• Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns WWE Fastlane 21.03.2021 
• Daniel Bryan vs. Edge vs. Roman Reigns WWE WrestleMania 37 Night 2 11.04.2021
• Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns WWE Friday Night SmackDown 30.04.2021

None of these matches are an all-time great Daniel Bryan match. Even within 2021, there are better Bryan matches, notaboly within the early days of his AEW career. But I think the performance Bryan gives in all three of the bouts speaks volumes about him as a wrestler.

These matches have a lot working against them. For two of them, it’s the when and where of the match. Unless you were Go Shiozaki and Kazuyuki Fujita, your match did not benefit from taking place during covid. This is especially true for the “award-winning” WWE Thunderdome, an environment that makes wrestling feel so lifeless and soulless, even more than WWE’s usual production.

The other thing working against the matches is Bryan’s opponents. I’m not a fan of Edge’s work in his prime, so old man Edge does nothing for me and is a blight on this whole feud, in the first match he’s a needless distraction and in the triple threat he’s serviceable at best. Then there’s Roman Reigns, going into this feud, Roman is a couple of months into his lengthy title reign, which would be plagued by overindulgent and melodramatic title defences. He’s already had a few of these, notably the two title defences against his cousin, Jey Uso.With all these things working against them. The three matches Bryan can produce are remarkable.

Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns WWE Fastlane 21.03.2021 

 This match’s greatest strength is how differently it presents Bryan compared to the majority of his work in the WWE. In the WWE, Bryan, especially when working face, is usually cast as the ultimate underdog. This makes sense given Bryan’s diminutive stature when compared to the rest of the WWE’s roster. The supposed “land of giants”. Bryan has excelled in the role, but I’ve always found this to be a miscasting of Bryan especially when compared to the “best in the world” persona he would often play outside the WWE. This is what makes this match great, Bryan is not some ultimate underdog, this is not a David vs Goliath match, Daniel Bryan is the best wrestler in the world, he is better than Roman Reigns and everyone knows it, and it RULES.

What I truly love about this match is how it starts. Mere moments into this match Bryan gets a hold of one of Roman’s legs, nearly getting him into a submission but Roman manages to get free. This repeats a couple of times, Bryan grabbing one of Roman’s limbs but Roman escapes by the skin of his teeth. This was followed up by Bryan throwing some kicks to Roman’s left arm and leg, and then a truly brutal-looking submission hold on Roman’s arm where Bryan uses his leg. What I love about this opening is how efficiently it sets out the story for the rest of this match. It shows that Bryan can win this at any moment by getting Roman into a submission, which adds a lot of suspense to the match. It also shows Bryan’s general strategy of targeting the left arm for the LeBell lock and targeting his left leg to take away Roman’s base, weakening his offence. What I think the opening truly does the best is how it sets up the dynamic between the two wrestlers. Bryan is a better wrestler on the mat but he’s also a better wrestler in general and both competitors know it. This is bolstered by the expressions of both men. Bryan is smiling ear to ear, full of confident cocky energy that would come off heelish in the hands of a lesser performer. Roman looks visibly shaken, clearly scared that he will lose his title. It’s a shame that this match peaks in the opening few minutes but the 25+ minutes remaining isn’t half bad.

While it seems to be at odds with a lot of stuff I’ve said in this review, Roman’s in control for a lot of this match. It doesn’t contradict- because of how Roman gets in control, through eye raking and knees to face while in a submission, Bryan also feels like he’s never getting dominated, he’s always in the match. However Roman being in control for the majority of the match is one of the match’s flaws. I wouldn’t say Roman is bad in control, he’s fine, he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing. He uses his size and power to throw Bryan around and there’s enough weight behind his punches and elbows. But it’s missing something, I see a lack of intensity or maybe urgency in his offence. I found myself the least engaged when Roman was in control. I think this is where the match suffers the most from taking place in the Thunderdome. I can imagine a world where this match takes place in front of live fans, who are getting behind Bryan and his comebacks and in that world, I probably enjoy Roman’s control segments a lot more. But we do not live in that world, we have piped-in boos and LED screens full of people doing thumbs down. There is a lot of good, even great stuff in this match. Especially in the parts where Roman is actually in the submissions, Roman sells the pain and desperation he is feeling whilst in the holds fantastically. The transitions from Bryan to get into the holds are delightful. You can tell you are watching a 23-year veteran who has mastered his craft.

However, this match completely falls apart near the end. This match falls victim to the old Roman Reigns formula. Ref bump! Usos interference! Face gets a visual win! This match was early on in Roman’s title reign so it wasn’t stale at the time but watching it back you can feel the formula being set in place. Even if you isolate this match from the wider context of Romans title reign, it’s still pretty bad. I will say that the visual win that isn’t counted, where Roman taps out in the Lebell lock is great, i love that Roman only slightly taps with his fingers, really shows how much he doesn’t want to do it. There are two ref bumps in this match, one to the normal ref and one to Edge. Ref bumps aren’t inherently bad, but these two are so lazy. They’re both done in the same way; the ref stands directly behind Roman, in a way refs never do, Bryan goes for a move, Roman moves out of the way and the ref gets hit. Bryan accidentally hits Edge with a chair this way. Then Edge attacks both of them in retaliation because he’s mad and stupid. This being the finish makes it so much worse, Bryan gets pinned off a chair shot. The large amount of time between the shot and the actual pin attempt just irritates me further. A truly awful end to a match that was pretty good beforehand.

