WWE: Daniel Bryan’s Road To Return

Daniel Bryan of the WWE, had a rocky 2013 as he was put through the test of endurance and will. On the July 15th edition of Raw, WWE Champion John Cena picked Bryan to be his opponent for the WWE title match at SummerSlam. This led to Bryan being embroiled in the McMahon family’s internal feud, with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon against Bryan due to Bryan’s image not fitting the mold of McMahon’s typical “WWE Superstar”, while WWE COO Triple H was in support of Bryan. On the July 22 Raw, Bryan ran a gauntlet match to prove his worth as number one contender, defeating Jack Swagger and Antonio Cesaro in succession, while his third opponent Ryback was disqualified after powerbombing Bryan through a table.

The following week on Raw, Bryan was forced to face Kane and emerged victorious, but Kane attacked Bryan after the match. On August 18 at SummerSlam, Bryan defeated Cena to win his first WWE Championship. However, after the match, special referee Triple H attacked Bryan, leading to Randy Orton cashing in his Money in the Bank contract to win the title from Bryan. This began the tremendous test of physical-mental abuse Daniel Bryan began to endure on his climb to overcoming The Authority.

Fast Forward to March 10th of 2014 with the multiple opportunities taken away from the leader of the ‘Yes’ Movement, Bryan and multiple fans occupied the ring and refused to leave, resulting in an irate Triple H agreeing to Bryan’s demand for a match at WrestleMania XXX, with the stipulation that the winner would be inserted into the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match at the event. 

At WrestleMania XXX, Bryan defeated Triple H and was inserted into the title match, but Triple H attacked Bryan after their match. Despite a storyline injury and interference from the Authority and a crooked referee, Bryan prevailed over Batista and champion Randy Orton in the WrestleMania main event to win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

“I don’t know how my life got to be like this. I honestly don’t get it. I’m just a normal dude. I was never a special athlete. I wasn’t great at any sports or anything like that. And now an arena full of people were chanting, ‘You deserve it.’ And I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it. It’s awesome to be a part of something like that.”

—Bryan reacts to the events of the Raw after WrestleMania XXX

Professional Wrestling Torch editor Wade Keller analysed that Bryan’s WrestleMania journey was due to several factors: the fans’ rejection of Batista and continual support of Bryan over the previous six months (even when he joined the Wyatt Family), as well as CM Punk legitimately walking out on WWE after the Royal Rumble. Chris Jericho later said that Bryan’s original WrestleMania XXX opponent was supposed to be Sheamus.

The next night on the post-WrestleMania Raw, Triple H used his authority to grant himself a title match against Bryan, who was then attacked by Orton, Batista, and Kane just before his title match. The match ended in a no contest and Bryan’s retention when The Shield interfered to chase away Bryan’s adversaries. Stephanie McMahon enticed Kane to return to his masked self; Kane complied and was granted a future title match against Bryan, and proceeded to carry out a brutal attack against Bryan which led to a scripted injury to give Bryan time off to mourn his recently deceased father. At Extreme Rules, Bryan defeated Kane in an Extreme Rules match to retain his title.

At some point in time, Bryan lost all strength in his right arm. This caused Bryan to announce on the May 12 episode of Raw that he would have to undergo neck surgery. That same night, he was attacked by Kane and stretchered away. On May 15, Bryan underwent successful neck surgery, with a cervical foraminotomy to decompress the nerve root having been performed. When Bryan refused to relinquish his title on May 26, Stephanie McMahon threatened to fire Bryan’s wife Brie Bella if Bryan did not give up his championship at Payback. The ultimatum resulted in Brie Bella ‘quitting’ WWE so that Bryan did not have to give up his championship at Payback.

When it was revealed that Bryan would not be able to compete at Money in the Bank and defend his title, the Authority stripped him of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship on the June 9 episode of Raw. Due to his injury, Bryan was largely off WWE television during this period.

On December 29, Daniel Bryan would return with a lot of speculations of him being there ready to announce his retirement only to swerve the locker room and WWE Universe by putting his name in the in for the Royal Rumble match and shouting “I’M READY TO COMPETE!”. Although it a lot thought he would return to in-ring competition at the Royal Rumble, WWE announced that Daniel Bryan would return to in-ring competition on SmackDown as it premiered to the returning Thursday night against his rival-former tag team partner Kane.

Many superstars have been able to recover over the course of 8 months (i.e. Triple H & John Cena), in the end we don’t know for certain what kind of condition Daniel Bryan is in (although he did return to the ring). All we can hope for is that he doesn’t sustain any sort of injury as it could spell for disaster for ‘Yes’ Movement.