CM Punk 434 day reign or Daniel Bryan Road to Wrestlemania?

[No Count Pup]

CM Punk was the longest reigning WWE Champion since the 1980s. His title reign saw him defend the belt at WrestleMania 28, put on clinics with Daniel Bryan, and square off with the likes of John Cena, The Rock, The Big Show, Kane, and Ryback.

Daniel Bryan's run from SummerSlam 2013 to WrestleMania 30 was a roller-coaster ride. He was WWE's lovable loser for most of that span, seeing the lights in high profile match after high profile match. In spite of that he was WWE's most popular star and focal point of Raw for 8 months. Daniel Bryan's fan support was so strong that WWE had to change its WrestleMania plans and fade to black with Daniel Bryan regaled in gold.

Which of those two men had a better run? Was it more fun watching the reign or watching the chase?

 

[Starkiller]

For me it was cm Punks reign. It made the world title more meaningful. And 434 days with the title off cena was nice for a change. But don't worry, cena just got another title shot...

 

[Kidpolean]

DB's chase was terrible up until RR where it picked up. Punks was pretty bad too with the exception on his WM28 feud. Punk and Jericho are two of my favorites so based solely off of that id choose Punks. They are close though imo.

 

[MC_Live]

I call them almost equal. Although when it comes to crowd reaction, I give a slight edge to Daniel Bryan. Only because the crowd was REALLY behind him during his chase. They were really behind Punk too, but I think Brian had a slightly stronger connection for some reason. Remember that night he turned on Wyatt in the cage? That had to be one of the loudest crowd reactions in history. Also, Bryan's story ended perfectly at WrestleMania XXX. I think that having The Rock beat Punk was a bad idea. But that's just me. They were both fantastic story lines, but part of me fells a little more for Daniel Bryan. Probably because I'm still a little upset at Punk walking out on everyone. But that's another topic.

 

[TheICChampion]

Definitely Punk's 434 day reign as the reigning, defending, undisputed WWE champion. It was a great throwback to the old days where the champion didn't lose the title after 2-3 months. Plus, over a year of Cena without the title was always a bonus. I just wish they could have done something different than having Punk drop the title to Dwayne. Did he and Cena really NEED the title? It doesn't matter now, but I would have really preferred Punk to hold the title until SummerSlam and have him drop the title to Daniel Bryan.

 

[Taimurk]

For me it was definitely cm punks reign in which he was putting 5 star matches and compelling feuds(y2j cena Bryan)
However Bryan's road was awful IMO and was really boring and PREDICTABLE!!!! Also IMO punk had a better crowd reception and more people were behind him!!!! It's just Bryan's chant was more popular and te yes chant was nothing to do with liking Bryan but just with bored fans chanting wat everyone else was

 

[JJYanks121]

How is ANYONE saying Punks reign? That think was such a failure, especially after the heel turn.

Now, if you wanted to compare the months from Punk's promo until he won the title for good, then you'd have a basis for comparison. Both of those had real emotion attached to them and genuine excitement. The last 6 months of the 434 days were an utter waste of time. We all knew that we were going to have Rock vs. Punk and for some dumb reason, there was this mindset that having a long title reign would add to that. It didn't, and in the process that mindset killed the career of ryback, who I contend should have won the title for a month and then have had punk take it back. You'd have another 3 month reign for punk and the feud with rock would have been exactly the same.

As for the Bryan build, it was basically perfect. I know that's hyperbole but it continued to feel real and to this day many of us wonder if it was planned that way all along or if the fans pushed the hand of the writers. To have that doubt is great storytelling and the moment in the end was fantastic. That entire wrestlemania was fantastic and for the first time since maybe Austin, the fans felt like "their guy" who they pushed for and who they saw work so hard finally got to the top. To compare that to a title reign that was long for the sake of being long and lacked quality for most of it is laughable.

 

[Kodo Sawaki]

Both were kinda forced down. Punk got that reign because they wanted Punk/Rock at RR and Rock/Cena 2 at Wrestlemania while DB got his road to Wrestlemania because Batista got terrible reaction due to WWE mishandling Bryan till after Royal Rumble.

In terms of reign definitly Punk. Because evethough he just hold on belt for Rock most of the times, he still had better reign then Bryan because Bryan needed to forfeit after Mania and Kane matches(not to mention he had to play second fiddle to Evolution vs Shield). In terms of memorable moment its Bryan. Because he had whole Wrestlemania revolved around him(basiclly started the show and finished it), while Punk in his reign didnt had such memorable moments(Summer of Punk was before that reign so dont count that).

 

[Dagger Dias]

Daniel Bryan's road to Wrestlemania easily. CM Punk's 400+ day title reign was tarnished by how the booking. The World Champion should be the top guy. How is an Ambulance match between Cena and Kane more important than a World Championship match? How about Cena VS Johnny? Or that Cena VS Big Show match at No Way Out? Sure there were some great matches against guys like Jericho and Bryan, but Punk should have been closing the show far more often than he did. Cena VS The Rock made sense going on after Punk defending the belt. Several of the other PPV "main events" for lack of better terminology, did not make sense going on last. Flair said so himself, the world title needs to go on last.

Then there's Daniel Bryan's path to the World Heavyweight Championship spanning all the way from Summerslam 2013 until Wrestlemania 30. The Authority put every obstacle they could in Bryan's way, but seeing him overcome the odds ended up giving us the moment of a generation in the ending at Wrestlemania 30. Unlike Punk's reign, I have nothing negative to say about Daniel Bryan's Road to Wrestlemania. They made the wrong choices in Punk's reign. He should have been made to legitimately look like the top guy in the federation, closed more PPV events, and I won't even start on the ending to the reign. With Bryan, on the other hand, they made the right choices. There is no contest here. Bryan's Road to Wrestlemania was better.