(Almost) 5-Star Match Reviews: Daniel Bryan vs. Dolph Ziggler – WWE Bragging Rights 2010

I received a request from a reader to review this match and it’s been sitting unfinished for quite some time now. And now that I’ve finally gotten around to rewatching this match I understand why. What has been called one of the best opening matches of Daniel Bryan’s WWE career is, in hindsight, underwhelming and unworthy of such high praise. Then again when this match is the only redeeming quality on a show featuring at least four bad-to-terrible matches then obviously something with two lovable darlings will stand out positively by comparison.

The Story

Nothing here, just two midcard champions being booked against one another as part of the larger Raw versus SmackDown gimmick that WWE kept resurrecting, even though no one fucking cared about this since the winning brand received nothing of consequence. But that was late 2000s-early 2010s WWE for you: full of talented athletes forced to work with piss-poor gimmicks and less-than-stellar writing.

The Match

This took place on October 24, 2010. It was rated ***1/2 out of five by the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer.

This is a non-title match between US Champion Bryan and IC Champion Ziggler. But you know what is on the line? Bragging Rights! Or “Brand Supremacy”. Or something like that. An amateur exchange starts things off as Michael Cole explains why he doesn’t like Bryan. Ziggler escapes a heel hook, gets a two-count off a crucifix pin, and escapes a LeBell Lock. Ziggler bails to ringside and Bryan gives chase only for Ziggler to use Vickie as a human shield. Bryan has a quick fix as he hops onto the ring apron, over Vickie, and lands a flying knee to Ziggler.

Back in the ring Bryan lands a corner dropkick that sends Ziggler to the apron. A distraction spot allows Ziggler to choke Bryan using the rope and then land a falling neckbreaker for two. Ziggler gets a few one-counts and continues to choke Bryan. Bryan counters another neckbreaker with a backslide for a one-count. An O’Connor roll gets Bryan two. Ziggler drop toeholds Bryan throat-first into the ropes and lands an inverted Exploder for two. Bryan fights out of a chinlock so Ziggler lands a neck snap. As Ziggler beats Bryan down a small “Vickie” chant emerges among some fans. There’s the Furious IPA kicking in. Bryan escapes a grounded sleeper, holds onto the ropes on an Irish whip, and boots Ziggler’s face. Bryan goes for a corner dropkick but misses bigtime and crashes. Ziggler covers but only gets two.

Ziggler works the neck and lands an amateur fireman’s carry for two. Bryan escapes a chinlock via jawbreaker and then avoids another corner collision causing Ziggler to eat turnbuckle. Bryan lands a kick barrage and begins his comeback. Bryan follows with a knee attack and an exceptionally stiff roundhouse kick. A big springboard dropkick gets Bryan a near-fall. Ziggler avoids another roundhouse, gets two off a schoolboy, and then another two-count off a big superkick.

The commentators make The Wizard of Oz references as Bryan avoids a Zig-Zag. A roundhouse kick gets Bryan two. Both guys struggle in a corner and take turns getting crotched on the top rope. Bryan goes for his avalanche back suplex. Ziggler counters mid-air into a press pin for two. Bryan rolls over for a pin but Ziggler kicks out. A sleeper from Ziggler fails. Both guys bounce off the ropes with crossbodies and collide in the middle of the ring.

Both guys fight to their feet and then trade flash pins. Ziggler lands a Fame-Asser and covers but Bryan gets his foot on the bottom rope. The referee counts three, sees the foot and corrects Ziggler who thinks he’s won. Ziggler applies yet another sleeper but this time Bryan gets another ropebreak. Ziggler loses his cool and starts trash-talking. But he talks too much which allows Bryan to apply the LeBell Lock. Ziggler taps seconds later. Bryan wins.

Winner after 16:14: Daniel Bryan

Review

I don’t know if I’m down with a case of post-Christmas blues or something but I just don’t see any sort of greatness in this match. The fact that some other reviewers raved about this as one of the best matches of 2010 boggles my mind (though to be fair, 2010 was such a forgettable year outside of Undertaker/Michaels). If there was ever a definition of “perfectly cromulent” it’s this match. This was as mid as it gets, completely inoffensive yet not exceptional in any way. The action was formulaic, the story was simplistic, and the drama was lukewarm, never reaching a level necessary to call this a “hot opener”. If there was a match meant to be a step-by-step guide on how to have an average, repeatable, copyable match, it’s this.

Central to that mediocrity was the match’s structure. Ziggler, despite being an accomplished amateur wrestler, only showcased his grappling skills for maybe two or three minutes and then leaned into the melodramatic gimmickry. Why? Why not have Ziggler throw Bryan around a bit and show his own technical prowess as something of a surprise to hook the live audience as they were getting settled in? Alas that didn’t happen; instead, Ziggler turned into another generic midcard heel with a shrill manager who also didn’t have much of a role to play beyond annoying screaming. Ziggler wrestled the same sort of match you can find on any indy-level show with cheap tactics, repeated restholds (or as Scott Keith put it, the MAIN EVENT SLEEPER). Once one of his finishers failed he lost his focus in a silly, almost childish way as he stomped around and lost quickly and decisively. It wasn’t outright bad per se but it was just so…bland. Rather than make the most out of his outside accomplishments and give WWE’s fans something different, it fell into a paint-by-numbers formula that led to a passable match but that’s about it.

Even with the crowd warming up towards the end with the big bumps and decent counters, the atmosphere was dampened by underwhelming and in some cases irritating commentary. Michael Cole being annoyed at Daniel Bryan’s existence was distracting, Matt Striker tried to be professional but came across as a bit of a dork, and Jerry Lawler sounded like he wanted to be anywhere else in the world but since he was stuck where he was he tried to amuse himself with bad jokes. It was from commentary like this that many fans during the 2010s would describe watching WWE programming on mute because the play-by-play took away from the action. Though this wasn’t the most egregious example, it was a good example of that bad production direction in action.

Final Rating: ***

This was completely fine, mid, passable, pedestrian, whatever middle-of-the-road verbiage you want to use. It was okay as an opener but not special in any way. Then again that was to be expected: these two had no storyline reason to be in conflict and were thrown out there to just have a match without any real stakes or other justification. It was a cold match in paper and execution, and while a random match without hype can be great if the right people are put together, they also need the freedom to have a special match that isn’t constrained by copy-and-paste creative beats and repetitive structuring.

It’s a good thing that at least one of these guys would go on to have much better matches after this. As for Dolph Ziggler…he will forever be known as one of the biggest cases of what could’ve been in modern WWE history

Thanks for reading.