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| Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Kane and Daniel Bryan (Team Hell No) (c) vs. Dolph Ziggler and Big E. Langston (w/ AJ Lee)
How: Bryan and Kane laid down the challenge after Kane was laid out by Langston on RAW this past Monday.
The Story: The roots to this tale began to grow in the winter of 2011. Daniel Bryan had caught the eye of AJ Lee, who had been a secret admirer of sorts to the Artist Formerly Known As the American Dragon. Their romance grew into a psychologically abusive relationship that fermented with each passing day Bryan held the World Heavyweight Championship. It got so bad that "Rowdy" Roddy Piper had to conduct a special Piper's Pit just so he could talk to Lee in googly voices, because that's the only way women can be talked to AMIRITE GUISE? GUISE?
The flashpoint happened at WrestleMania, when Bryan lost the World Title in 18 seconds. Bryan blamed the loss on Lee, because the good luck kiss they shared before the match took his eye off the ball and allowed Sheamus to hit him with the Brogue Kick. Bryan kicked Lee to the curb, and she went off running into the arms of CM Punk and then Kane. The bizarre love rectangle culminated in all three men clawing at each other for Lee's affections, although her erratic behavior scared off everyone but Bryan, who proposed marriage to the bubbly but eccentric Lee. While this was seemingly a ploy to get her committed to an asylum, Lee was one step ahead of Bryan, ditching him at the altar to take the vacant RAW General Manager position.
In one of her first actions as GM, Lee sent Bryan off for anger management training under the supervision of Dr. Shelby. Little did Bryan know that Kane was also sent to these meetings because c'mon, have you been living under a rock for the last 15 years? Despite being at odds during most of the sessions, Bryan and Kane formed an unlikely yet strong bond that saw them take the WWE Tag Team Championships, fight a war at TLC against The Shield, actually become true allies, bumps in the road notwithstanding.
Meanwhile, Lee got into some trouble as GM due to improprieties accused by former GM Vickie Guerrero. Basically, she was accused of playing "Hide the Sausage" with John Cena, which turned out to be a whole lot of nothing over a bunch of hearsay. But then Cena actually kissed Lee on camera, but made the cardinal sin of not calling or anything afterwards. She then ditched Cena for Dolph Ziggler, and the two adopted NXT Champion Big E. Langston as hired muscle/comic relief.
Lee and Bryan would cross paths once more backstage after Lee was doused by Ricardo Rodriguez's water bucket. The two traded barbs, which included an 18-second related knock against both Bryan's title loss at Mania and Ziggler's prowess in bed. This led to a match between Ziggler and Bryan on RAW where Langston laid out the bearded Best in the World after the match was over. On Smackdown that week, Kane got his chest caved in with a Big Landing, and given that he wasn't in the mood to trifle given his father Paul Bearer passed away a week or so prior, that was enough for the Champs to lay their challenge down.
Analysis: A lot of people see this match as a holding pattern for three of the four competitors involved. I can see that point of view, but I'm not sure I'm totally on board with the spirit of it. For one, I don't wanna see Bryan and Kane break up. I know it's wrestling to have tag teams break up after they've been teaming for awhile, especially when the relationship has been as tumultuous as Team Hell No's has been. Can't they just be friends forever? Even after they exit the tag team division, they can still make saves for each other, send each other Christmas cards, make Taco Bell runs at 3 in the morning (gotta have Fourth Meal!), and all the other stuff that comes along with being best buds.
I also don't really see the need for Ziggler's story for Mania just to be "guy who is expected to cash in on either del Rio or Swagger." It's great that he has Money in the Bank, but the last thing I want to be is a resident in a world where John Cena's narrative is 150% right about him. Having him sit on the sidelines just waiting to cash the briefcase in would be letting it define him. Letting him be a part of stories, especially ones that are as enriched as this one (accidentally or not), is a good thing, and it helps make his inevitable cash-in a bit more shocking despite its crushing inevitability.
Again, the theme of Mania seems to be "let's build everything ham-handedly" outside of maybe the Jericho/Fandango match, so it's not really surprising that the immediately recent build for this match has been a bit lackluster for such a grand stage. But let's put it this way. Daniel Bryan is the best wrestler in the world. Dolph Ziggler isn't too far behind him. Kane is serviceable, and at the very least, Langston has a brutal-looking finisher that he does very well. The principles in place make it disingenuous to say this will steal the show (mainly because everyone thinks it will), but even if the match was thrown onto the card 15 minutes before airtime, it wouldn't matter at all. It would feel like it belonged.
Who Should Win: Bryan and Kane should win, because I'd rather see them drop the belts to a tag team that's going to get mileage out of a new division, not just one that'll dissolve as an actual team once Ziggler cashes in his briefcase.
Who Will Win: It's hard to say, but I think Ziggler and Langston pull it out just so the Bryan/Kane feud that I thought would have culminated at Mania gets started.