Instant Feedback: All Bryan Everything

More than just a knee to the face Photo Credit: WWE.com

I would be repeating not only myself but scores of other commentators around the World Wide Web if I recounted how "no one" thought Daniel Bryan could be a main event player in WWE. I will spare the tale of the tape, but instead use tonight's opening match of Smackdown to show how Bryan has already mastered what it means to be a top guy within the company. Having the gift of gab or being able to have broadways with any wrestler don't make a guy a blue chip prospect. Their body size or quality of physique are irrelevant. Attaining main event status within WWE is all about crowd manipulation, and Bryan might be the best in the company right now.

All one would have to do is look at how he orchestrated the match with Erick Rowan and the post-match shenanigans. He showed off in the way he bumped for Rowan during the match, how he played cat and mouse with the two bearded henchmen of the Wyatt Family towards the end, soaring through the air onto both of them by the announce table. Most jarringly was his final salvo. When he appeared to have Rowan and Luke Harper befuddled, rather than going after them, he attacked Bray Wyatt, who spent the entire match and fracas afterwards at that point in his rocking chair (with the exception of getting up to trip Bryan, causing the disqualification). In one seamless motion, Bryan launched into him with his busaiku knee, stuck the landing, and flawlessly started into his "YES!" side-skipping to the back.

That one motion, from running charge to leaping, up-pointing "YES"-ing, encapsulated how well a puppetmaster Bryan has become. He didn't have to stop and pause. The killshot to Wyatt's head was the explosion, and Bryan knew to capitalize on it by doing his own version of coolly walking away from the blast with his sunglasses on. He created a moment, and then seized it. The truth is that he's been doing that ever since he won the World Heavyweight Championship.

Daniel Bryan right now is the best thing WWE has got going for them for reasons completely different than when he was wrestling under his real name as the franchise for Ring of Honor. Sure, he's still embodying those ideals on the bigger stage; Bryan comes out and has a balls-out, pay-per-view quality match every week whether he's in the main event against Randy Orton or jerking the curtain against Fandango.

But creating a zeitgeist and knowing how to cultivate it is a special talent that only a select few all-timers can do. Bryan showed that even on a seemingly inconsequential show before a pure storyline three-on-one beatdown of a match at the coming PPV, he could make the crowd rock like they were about to see Buddy Rose and Roddy Piper tear down the old Rose Garden. For a WWE superstar, no greater currency exists.