Well the obvious storyline after a Bryan Royal Rumble win would have been to give him some closure on the Bray Wyatt feud by having them face off at Elimination Chamber. That would have given him a story to occupy him whilst he waited to see who won the Elimination Chamber match.
That of course hurts a potential Cena vs Wyatt match at Wrestlemania but if you really are getting behind a number one babyface than you don't stop to care about what it does to your heels, their job is purely to put over your top babyfaces at the end of the day.
I still think Bryan's booking/performances since Summserslam have hurt him and we'll see the effects of that in the coming months when the lustre of his underdog character wears off after he wins the title. He should have won the Rumble, should have beaten Bray Wyatt at Elimination Chamber and should win the title at Wrestlemania. It's obvious, it's easy, but it should have happened. Instead we've got a guy who lost his feud to Bray Wyatt (lost cleanly as well I might add), didn't win the Elimination Chamber and has pretty much bitched and moaned his way into a potential title win at Wrestlemania. It's hardly the stuff of legends are made of.
No, no, no, no, no. No. A Bryan-Wyatt match at EC doesn't just screw up Cena-Wyatt at Mania, it also takes away Wyatt Family-Shield at EC. And that's a crucial part to the Shield breakup and triple threat at Mania. And aside from the fact that heels are not just there to put over faces, this isn't just hurting heels, it's hurting story lines. You're taking away from two of the major story lines to do a third storyline in a different way that, at the end of the day, doesn't help it or make it better. They is a massive net loss and is a horrible idea.
No, instead we've got a guy who has been held back by the machine for months, who was kept out of the Rumble entirely, was screwed at EC by said machine, and ultimately forced his way onto the Mania card with the help of the Yes Movement. That IS the stuff of legends.
I definitely agree with this. Whether it happened by accident or design - most likely the former - it's made for unique and compelling television in comparison to a more generic Road To Wrestlemania for the Royal Rumble winner.
How is it likely the former? Daniel Bryan went on a Twitter and started the Yes Movement as soon as the Royal Rumble ended. Where was the Yes Movement going, if not where it actually went? It wasn't leading towards a Bryan-Triple H match at Mania, because a Triple H was originally going to fight Punk. You think Bryan was going to use the Yes Movement to...what? Get a match with Kane at Mania, after Kane finished his mini feud with Punk?
But you're right that this has made for a more unique storyline...which is why I have no idea why people don't like it. If Bryan had won the Rumble, beat Wyatt or whoever at EC, then won the title in a one on one match at WM, these same people would probably be complaining about how boring and predictable and overdone this story is. Sad, isn't it?
Daniel Bryan in the Royal Rumble didn't have to mean Daniel Bryan wins the Royal Rumble. Fans in Pittsburgh made it known that they expected to see Daniel Bryan enter the Royal Rumble, they apparently felt gipped out of the ticket price. A successful storyline shouldn't include a disappointing card if only to not over-expose a particular athlete. Daniel Bryan enters and the crowd pops huge, after a long series of high-spots Batista eliminates him and the crowd dumps massive amounts of heat on Batista. I think that having Daniel Bryan in the Royal Rumble would have sent them home satisfied.
If Daniel Bryan won the Royal Rumble, it wouldn't have been difficult to write the show around that. Daniel Bryan has his match at Wrestlemania, it's a lock. CM Punk just left and Daniel Bryan has never had more going for him. HHH decides that he'll prove to the crowd that Daniel Bryan isn't worth their hype, and promises that he'll beat Daniel so badly at Elimination Chamber that the yes movement will die. They put on a Hell of a match, and HHH gets the win. After the match, the fans are still high on Daniel Bryan. HHH shakes his hand and suddenly has a lighter attitude.
Daniel Bryan's true fans, like me, don't expect much out of WWE creative. If we get Daniel Bryan in a match with a decent amount of time, we're happy. I realize that it's a little better to have the moment occur closer to Wrestlemania, and that going over HHH at Wrestlemania is a huge accolade.
I don't think it was at all wise on the WWE's part to not include Daniel Bryan in the Royal Rumble, I also don't think that it was wise to have Batista win the Royal Rumble for his return to the ring. Have Batista win it, but have him wrestle a few times before hand or maybe just have him as a special referee before hand. Give him something tangible before we're expected to accept him as a two time Royal Rumble winner.