This is a deeply flawed match but I find myself going back to this match all the time. It’s really just for Bryan’s performance.

Rating:  *** ¼

Daniel Bryan vs. Edge vs. Roman Reigns WWE WrestleMania 37 Night 2 11.04.2021

I’ve never been one who cared about the grandeur of WrestleMania but even i can’t deny this match just feels big. It’s probably because I remember how I felt when I first watched it. Fans returning while probably irresponsible adds to this match, finally no more LED screens filled with thumb downs. That being said, I don’t like this match. It’s not awful, it’s more than nothing to me. The match benefits from something that a lot of triple threat matches have, being able to keep a fanatic energy up throughout the match. However, it also falls victim to a fault a lot of triple threats have, where you only have two of the competitors wrestle at a time while the other is taking a rest outside the ring. Bryan is also back to being cast as the ultimate underdog, meaning he’s the one who spends most of the time down on the outside. This means quite a lot of the match is just Roman vs. Edge so I’m just watching two wrestlers I don’t like.

There are some good things in this match. Mostly when Bryan gets in the ring. The duelling headbutts between Edge and Bryan while they both have Roman in submission and the spasm sell Bryan does after the ConChairTo are the highlights of the match. Something that says true throughout this feud and all of Roman’s title reign is that he’s great at selling while in submissions, his bug eyes and looks of desperation are brilliant. Bryan takes some big bumps of Roman and some good camera work that leads to an Edge spear truly feeling like it came out of nowhere. And I can not deny the cool factor of Roman stacking and pining both Edge and Bryan. But that’s about it.

This match is technically fine but I was completely uninvested in the action, a truly nothing match. This match also ends in Usos interference but I don’t mind it here, partly because a triple threat is no DQ but mostly because this wasn’t a match I cared about so I don’t care how it ends.

 Rating: **

Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns WWE Friday Night SmackDown 30.04.2021

This is Bryan’s swan song to his WWE career, a truly legendary run that will mean he goes down as one of the WWE’s best-ever performers. Unfortunately, he can’t go out in front of fans, it’s back to LED screens full of thumbs down. This match thankfully no longer has the distraction of Edge but it still has some outside factors working against it. Firstly it’s incomplete, because this is a TV match it had ad breaks meaning we are missing parts of this match, though I doubt my feelings on this match would change if we had a complete version. Secondly, the match stipulation is lacking, instead of Bryan’s WWE career being on the line, it’s only his smackdown career that lowers the tension of the match quite a bit. Considering this is Bryan’s final WWE match it seems illogical they didn’t put his whole WWE career at stake, maybe they still thought they could resign him.

This match starts similar to Roman’s and Bryan’s first encounter with an early attempt of the LeBell lock that Roman just manages to escape, alongside some kicks from Bryan to Roman’s left arm. However Bryan wrestles with much more intensity, he’s not got that cocky smile anymore he is laser-focused. This resulted in a far more strike-based offence from Bryan compared to the submission-heavy approach in their previous matches. I see the logic in this decision but it results in a match that doesn’t play to the competitor’s strengths. Bryan plays his role perfectly, forearms all land and looks good, however, he’s still in that underdog role, where it feels like he has to eke out all the offence he gets. For Roman, again he’s fine when in control he uses his size to throw Bryan around, once again i wish he was meaner when in control. This match being less submission-based means Roman doesn’t get to show off his best quality being the desperation he can show in submissions. However his selling of his arm is awful, it’s that terrible type  of selling where he just goes “oww” now and again but doesn’t change how he wrestles. The worst case is that he still pounds the ground, with his injured arm, during his “OOH-AAH” taunt.

Thankfully this match has a clean finish, Bryan leaves WWE putting its now top star over. As he should. 

This match is the one that received the most praise of these three matches. And while it’s miles better than the Triple Threat. I prefer .their first encounter. It’s awful finish aside, the action is just far more engaging. That’s not to say there isn’t good stuff here but the competitors are not casted in the roles best suited for them.

Rating: ***

Conclusion

Soon after leaving WWE Bryan would have an interview with Ariel Helwani where he said he could sleepwalk through WWE matches. And I can feel it in these matches, but I think that’s why I find myself going back to this feud a lot. Especially the 1st and 3rd one. While I don’t love any of these 3 matches, I do love the performance Bryan puts into them. But there are not any all-time performances from Bryan either. It’s watching someone so in their element that they can have great performances without even trying. Bryan Danielson can do this in his sleep and I can watch even an unmotivated Bryan wrestle all day long.