What will become of pro wrestling’s short, oh-so-normal, and badly injured everyman?
Daniel Bryan, known to long-term fans of his work in independent wrestling organizations like Ring of Honor and Dragongate USA, seems like he’s going to be out of action for a longer haul than we might have originally suspected. The American Dragon (or Flying Goat, or Goat-Faced Killah… really just take your pick of nicknames, the man has about a million of them) injured his neck during a botched power bomb through the announce table at Wrestlemania 30, as delivered by Dave “the Animal” Batista, and we all found out just a few days later that he was not going to be able to defend the title that he won so gloriously, so magically, a few moments after that power bomb.
And that sucks. It sucks and actually makes me more than just a little bit angry. Not at Big Dave, mind you. Anyone can botch a move and the powerbomb is fraught with danger—it’s why people don’t use it very much anymore, except for holdovers from the nineties when freakingeveryone was doing it and guys’ backs were bursting apart like ripe watermelons on concrete all over the place. The thing that infuriates me, more than anything else, is that at the very moment it seemed like a member of the New Blood, the Next Generation, was going to break the glass ceiling and stand on top of the company’s pile, something like this happened and returned us to the status quo we have been living with for ten years now. John Cena, after the Money in the Bank ladder match, is once again champion. Danielson has not yet even begun to regain strength in his arms, may need another surgery on his neck, and has become just another beautiful beard for us to fantasize about.
Danielson has not yet even begun to regain strength in his arms, may need another surgery on his neck, and has become just another beautiful beard for us to fantasize about.
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John Cena isn’t even a bad champion, not really. That’s the crazy thing. He’s probably who I would have chosen to give the belt in this situation. He’s steady, reliable and popular with small children—the WWE’s main demographic. Cena is also a big, powerfully built man who’s sturdy enough to take hard bumps on a regular basis and has so much heart and dedication that he would probably work if one of his legs was hanging by a single strip of ragged skin. The second condition also describes Danielson—one of his main selling points was the heart he had for wrestling—but the first, well… not so much. He is a relatively small man for a wrestler, at right around two hundred pounds, and has been prone to nagging injuries his entire wrestling career.
Batista sends Daniel Bryan to the disabled list with a powerbomb, one of the most dangerous moves of the 1990s and early 2000s.
Cena’s not exciting though. Danielson was. I liked watching him in a way that I haven’t any other new guy, apart from CM Punk, in over a decade. His technical skills reminded me of the way Kurt Angle—another of my favorites—could move, and his work on the mic was, if not as inspired as that of the always brilliant Edge or Eddie Guerrero, at least solid enough to get his point across. To get him over. To get a whole stadium full of people chanting, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” along with him and pointing to the heavens. Not many people in the contemporary WWE have been able to make that kind of connection to the audience, and this is the connection that professional wrestling lives on. This year at Wrestlemania, with the Undertaker’s loss to Brock Lesnar having set me up for surprises early in the show, I forgot myself for a moment at the end, let myself forget the fact that it was all predetermined and celebrated with the short, oh-so-normal looking guy in the middle of the ring.
I’m tired of all the guys I like getting hurt, fired or disappeared
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Because even though the way the matches end is planned out in advance, it’s not scripted in the way that a season of another television show might be. Danielson won the title at Wrestlemania not because some executive thought that he would play test well with audiences (and then, when he didn’t, said executive would have to use the next half season, if he was lucky enough to get one, to work around the mistake he’d made) but because he worked hard, loved what he was doing, and people did respond to it. Word of mouth created Daniel Bryan and, God willing, it’ll bring him back to those heights (such great heights). Just like indie bands and small, intimate feeling television shows grow, so did the American Dragon.
I just hope he comes back soon. I’m tired of all the guys I like getting hurt, fired or disappeared. CM Punk left for reasons of his own, the Edge retired due to horrible injuries (frighteningly similar to the ones which plague Danielson), Edge’s partner Christian is slowing down and Matt Hardy, who I liked for many years, is so ape-wire insane that he isn’t a good bet for any wrestling company, although TNA keeps giving him a shot. I guess the real hope now is on other members of the new generation, a strong mid-card who can develop the show into something interesting to watch. Cody Rhodes is doing something like that, playing as the bizarre Stardust alongside his equally weird brother, and the members of the Shield are starting to gain steam in their singles careers—I especially like the idea of Roman Reigns as a monster babyface, while Dean Ambrose reminds me of a freaked out, ECW throwback, er… in a good way, though. Whatever happens, though, I’ll probably watch or at least keep up with what’s going on. It’s been a long road for me and wrestling, and the next bend is always entertaining at least partially because it’s unpredictable.
Photo–Flickr/Simon Q