I want Bryan to win because he's probably my favourite guy working in the WWE based on his last 12 months and beyond, but isn't Jerry Lawler the man who's won more championship belts than any other? He's also maintained his personal fitness very well to the point where he managed to have a couple of good matches in the last couple of years, most notably for me his TLC match against The Miz for the WWE title. That's commendable work.
You could argue that Lawler was never picked up by The WWE until he was out of his prime, and before that he was happy to run his own territory because he was a made man there. But the fact remains that WWE never thought enough of him to get him when he was at his best. Daniel Bryan, on the other hand, was fired and then re-hired by the WWE in the space of weeks, assumingly because they realised they might be missing a trip if they let him go.
Whatever the case, he went from a kid trained by William Regal, to the American Dragon and indy darling, to some rookie on the first series of NXT, to being fired, to returning and taking out two members of the Nexus at Summerslam, to being the US champion in a feud with his own mentor of a year previous, to being MITB winner, to being world heavyweight champion and all of his WWE work has been in the space of a few short years. Every hurdle presented, he's risen to the occassion, one of the few guys in the WWE as good out the ring as they are in it, which is saying something. He's a special talent and I think we'll be looking back at a legend by the time his career has finished.
Jerry Lawler, for all his titles and accolades, achieved the majority of what he did in the ring, down in Memphis. He wasn't a traveller and didn't get the aclaim of people all across the country or the globe, not in the way Daniel Bryan has sought to do, and ultimately succeeded. I think I'm giving my vote to the Bryan-meister.
