THE MYTH

My older brother had been a fan of wrestling since he was a kid, when the Mega Powers were on top of the WWF. As a kid, I wasn’t allowed to watch wrestling as a kid knew nothing until one of my best friends got me to watch Great Balls of Fire (much love to Patrick). There were always names that existed in my head as these almost mythological figures. When I was very young I remember my brother talking about guys like Samoa Joe, CM Punk and Bryan Danielson in Ring of Honor. These were names that I had no faces for, but persisted in my mind as these folks heroes of some forbidden world. 

When I finally got invested in wrestling, my brother had a laundry list of recommendations for me, pretty much all of them involving Bryan. Joe at Midnight Express, Nigel at Unified, Morishima at Final Battle, Cena at Summerslam, Mania 30 as a whole. I was awestruck, not only that the Smackdown General Manager I saw on TV each week could do this, but that wrestling like this could exist at all. The emotions in his WWE work pre-retirement were far above anything the company could muster in the time I had been watching, but that same guy was in packed halls 10 years previous having the sort of violent, petty, mean-spirited encounters I could never even conceive of. Real emotion exuding from every moment, every hold and every strike. I think every fan can say they had that moment where they found a wrestler who they connected with on a level that’s hard to describe, this eye-opening experience that made you realize just how good things can really be. Bryan was that guy for me. And he was permanently retired with career ending brain problems.

THE RETURN

Not long after all this diving and digging through the career of my new favourite of all time, the rumour hit the internet: Bryan had been cleared to return to in-ring action. The feeling in the air and online that day would only be matched three years later, when CM Punk returned to wrestling. It’s hard not to get emotional watching his return even now, after he’s been back for six years. I was certainly later to the party than most of the people you’ve read from in this project, but Bryan was and still is my guy. After a couple months in a wrestling space online you’d at least know his story. It was a modern tragedy, but against all odds he was able to come back to what he does best. There have been many seemingly impossible returns to action in the years since, but no one felt like they had as much left on the table as Bryan.

With all that said, it was hard not to feel disappointed in the months following. The night before Bryan returned in a tag match (that was mostly about Shane McMahon), NXT got to pay off the hottest feud of the year in Gargano vs Ciampa (before fumbling it several times in a row for the next 2 years). While Kenny Omega and Kazuchika Okada were having one of the most acclaimed matches of all time to end their rivalry, Bryan was working with Big Cass, rough around the edges at this point (but better than you remember, I assure you). While Hiroshi Tanahashi was completing one of the greatest ace comeback stories in all of wrestling, Bryan was wrestling The Miz to blow off the most overrated promo in recent wrestling history. Where is the real shit?! You cleared him to return, why are we wasting time? Shouldn’t he be in the mix with the best you have?

AJ STYLES

While all this is happening, AJ Styles is getting to some of the best work of his WWE career. After starting the year mixed up in the Kevin/Sami/Bryan/Shane mess on Smackdown and delivering solid but underwhelming matches in his feud with Shinsuke Nakamura, AJ finally clashes with Samoa Joe and gets to have the sort of matches that really assert his dominance at the top of WWE. It’s certainly the peak of Joe’s WWE tenure and in the upper echelon of AJ’s work. As WWE tends to do, they just let it run for too long so they don’t have to book more stuff, but in the steady hands of two all-time greats, we finally get the feeling that AJ is the Guy for Smackdown beyond just being told he is. 

Before then, the only glimpse we got of that greatness for most of the year was the Smackdown after Wrestlemania, where Bryan and AJ got to have a solid 12 or so minute double limb match. It was a treat for the longtime or well read fans who haven’t seen these guys clash since the ROH and IWA:MS days and as a bit of a make good for the people who felt cheated after Styles/Nakamura at Mania 34 did not get out of second gear. Of course, this match ends in DQ after Nakamura runs in for more cock and ball torture. But before that nonsense, two masters get to go in there. It’s a slot obviously meant to just fill up time before they get to the big show closing angle, to show everyone not only how well they mesh together but how much better they have gotten since their last meeting in 2006. There’s a real comforting ease in the way they both escalate against each other as the match carries on, a sporting contest that gets a little more than sporting as soon as Bryan goes for the arm. He doesn’t stay on it for long but AJ manages to sell it in some nice little ways to make it matter. In return, Bryan does a great job selling his leg after a nasty dragon screw and flip out of the corner gone wrong. There isn’t a ton of time here for them to really get in the weeds but because of that, every moment feels important and there’s no wasted motion.

