In 2019, the late Bray Wyatt debuted a fresh new gimmick after a long absence: The Fiend. Through self-referential Firefly Funhouse vignettes and promos, The Fiend was built up as the ultimate manifestation of the darkness inside of Wyatt’s psyche. The segments got people talking. Wyatt sold plenty of merch. But once The Fiend got into the ring, results were less than stellar. The Hell in a Cell match with Seth Rollins was a joke even to the most hardcore WWE defenders. The follow-up match between the two was not much better.

Bray Wyatt and WWE spent the majority of the year building up this new heel champion. They wanted to be able to portray The Fiend as a dominant threat despite all the spooky gimmickry around him. They needed to legitimize the character fast, and they needed to do so with somebody they could trust to take everything as seriously as possible. Somebody with a history with Wyatt.

Enter Daniel Bryan.

By late 2019, Daniel Bryan needed something new. He lost the WWE Title in his instant classic main event with Kofi Kingston at WrestleMania 35. Bryan spent a good chunk of the year still working heel and tagging with Erick Rowan. By the time The Fiend gimmick started working matches, Bryan was just turning back into a babyface. To help the character Daniel Bryan turn back to the light, he needed someone like Bray to show him the darkness.

Bray Wyatt vs. Daniel Bryan as the manifestations of darkness and light had worked brilliantly before, of course. Daniel Bryan joining the Wyatt Family, then rejecting them in dramatic fashion, helped the Yes Movement reach maximum levels in 2014. The Wyatt/Bryan match in 2014 remains one of Wyatt’s best singles match of his career.

The two men really were perfect rivals for each other in 2010s WWE beyond meta-stories about good vs. evil or heel/face dynamics. Bryan was the indie workrate veteran who made it to his spot by grinding for years. Wyatt was a third-generation wrestler who spent his entire career in the WWE machine. Bryan’s storylines and gimmicks largely focused on what he could do in the ring; Wyatt was a supernatural force who loved using smoke and mirrors.

The Fiend used too many of those smoke and mirrors in those Rollins matches. They were simply too silly. Rollins is not the type of worker who can overcome that silliness. So when The Fiend and Daniel Bryan entered the ring at Survivor Series, they focused on The Fiend being dominant beyond any supernatural tomfoolery.

The Fiend kicked Daniel Bryan’s ass. That’s all they needed to do. That’s what they should have done with his previous matches. He wore the mask and the lighting turned red, but there were no comically large hammers. The match did not drag on longer than it needed to go. There were no supernatural forces beyond the sheer dominance of Bray Wyatt at work.

Daniel Bryan knows how to work this match. He’s worked it a million times. It’s why he’s one of the most resonant underdog babyfaces in WWE and beyond. He makes every strike and every power move come across as the most devastating blow. Bryan has his comeback attempts, a dropkick here, some yes kicks there, but he knows getting too much of his shit in will delegitimize his opponent and thus the story. He needs to get his ass kicked. He needs to lose.

This version of Daniel Bryan is one that still looks lost. He still looks like he is having an identity crisis after he called all his fans fickle losers for a year. Bryan needed someone like The Fiend, his polar opposite, to knock some sense to him and go further into the light.

Bryan would go onto have another match with The Fiend in 2020, a strap match that is arguably the better match of the two. Nobody else on the WWE roster would come close to being able to legitimize The Fiend in a non-cinematic match. They showcase the undeniable chemistry between the late Bray Wyatt and Daniel Bryan. Bryan’s ability to treat the silliest gimmicks with the utmost respect and his unselfishness as a performer are on display. The Bryan/Fiend feud shows just why Bryan worked so much better than even other indie darlings in the WWE machine. Few have worked that modern house style better than he has.

This 11 minute Survivor Series match is far from the most legendary match in Bryan’s WWE run. It’s not even close to the most legendary match of this particular year. And yet it sticks in my mind as a testament to his abilities.