D Bryan Star Power
 

Where do you think the ceiling is for Daniel Bryan? Someone said in the other three that he may be the next Rock/Austin/Hogan/Cena. Where do you think his peak is?

I don't think he will ever be more than a B star outside the wrestling community. I don't see Bryan being able to appeal to the random kid/adult on the street. His charisma does not carry over imo. He is just soooooo bland. Honestly, if it wasn't for Punk then Bryan would probably not have risen to the point he is at now.

Do you think Bryan has the ability to be the WWE savior?

I think he'll be a big star within the company. Like, Bret Hart level star. Consistently over, main event level player, but not transcendent. He's instantly now their biggest babyface.

He's on Benoit's level. He will ultimately go psycho. Brie Mode won't be able to stop it when it happens. RIP

His limit is as high as the people around him. He cant raise the the ceiling like a hogan or an austin. But he can match anyone with out exception.

Bret Hart seems like the best comparison. He'll never be on the top level with the likes of Hogan, Austin, Rock or Cena, but a very solid second-tier guy, always credible and has the best match on the card more times than not.

Probably give Cena a run for his money on Make-A-Wish appearances too

Yeah I'd have to agree with Bret Hart. He's the guy that the fans you ALREADY have love, but he's not necessarily going to grow the fan base. Doesn't have the mainstream appeal, but is a legend in his own way.

He won't make it through the year

75% chance of this

I don't foresee him making mainstream movies, but I do see fans in 10 years still talking about him with respect.

Only way to see if he has true star power is if he leaves the WWE and joins another company. Not a fan of his but I would be interested in seeing what he could do away from WWE. Instead of Best for Business he could have shirts sauinv Best for the Industry.

I think he could draw well enough on his own should he leave. CM Punk could do that. But he won't bring in new fans, sponsors or other aspects of the media like Hogan, Austin, Rock or even Cena.

He is not the kind of guy that'll crossover successfully imo. The Rock is the biggest movie star in the world. Austin has a successful tv show. Cena is making the transition into film and his recent animated feature not only garnered positive critical reception, it received an academy award nom. Cena was also individually praised aslnd is getting more movie roles of late.

I don't see Bryan getting to that point. I think he is a star within the industry. But will always be pigeonholed to wrestling.

The thing to consider about the main names being mentioned above is the time and situation of their rise to superstardom. Austin was one of the most famous men on the planet in his day... and he was a wrestler. The Rock was also super famous, and his road to becoming one of the biggest actors in the world started off after his wrestling career died down. Hogan was in absolutely bollocks movies, but it didn't matter coz he was super famous, as a wrestler. Both Austin and Hogan came during wrestling's big boom periods.

Bryan may not have that type of mainstream appeal RIGHT NOW, but it's impossible to truly predict where the business could be next year, or the year after, or what mainstream trends could take off. Maybe Bryan will be forced back into retirement after a couple of years, at which point he might step away from wrestling and try his hand at something else which will make him a bigger name. Or perhaps in a couple of years time wrestling may actually reach heights of popularity not seen since the Attitude era, and if Bryans a prominent figure then, who knows where it could lead.

I think he has the potential. I'm not saying he's there now, but just by making one announcement, he's pretty much the #1 face in WWE right now, and weren't there massive "Yes" chants breaking out in other sports a few years back? It might not seem like much now, and it is highly likely that he'll never reach that level, but I think there is some potential there, in the right circumstances, he could reach that level. (Or, he's one of the better prospects to get there, at the least).

I think this pretty much sums it up. He can be a guy like Bret who is massively over with the hardcores but can't come remotely close to bringing in fans like a face of the company needs to do. He's a guy best used as a secondary star while you find others to put on the marquee.

He's got a lot of good will going for him. The product around him is stale and they won't put him front and center, but he'll be over with live crowds and probably be the best thing they've got for as long as they have him.

Back in 2013/2014, I think Daniel Bryan would have been a great champion for the smarks, but beyond that, I don't think he would have drawn anything significant. I don't think Bryan would have dominated the 'kid' demographic as Cena had done in previous years, and I don't think Bryan would have brought in new fans like Austin/Rock/Hogan had done. I actually have a theory that a large part of Bryan's popularity, stemmed from the fact that the WWE audience simply wanted to act as "contrarians," and go against the grain of whoever the WWE wanted as their number one guy. If you watched closely, you would have seen that Daniel Bryan's popularity was slowly starting to fade a bit after his big win at Mania. At present day, I think Daniel Bryan will get a warm reception from the crowd, but I don't expect the WWE will push him as their top guy given his injury history. At best, he will be what Shawn Michaels was to the WWE post 2002. One of the top guys that puts over top heels or other top faces.

Nah, I liked him because he was really talented and intense. His underdog road to WrestleMania was my favorite thing in years.

