Did Bryan/Reigns accomplish anything?

[DB-Fan]

It showed that vince doesn't take Daniel Bryan seriously and probably never will.

Yep. I'm basically done with WWE. But for the fans at WM 28 & Raw the next night and then again on a few select occasions (Raw in Seattle, RR last year, etc), Daniel Bryan would be nothing but a glorified mid-carder for this company. That's beyond obvious and anyone that thinks the PTB had real plans for Bryan leading up to Wrestlemania last year and was just playing the crowd is a few fries short of a happy meal. Everyone that's spoken about this issue, including Bryan himself, is on the record saying the company had no big plans for him - ever! They've only reluctantly pushed him to main-event level because of the reaction of the crowd. And the sad truth is that with this latest Reigns angle Daniel has, I believe, finally lost some of his pop with the crowd and there's a good chance it will never return to where it was just a few weeks ago. So there will be no incentive for the company to push him any more. They'll go with Reigns and other "home-grown" guys they like and Daniel will be an upper mid-carder from now on. And it sucks because he's not only the best in-ring guy the company has, he's all so clearly one heck of a nice guy.

Bottom line: for a guy that less than a year ago was the World Champion and never lost the title, he's clearly being way under-utilized this year as we head into Wrestlemania. And it stinks!

 

[#1druid]

Yep. I'm basically done with WWE. But for the fans at WM 28 & Raw the next night and then again on a few select occasions (Raw in Seattle, RR last year, etc), Daniel Bryan would be nothing but a glorified mid-carder for this company. That's beyond obvious and anyone that thinks the PTB had real plans for Bryan leading up to Wrestlemania last year and was just playing the crowd is a few fries short of a happy meal. Everyone that's spoken about this issue, including Bryan himself, is on the record saying the company had no big plans for him - ever! They've only reluctantly pushed him to main-event level because of the reaction of the crowd. And the sad truth is that with this latest Reigns angle Daniel has, I believe, finally lost some of his pop with the crowd and there's a good chance it will never return to where it was just a few weeks ago. So there will be no incentive for the company to push him any more. They'll go with Reigns and other "home-grown" guys they like and Daniel will be an upper mid-carder from now on. And it sucks because he's not only the best in-ring guy the company has, he's all so clearly one heck of a nice guy.

Bottom line: for a guy that less than a year ago was the World Champion and never lost the title, he's clearly being way under-utilized this year as we head into Wrestlemania. And it stinks!

Meltzer wrote a good article about the whole debacle

http://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCirc...e_meltzer_but_the_biggest_story_on_fast_lane/

 

[Uncle Sam]

It showed that vince doesn't take Daniel Bryan seriously and probably never will.

Absolutely. This is indisputable. We've all heard the story about how the writing staff had to get Vince high on experimental hallucinogens and dump him in the desert for the two month radius around WrestleMania 30. When Vince returned from the desert, more tanned and erect than ever, he was so furious with what had transpired in his absence that he used his patented karate chop on Daniel Bryan and nearly ended his career.

Other reports that imply Vince McMahon was in charge during WrestleMania XXX (and not wandering the desert, naked and screaming) and was fully aware of Daniel Bryan defeating Triple H, Batista and Randy Orton in one night to become the undisputed WWE World Heavyweight Champion are obviously bullshit - because Vince doesn't take Daniel Bryan seriously and never will.

If you need more proof that Vince doesn't take Daniel Bryan seriously, let's do what we were already doing: look at Fastlane. The days of putting guys in clown make-up or having Kane throw them off a ramp in a wheelchair are behind us. No, the way you make people look like a joke these days is put them in a main event on pay-per-view against the company's newly minted top star, have a competitive and highly entertaining match for twenty-or-so minutes and then very narrowly lose. Humiliating, truly humiliating.

Alternately, if you're looking for a wackier, more out there narrative:

The match accomplished what it was supposed to, which was to make Reigns look deserving. What was so galling about the Royal Rumble wasn't that Daniel Bryan lost, it was that he was an afterthought; he was in the match for about ten minutes before Bray Wyatt sort of poked him off the apron. Reigns, meanwhile, gets to the end, where he gets double-teamed by Big Show and Kane and we're supposed to think, "Jeez, this Corporate Kane versus Brock Lesnar main event will be a slobberknocker, presuming they're not going to have that much anticipated rematch with The Big Show instead." Then The Rock comes out, saves Reigns from the school bullies, points at his big Samoan arse and goes, "This guy's great." It would be brilliant storytelling if it wasn't so shit.

The Fastlane match was supposed to amend that and answer Reigns' critics and it did. Can Reigns have a good singles match? Yes, he can. Does Reigns have more than three moves? Yes, he does. Can we make Reigns look deserving? Well, sort of. He definitely looks much more deserving than he did following the debacle that was the Royal Rumboo II.