After the year both men have, it feels inevitable that they will meet again for the title. That opportunity comes after Super Showdown in Australia, with Bryan shutting the door on the Miz feud and winning the #1 contendership in a quick two and a half minutes with a small package.

THE BUILDUP

The way we finally get to the title match is an interesting one. Originally being promoted for Crown Jewel, before the dismembering of Jamal Khashoggi caused Bryan to pull out of the event, WWE starts the feud everyone has been waiting for off with what everyone loves. That’s right! A “can they co-exist” tag team angle! They’re booked to face the Usos twice over the next couple weeks. The matches are inessential: the Usos capitalize on a miscommunication between teammates both times to get the win, with Bryan pinned one week and AJ the next. It’s worth noting that the Usos are out of place like three times in the first match as commentary calls them one of the greatest teams to ever step in a ring… but I digress. In a fun bit of comedy after the second match, AJ and Bryan are interviewed backstage and asked if these were really accidents out there. Bryan accuses AJ of his nose growing like Pinnochio ’cause he’s lying, before then pantomiming and turning it into the Too Sweet. AJ stammers and storms off. Seeds have been planted for the big one and they get to show off their chemistry outside the ring as well. It’s the same dynamic that produced one of the all time Talking Smack moments when AJ had to insist he wasn’t a flat earther.

In Atlanta, Georgia on next week’s Smackdown, AJ comes out ahead of the match to get the hometown crowd going and cuts a promo calling out Bryan to clear the air between them. Bryan says there’s no need to apologize, that he respects AJ, but that right now the only thing he sees is the WWE title and AJ is an obstacle to that. The thing that kept Bryan going when he was out was coming back for that championship and nothing’s gonna stop him from taking it. In a slightly less receptive crowd than what Bryan has had since his return, he rides the line perfectly between face and heel. Never overstepping the line into arrogance, just purely confident in what he wants and how he wants to get it. In return, AJ says that he lied and that he really did mean to hit Bryan last week. Bryan insists that he never lies and right now he wants a reason to punch AJ in the mouth. AJ decides that they’re gonna have this match right now. AJ plays his role perfectly here as well as a fighting champion babyface while maintaining an edge. He feels disrespected by Bryan so he’s gonna get under his skin and settle this right away. No more pretense, it’s time to fight.

THE MATCH

I really love this match. There’s the obvious emotional reasons first: I love Bryan and this is really the first time all year that he feels truly unleashed to have a great match without any bullshit, along with AJ Styles being maybe the best version of himself in his WWE run. It was also a little revelatory in some way, a confirmation that yes, Bryan still has everything he had before retirement and then some. However, when you remove all that set dressing and get down to the real mechanics behind the thing, it’s also just a really smartly laid out pro wrestling match that tells a type of story I really love. Pretty early on, Bryan loses control and the whole match is about his desperation as more and more slips away from him, while AJ stays the course and is rewarded for his composure. 

Bryan immediately gets to the arm of AJ and starts hacking away at it, even relishing the boos of the Atlanta crowd a bit. As always, AJ’s selling of a limb is not great but Bryan doesn’t give him more than he can handle. Plus, the narrative of the match lends itself to AJ shrugging it off a bit. Once AJ finally manages to create some space, Bryan goes for the huge suicide dive to the outside and tweaks his knee on the landing. At this moment Bryan has lost the match, although he doesn’t realize it yet. I don’t know if he ever realizes it until he’s already tapping out, but from here on he is never really in control again. AJ is vicious with his focus on Bryan’s leg. You can go back and watch any of their matches together: they always devolve into the pettiness on full display here. It never takes much to make these guys get really mean spirited against each other, a quality present in most of Bryan’s greatest work. Even as AJ is ripping away at the knee, Bryan is trying to pull his hair or his nose or his mouth, just looking for anything that could give him a way out and a brief reprieve. But as the match wears on, that’s all he can get. He goes back to the arm whenever he’s in trouble, but he never stays focused on it in the way AJ focuses his leg. Bryan sells the leg in all these great tiny ways, nothing obnoxious and showy like a single leg bridge either. Just using the other leg to plant for his kicks or limping a bit as he goes to the corner, the sort of motions I recognize all too well as someone who walks with a cane most of the time. 

