2014 Daniel Bryan
By Scott Keith on 27th November 2020
Good sir – I wasn’t a very regular watcher of the WWE from 2009-2013. I got sucked back in by the rise of Daniel Bryan and the yes movement. So could you fill In a blank for me please
By the time I started watching and following Bryan’s rise it was at summerslam 2013 when he beat Cena for the title and the authority storyline kicked off. Before that was there a specific match or moment that led to Daniel being so over? Or was it more of a series of things that were built over time?
It was two specific factors. First of all, Daniel Bryan was World champion and got himself over as a heel doing the YES! YES! celebration deal, which then turned into NO! NO! and a really good long-term storyline with AJ Lee. And then what REALLY triggered the babyface turn was when he lost the title to Sheamus at Wrestlemania in 18 seconds, with the idea being that it was supposed to make Sheamus look like a world-beating badass, but in fact what happened is that it completely backfired and people felt like they were robbed of the title match they had paid to see, thus building sympathy for Bryan in the process. It also destroyed Sheamus as a top guy because fans rejected him in that position as a result and only wanted to see Bryan, and he never really recovered from it.