If Bryan's popularity was starting to fade after Mania it was because he was feuding with Kane, who is pretty much death to anyone at this point in his career (as a heel).

He also was running away from Kane, and scared of him which is not how you book a champion.

John Cena if you ask me, did okay as champ, but in many ways was a complete failure. So what you say means nothing @Luigi

I agree with Dale.

With all due respect, to say or imply that John Cena was a complete failure in many ways, shows that you have substantial gaps in your understanding of the business. I stand by my Daniel Bryan comments.

Very disgusting comment, but I guess those kinds of comments are acceptable around here.

There's levels to this.

One, foisting the term "WWE savior" on him is a bit much. Especially right now.

Right now, he's a feel good story. Throwing out his in-ring, his charisma, his intangibles, etc., etc., what you have at this moment is a performer who was taken out at the swing of his prime - a prime, mind you, the company totally wanted to sweep under the rug because it wasn't *their* idea of what was supposed to be over - mainly because they wanted to avoid the potential of being in a bad PR position of "another Benoit", CTE/concussion suits, or even worst-case scenario, a death in the ring. A prime that the live crowds were salivating over, "hijacking" shows over, and literally taking the mostly fake WWE PR buzzwords of "making your voices heard" and turning it into a real thing of "yeah, we fucking want *this* guy!!!" in a way that totally wasn't ironic (like James Ellsworth) or simply contrarian (like anyone who is opposite of Roman Reigns).

You have a guy who has about 2 years of ring rust on him. A guy who the company both didn't want to risk for potentially both selfish and alturistic reasoning, but also didn't want to allow him to go elsewhere and let him continue doing what he loved doing even at potential risk to himself to draw money and attention elsewhere.

Backing up a bit, if you remove the brain trauma issue, and take DB from the point he won the WWE title at 'Mania, you potentially *had* a guy who was transcendent. What made each of the go-to examples of Hogan/Austin/Rock/Cena were a bit different. Hogan became the face of what was looking to branch wrestling from regional to national/international. Austin was able to embody the true badass: the guy who says what he means and backs it up. The Rock became the epitome of "cool heel" to the point of making that the default babyface positon. And everyone's favorite scapegoat posterboy Cena had to go through the process of being bland and generic nobody who was actually on the verge of being housecleaned to a rapping amalgam of Austin/Rock, to his own brand of babyface who "doesn't let crowd reactions phase him".

Bryan was different than them as well, but like them, he was SUPER FUCKING OVER. Part of what got him to be so over is the relatability; the everyman factor. The other part was the fact that he was so good in the ring, and being a product of time and place, fans knew how good he was because they had seen him in places like ROH even though WWE (a bit less now, but still) likes to pretend no other company exists but them.

There was pop culture potential in that, but we will never know if WWE would have picked up on it like they did with "Austin 3:16", or completely drop the boat like they did with the "Ryder Revolution"**. The "ceiling" on him was as high as WWE wanted it to be. I'm reminded of that one promo HHH cut where he says something to the effect of "We had a nice little spot for you...", and you know there was an ounce of truth to that. They only saw him one way, and that way wasn't figuring into plans of anything higher than resident spot monkey or helping get people over who they WANTED to push as top-tier. As I like to say, WWE always seems to want to find the next Hogan, and they are willing to bypass all the Piper's, Rick Rudes, and Mr. Perfects to do it. They don't want to take a chance on something else unless they are forced into that corner (like with the rise of Cena and Orton), and always seem flabergasted with stuff like the failing of how Roman isn't getting over or the disasterously botched Batista return.

Instead, we got the events that we got, and we will never know because of that gap of time where he had to step away.

And worse, for the immediate time being, the first question that needs to be asked is if he will even get back to being as good as he was? People always say shit like "just like riding a bike", but there's a big difference in getting back on one to ride down the block, and getting back on one and being able to effortlessly throw down on an X-Games obstacle course.

TL;DR? Let's see how quickly and how well he can bounce back into ring excellence. Then, let's see how long WWE will actually have shit for him to do program/angle wise, for this will all be a moot point if he is "the shits" compared to how he used to be, or even if he gets back to a similar level of production, the company blows their load on all the "dream matches" with AJ and Shinsuke and such inside of a two month period and then has fuckall for him to do after but job on PPV preshows and show up in backstage segments at catering. If he is still the upper crust wrestler he was a couple of years ago, it is again an issue of the ceiling being as high as WWE is willing to make it. He could carry the company with one of the championships, or he could be shoehorned into the doldrums of 205 like Austin Aries was.






** A thing I compare all the time - both guys were supposedly folks who, at the crux of that moment, Vince didn't really see them outside of the whole "good hand" pigeon hole - and we should always wonder how history could have been potentially different if they decided to roll with Ryder or, conversely, if they treated Steve like Zack after that King of the Ring promo and decided to just let him languish in the midcard in spite of all the homemade signs.

Woo