Bryan changes his strategy from out-wrestling AJ to out-bombing him, but that doesn’t go right either. The damage has been more than done to his leg and AJ gets to reap the rewards. Bryan takes a little too much time to get to the top rope for his signature back suplex, and AJ turns it around into a crossbody that hurts them both. After that, Bryan gets a bit of control back on the arm, but he can’t keep it long enough to gain any ground and AJ chucks him to the outside with a suplex. Bryan reverses an Irish whip into the steps and hurts AJs arm again but his knee still keeps him from staying on it for too long. An attempt at a top rope rana takes a little too long and he can’t get off the full power. From there Bryan overreaches again with kicks while AJ is tied up in the ropes and AJ manages to catch the leg for a nasty dragon screw. Bryan counters the Phenomenal Forearm that follows, but AJ has more gas left in the tank: he muscles him up out of a triangle hold, into a one armed Styles Clash, and cashes in all that work on the leg with a brutal calf crusher for the win. It’s a crushing defeat for Bryan in kayfabe, but out of it, it’s an unbelievable performance.

Sometimes a guy you love goes out there and just can’t get it done, nothing breaks his way and eventually he gets so in his head that he’s never gonna get back in it. Bryan in this match and the post-Mania match bring to mind Jose Aldo against Max Holloway in mid 2010s UFC: an all time great bumping up against a guy who he just can’t get past. Every strategy is shut down and the title of the best in the world is ripped from his hands. Time only marches forward, and the years Bryan was gone were years AJ was competing at the highest level against the toughest opponents. To steal an evergreen quote from Fighting in the Age of Loneliness: “the cruel randomness of the sport is never in flukes, but in how much changes, and how quickly.” It’s the lovely sort of narrative that WWE occasionally trips over in the dark. They let the work speak for itself, and through that, allow any idea you apply to it exist in tandem with their intention. Of course, this being professional wrestling and not MMA, the story doesn’t end there.

THE REMATCH

With WWE there’s always stumbling blocks. The next week they run promos for AJ vs Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series while Bryan spends the show doing comedy with The Miz as team co-captains. At least this time, WWE understands that’s not what anyone wants, and has Bryan flip out to end the show. He’s clearly still bothered by his loss from the last week despite shaking hands with AJ after the match. The following week’s Smackdown kicks off with a promo between AJ Styles and Paul Heyman ahead of the advertised Champion vs Champion match against Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series. Heyman mocks AJ for being the second greatest in-ring performer in WWE history behind Bryan, feigning some disappointment that Lesnar would not be taking Bryan on at the PPV (also a match that fans had been begging to see for years). AJ, of course, brings up that he tapped out Bryan two weeks ago in retort. Bryan comes out hot after that, reiterating from their talk before the last match. He respects AJ, but that he’s looking for a reason to punch him in the mouth and that reason will come if his name is mentioned again. AJ, the lovable dumb guy that he is, immediately says Bryan’s name: praising him as the best man he’s ever stepped in the ring with. Despite the positive context, Bryan starts wailing on him, ending in a big pull apart with all the agents and referees. The pull apart continues backstage and after AJ says he will take him on anytime, a match between them is booked for that night while Bryan yells about being disrespected. 

It’s a really excellent angle to lead into a rematch. Bryan isn’t riding the line anymore, he’s being a dick and a sore loser which is something that he excels at. It gives us another match between the two most beloved wrestlers on the roster, it creates doubt about the Survivor Series main event after AJ Styles won the title the previous year in similar circumstances, and it still manages to harness, intentionally or not, the complicated emotions people were feeling around Bryan’s booking throughout the year. He’s being an asshole but it also feels right that he should get another shot; for his entire second run so far, our beloved returning hero has been anything but.

