I don't know if JBL reads the blogs and the columns, but he was right on the pulse of what was going on with Daniel Bryan. He noted during his match with Roman Reigns that Bryan is better when he has a chip on his shoulder. Right now, Bryan has a goddamn boulder on both his shoulders. He took the fall at Extreme Rules, and in his twisted, paranoid mind, that has to mean the walls are closing in on him. Forget that everyone, from his confidant Kane to his hero Bret Hart to the announcers, are saying he's not a weak link.
Well, there are two ways you can show that you're not a weak link. You can say it, and boy, Bryan has been saying it ever since Extreme Rules. Or, you can show it. At the end of Smackdown tonight, Bryan showed it. Like the Warner Bros.' interpretation of the Tasmanian Devil, Bryan came in with all the fury of the animated power pack and threw The Shield member by member across the ringside area. He got to bring the noise AND the funk in ways that only John Cena and Triple H have been able to do. Not even Kane nor Randy Orton could believe what they saw.
ON a show rife with recaps, Sheamus acting like Sheamus, Chris Jericho going Cool Dad (™ Brandon Stroud Enterprises), and other nasty WWE habits, they actually got something right in the storytelling department. The bookend segments fit both in Bryan's grander narrative as well as a self-actualized, show-enclosed chapter of the same story. It lends a lot of credence to my theory that maybe there are some keen creative minds on that staff, but the greater picture gets muddled by corporatism or too many cooks or Vince McMahon or whatever.
Overall, Bryan's arc was a capstone on a solid episode, despite all the chaff that ended up on the floor. Big E. Langston and Alberto del Rio had yet another great match in their series. Like so many other pairs in wrestling history, they have "the chemistry." Curtis Axel actually wasn't boring, and hell, that Wyatt Family promo was worth seeing a second time. All in all, the B-show was an A+.
Well, there are two ways you can show that you're not a weak link. You can say it, and boy, Bryan has been saying it ever since Extreme Rules. Or, you can show it. At the end of Smackdown tonight, Bryan showed it. Like the Warner Bros.' interpretation of the Tasmanian Devil, Bryan came in with all the fury of the animated power pack and threw The Shield member by member across the ringside area. He got to bring the noise AND the funk in ways that only John Cena and Triple H have been able to do. Not even Kane nor Randy Orton could believe what they saw.
ON a show rife with recaps, Sheamus acting like Sheamus, Chris Jericho going Cool Dad (™ Brandon Stroud Enterprises), and other nasty WWE habits, they actually got something right in the storytelling department. The bookend segments fit both in Bryan's grander narrative as well as a self-actualized, show-enclosed chapter of the same story. It lends a lot of credence to my theory that maybe there are some keen creative minds on that staff, but the greater picture gets muddled by corporatism or too many cooks or Vince McMahon or whatever.
Overall, Bryan's arc was a capstone on a solid episode, despite all the chaff that ended up on the floor. Big E. Langston and Alberto del Rio had yet another great match in their series. Like so many other pairs in wrestling history, they have "the chemistry." Curtis Axel actually wasn't boring, and hell, that Wyatt Family promo was worth seeing a second time. All in all, the B-show was an A+.