People are already complaining about Bryan losing to Wyatt, you think people would be happy with him getting eliminated in the Royal Rumble? Besides, that would really hurt his case for a title shot at Mania, and really hurt his entire Yes Movement. Remember, it all started as soon as the Rumble ended and Bryan went on Twitter saying the machine didn't want him anywhere near the Rumble match(which he actually said in an interview before the Royal Rumble too) and then called his fans the Yes Movement. That was the beginning of everything that lead to Raw being hijacked by the fans and Bryan forcing his way onto Mania. It still could've been done if he was eliminated from the Rumble, but it would've been a lot more difficult. Keeping him out of the Rumble entirely just worked better.
Sure, he could've won the Rumble. But what's going to happen to the Yes Movement then? The Yes Movement wouldn't even exist. The Yes Movement was created to get him on the card at Mania. In order to get the fans behind him as much as possible, it's better to have him out of the title match as long as possible. Do you really think the fans would be behind him as much as they are, as angry and passionate as they are, if they knew they were getting what they wanted a month and a half ago? Of course not. Yes, they'd still be supporting him, but the passion and desperation would certainly not be there. That's why they're not even confirming his spot in the title match, to draw it out as long as possible. It's brilliant.
Given that it was clearly better to have Bryan not in the Rumble, I would agree that Batists shoud've been more active before the Rumble. But, at the end of the day, Batista was going to be a heel eventually. And they knew that. No matter what they did, the fans were going to be behind Bryan, not Batista. So when you talk about what would have made fans accept him, he was never going to be accepted. And the WWE knew that. They were planning for that. They only would've needed Batista to be accepted if he was going to be a face going into Mania, and they didn't care if he was a face or not, because Bryan was going to be THE face in that match.
I don't know why it would be difficult for them to write two months of television for the Rumble winner considering that's what they've done every single year since the Rumble winner went on to challenge at Mania.
The Elimination Chamber needs to move to the summer or to Survivor Series. It doesn't make sense to have your top guys risk injury so close to Mania and they have to work around the Chamber match when they're booking.. Or maybe it makes it easier for the bookers to throw a multi-man match together with not much thought needed while they concentrate on fleshing out the period between EC to Mania? The matches are normally great but give us something to look forward to later in the year instead of TLC or something.
Who said it would've been difficult for them to do it? That doesn't even make sense. It wouldn't have been difficult for them to strip Orton of the title and give it to Bryan at some random house show, but that doesn't mean that's what they should've done. They're actually doing something different from what they do every year, something creative and original, and people are complaining about it? Like they don't complain every other year when WWE does the same thing every time? Yeah, that makes sense.
And why should they move EC? Talking about risking injuries makes no sense since there's really no greater risk of serious injury in an EC match than any other match...that's something the WWE plays up to hype the match, but it's not actually true, of course. People might be a little more sore after the match, but that's not going to affect Mania. And they don't "have to book around it," they get to include it in their booking. It's not like the EC is just thrown at them with no advance notice. They know it's there, they get to plan for it. It gives them another chance to advance storylines before Mania. It gives them a chance, on a big stage, to set up feuds that weren't set up at the Royal Rumble. That's a good thing for the bookers, not a bad thing. It helps them avoid having to put the champion in a one on one match, even though another contender is already set, and it helps them avoid having to really find something for the Rumble winner to do because they've already got enough going on. Before the EC matches started as a February tradition, how many times did we see the Rumble winner get put in a match where their Mania title shot was on the line? It happened way too often. Now it hardly ever happens. That's a good thing. Unless they get rid of the PPV between Rumble and Mania entirely, which will never happen having the EC there is perfect.
And the fact that you refer to EC as something to look forward to tells you why it's so good to have it where it is. You only look forward to it because it is where it is now, because of the importance that it holds every year. If it was in December instead of TLC, you'd look at EC the way you look at TLC now.
Anyway, the OP hit the nail on the head. It's really sad that what should be obvious to anybody who watches is referred to as the Devil's Advocate, and it really shows the sad state of the current IWC. All they do is bitch and moan, crying about how they could've done it better, no matter what the WWE actually does.