With less time and more of a focus on the angle instead of the match, this isn’t quite as great of an encounter as their previous meeting despite some powerful moments. AJ is the one starting off hot this time, so it takes Bryan a lot of work to get AJ off his leg and create some space. He isn’t as injured as last time but it’s still an obvious hindrance in the same great ways as before, with all his little stutter steps and stumbles as he gets his feet back under him. Bryan manages to turn it around on the outside and smashes AJ arm-first into the ring post a few times, keeping control as they get back in the ring. AJ manages to fight out of it but it hinders him way more than before. He can’t get off his strike combo with the same force and has no chance of countering the top rope rana or back suplex. Bryan pauses here and there because of his knee, but it’s not stopping him from getting his offense off like it was last time. AJ manages to slip on a calf crusher and do some more damage but Bryan slithers out into an armbar, before getting slingshotted into the corner. AJ gets to the outside for the Phenomenal Forearm but Bryan gets out of the way and AJ takes out the ref. This is the moment the whole episode has been building towards. A split second decision. Bryan still firmly has the match in hand, even if AJ has gained more momentum. His leg is hurt, but nowhere near as bad as before. But what if AJ gets on it again? What if he has to tap out again? The thing he’s been fighting for all this time is right in front of him, what use is there in risking it? Bryan kicks AJ square in the cock and balls, hits the running knee as the referee wakes up and wins the title. Isn’t this what we wanted? The crowd cheers when he gets the win after all.

It’s the sort of brilliance that would be easy to attribute to booking but we’re in WWE and this is Daniel Bryan. He’s been pulling things up to be more than the sum of their parts for years in the company at this point and will continue to do so before he leaves (zero coincidence that the last time anything involving the Bloodline was good was the Bryan feud). You can get a guy to stand on the X in any number of ways but there has to be some real weight there to make people care and there is no one people care about more than Daniel Bryan. He does such an excellent job portraying the frustration and fear throughout the match that it’s gonna slip away from him again and the elation when he realizes he can steal one. It’s real pump your fist hell yeah of a dastardly heel turn that leverages Bryan’s history in this company perfectly. The camera catches that quick little smile he gives to the audience before he focuses in, knowing that one more move is the only thing separating him from his dream. It’s the most joy I’ve ever felt at a heel turn. It’s both a great narrative payoff and a confirmation that not only is Bryan back, he is here to stay. No more working with project guys, no more Miz “sports entertainment” bullshit, the American Dragon is the WWE Champion and it’s his world now. The promise of a run that people had been dreaming of since he won the title from John Cena five years previous and for once we really get it. They are really running with him this time: after a miracle return and a fumbled year, the course is corrected.

THE AFTERMATH

Bryan and AJ go on to feud all the way through the 2019 Rumble, but the best part of their story ends here. Bryan comes out on the Smackdown after Survivor Series and twists the knife one last time. Offering an explanation, not for “these people” but for himself, Bryan brilliantly twists the triumphant story of his return to the ring into a supervillain origin. He realized he had to fight for his dreams while in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber for three hours a day, speeding up the healing process in his brain. He realized he had to fight for his dreams no matter how many therapists told him he needed to give up on wrestling. He resentfully claims that while all that was happening, the fans got quieter and moved on from him. This promo is a great reminder that people who insisted he was a bad talker have no idea what they were saying and have always been wrong. He shows the ability to weave the high melodrama WWE loves from their heels with something very real and bring it all together. It’s the ramblings of a mad man, but you believe that this crazy person who loves wrestling more than anything really believes it all. And I could feel the hooks of wrestling dig a little deeper into me.

By the time this drops there will have been a great deal of effusive praise for Bryan Danielson on the site. I can’t guarantee that anything I’ve said is a new revelation, but it’s a joy and a privilege to get a platform to speak about something you love, and there has been no single man more important to my wrestling fandom than Bryan Danielson (even if some of his recent matches have pissed me off). Diving into the back catalogues of ROH and PWG just to see him led to me discovering hundreds of other matches and wrestlers I’ve come to love. Seeing him work was one of the few things keeping me attuned to modern wrestling through the pandemic. After this feud, on PPV or on TV, a Bryan match was appointment viewing and still is to this day. No matter what happens next as he winds down his career into a part time attraction, Bryan Danielson is the fucking man.