that holds the belt a potential shot.
I hope that Ambrose wins because I think his character might be the best one to bring some “worker” prestige back to the belt. He has not lost much since going solo while all the others have a history of jobbing at some point. I am all for the death of the yes movement for a while, that shipped sailed for me a while ago.
I hope Daniel wins this is the only title he has never held and so i hope he wins it
I would like him to win it one day but not at 31, maybe when it means something a little more.
The title has mean the same today that it did when pat Patterson won it
Totally disagree, no one cares about the IC title. I wish they did but somewhere along the way they just stopped paying attention to it.
and I completely disagree with this Everyone care about the IC title