 

[DB-Fan]

Meltzer wrote a good article about the whole debacle

http://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCirc...e_meltzer_but_the_biggest_story_on_fast_lane/

I don't agree with Meltzer on everything, but he did outline the history for us very accurately. Nothing but the cold, hard truth in that one. Like one of the folks in the comment section said, "Kind of depressing." Which was followed by another insightful comment, "Eulogies usually are."

It looks like the Bryan fans fought a good fight for several years, but I do believe after Fast Lane most of them basically gave up. They realized Vince would never seriously consider Bryan as "the" guy in the long-term (last year was purely a fan-driven decision) and just kind of became resigned to it.

Oh, and good luck making Reigns the next Rock, Cena or whatever. Not gonna happen because people also don't really care about him. And barring something very unexpected in the next month, I'll stick to my prediction that the Wrestlemania 31 main event doesn't go very well, audience wise. Either a chorus of boos will reign down on Reigns (no pun intended) when he wins, or at a minimum there will be lackluster applause. I hope the company plans on inserting Rollins into the mix at the end. If not, and they just plan on having Reigns stand in the ring to celebrate, it's gonna look pretty bad in comparison to last year's event. But hey, it's Vince's company and he can flush it down the toilet all he wants to.

 

[#1druid]

Absolutely. This is indisputable. We've all heard the story about how the writing staff had to get Vince high on experimental hallucinogens and dump him in the desert for the two month radius around WrestleMania 30. When Vince returned from the desert, more tanned and erect than ever, he was so furious with what had transpired in his absence that he used his patented karate chop on Daniel Bryan and nearly ended his career.

Other reports that imply Vince McMahon was in charge during WrestleMania XXX (and not wandering the desert, naked and screaming) and was fully aware of Daniel Bryan defeating Triple H, Batista and Randy Orton in one night to become the undisputed WWE World Heavyweight Champion are obviously bullshit - because Vince doesn't take Daniel Bryan seriously and never will.

If you need more proof that Vince doesn't take Daniel Bryan seriously, let's do what we were already doing: look at Fastlane. The days of putting guys in clown make-up or having Kane throw them off a ramp in a wheelchair are behind us. No, the way you make people look like a joke these days is put them in a main event on pay-per-view against the company's newly minted top star, have a competitive and highly entertaining match for twenty-or-so minutes and then very narrowly lose. Humiliating, truly humiliating.

Alternately, if you're looking for a wackier, more out there narrative:

The match accomplished what it was supposed to, which was to make Reigns look deserving. What was so galling about the Royal Rumble wasn't that Daniel Bryan lost, it was that he was an afterthought; he was in the match for about ten minutes before Bray Wyatt sort of poked him off the apron. Reigns, meanwhile, gets to the end, where he gets double-teamed by Big Show and Kane and we're supposed to think, "Jeez, this Corporate Kane versus Brock Lesnar main event will be a slobberknocker, presuming they're not going to have that much anticipated rematch with The Big Show instead." Then The Rock comes out, saves Reigns from the school bullies, points at his big Samoan arse and goes, "This guy's great." It would be brilliant storytelling if it wasn't so shit.

The Fastlane match was supposed to amend that and answer Reigns' critics and it did. Can Reigns have a good singles match? Yes, he can. Does Reigns have more than three moves? Yes, he does. Can we make Reigns look deserving? Well, sort of. He definitely looks much more deserving than he did following the debacle that was the Royal Rumboo II.

I know what you're saying but it would be nice if they treated daniel bryan like a big deal without the fans outside the corporate office with torches and pitchforks. Everything you've mentioned was on the fly band-aids to save themselves from the fans, and if punk had never left he would have gotten bryan's spot not Bryan even though the fans wanted bryan. Reigns gets 1994 lex luger indifference not Cena love/hate where as Bryan had the crowd in the palm of his hand, and now they've wasted Bryan's momentum, the taker/lesnar rub and the title on a guy who more than likely will flop.

 

[khrissr10]

I should have seen this before creating my thread. Anyway, I still don't get the point of what they are doing with Reigns. I mean c'mon! Reigns can have a match with someone in the roster to make him look good inside the ring but the biggest question is how can he handle himself in the main event scene? We all know that he's not really good with his promos and he's not really likable as what Vince think. I just don't get it and reading the report that WM31 is not yet sold out gives a bad premonition that this year's WM will be a complete garbage.

 

[HBKistheHOF]

It proved that Roman Reigns can have a near 5 star quality singles match on PPV when he's in there with the right ring general, like Daniel Bryan. The only problem is that apparently Brock Lesnar doesn't call any of his matches, so where does that leave the two guys for Mania? I hope we don't just get 20 minutes of german suplexes, followed by a superman punch, a spear & a 3 count. & if we do, then hopefully Rollins will save everything by cashing-in MitB.