There've been a couple of other threads making that claim that there are "a lot" of fans who don't like Daniel Bryan. Based solely on the WZ forums, I don't see "a lot" of fans ragging on Daniel Bryan other than a small handful. Nothing wrong with that, don't get me wrong, but I'd like to know when the definition of "a lot" was changed to a comparative few.
Here's the thing about Bryan, he's not the "traditional" WWE superstar. Frankly, he's the sort of person that a good deal of WWE fans have wanted to see pushed for quite a while partially because he doesn't fit that "traditional" mold. As far as his size goes, while he's not some physical juggernaut, I don't know why some try to make it seem as though he's smaller than he actually is. Bryan's about 5'9" and around 210 lbs, which is about average height for a man in the United States. He's all of maybe...I dunno 2 or 3 inches shorter than Punk or Dolph Ziggler and about equal in weight. I get that they've used the size bit as part of the underdog storyline but when you leave the exaggerated aspects out, Bryan's generally just a normal sized guy.
When it comes to him not being great on the mic, I beg to differ. He accomplishes what he needs to accomplish, which is keeping the crowd interested in his programs and getting them fired up. He doesn't have the sort of smooth flow of someone like CM Punk or Paul Heyman on the mic, granted, nor does he spout of one liners & catchphrases every 10 seconds like The Rock. He probably won't be thought of as one of the all time great mic workers, but he's certainly not horrible by any stretch. I've heard horrible and horrible applies to guys like Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, John Morrison, Darren Young and quite a few others.
As far as his lack of charisma goes, again, I have to disagree. When you can get arena after arena in city after city across the world to give the kind of response that Daniel Bryan gets, I can't see how he doesn't qualify as charismatic. When you look at the response and interest that he constantly gets from fans, I don't know what else you can call it. Granted, he's not being some over the top, hyped up version of himself but, then again, maybe he doesn't have to be. Nobody likes being told by someone that they're not "good enough" because, frankly, it hurts. Everybody's been through it at one point or another it makes it easier to identify with Bryan. However, if he didn't have the goods to justify the support and interest, the fans would've moved on.
As far as Mysterio goes, I remember that he got a pretty good share of it. While size and a wrestler's presence aren't everything, there's a limit to how far that can go. When Mysterio won the WHC, he was about 5'5" and about 160-165 lbs. Frankly, he never connected with fans anything approaching the level of Daniel Bryan. If he had, then the criticisms on his size would've been moot. As has been pointed out, Mysterio was also booked to look pretty weak at times. I remember him getting squashed in a match against Khali. Frankly, had it not been for Eddie Guerrero's death, I doubt Rey would've won the title.
