Daniel Bryan

[JerryvonKramer]

Yes, Thesz is the spiritual link from the 1930s to the 1960s, Flair is the link from the 70s to the 2000s. They are the backbone of American wrestling history, remove them and the entire picture changes. If you picture a house of cards they are on the foundations. Probably why Larry Matysik has it like this:

 

 

All I was trying to say is that for me there's something almost mythically special about that. A level of magic and greatness "beyond" our talk of great matches, variety, psychology etc. I can't be alone in feeling this, we are hardcore wrestling fans and there is only one Ric.

 

I have three hours before my involvement of with this project is over. Let me see if I can make them count by watching some matches.

[Grimmas]

It's neat and interesting, but does not make him a better wrestler than anyone else to me.

 

Watch some more Bryan please, would love for him to shoot up your list, he really is a Flair equal.

[Loss]

There's an interesting conversation about place in history here, which is not a deciding factor for anyone when it comes to my list, but is absolutely a plus.

[Childs]

Tenryu is your Japanese equivalent in that he wrestled just about everyone who mattered from a 30-year span. I've always thought of that as a cool thing about his career and something that distinguishes him from his peers.

 

On Bryan, we don't have the perspective to situate him historically, so the comparison to Flair on that front feels fuzzy. His resume of opponents might well feel weightier in 10 years.

[Benbeeach]

...was Wahoo McDaniel a better wrestler than Samoa Joe? (I love Wahoo mind you)

[Johnny Sorrow]

...was Wahoo McDaniel a better wrestler than Samoa Joe? (I love Wahoo mind you)

Depends on what you value. Both are in my top favorites ever list, though.

[Dylan Waco]

I don't know about career narratives, but I have watched a lot of Bryan's indie run in recent days and it holds up really, really well. I have been a bit of critic with him in the past, in part because I think he's largely evaded the sort of critical appraisal others have gotten and I like to hold peoples feet to the fire. That said his stuff holds up well.

 

He's not a flawless wrestler by any means, but when you go back and watch something like him v. Low Ki from 2001 it seems obvious that he is already a great wrestler then. Not a good wrestler. A great one. Similarly I've been impressed by the range of wrestlers I've seen him have impressive matches with over the years, and the fact that does seem to adjust at least in little ways to place, setting, time and opponent. I do think he's got a bit more formula to him then some want to admit, but I've never hated formula myself. Having said that when you watch him work Styles and then watch him work Liger you could can see that the approach is different. I was especially impressed by the way he worked in the four way elimination match from Rampage Pro I watched against Rave, Matthews and J-Rod, as he was giving without looking weak in a place where he probably could have eaten everyone alive.

 

I'm not at all sure where he will rate for me at this point, but the more I rewatch the less difficulty I have with him as a top tier guy.

[Matt D]

I've been watching a bit recently and I think he's falling down my list. I had him in the 15-20 range at one point. I don't think he'll make it lower than 30 (maybe not even 25), but I'm nonplussed lately. I think I'm just less favorable towards the super-indy style than others. What I can say is that he makes me at time, not love it, but like it, and that in and of itself is impressive. I watched a match tonight where the first five minutes were very good, full of character and story and the closing was very smart, and the middle was a lot of big moves and strikes rushed through from both guys. And he wasn't wrestling a schlub. The Flair comparison is interesting because with both wrestlers, I tend to like individual parts of their matches more than the greater whole. In both cases, however, I can only hold it so far against them because it's probably what they should have been doing for the crowds they were in front of. But I'll hold it far enough for it to be a few slots here and there on a list of the best ever.

[Timbo Slice]

He's not the guy who championed the super-indy style. If anything, he subverted the way the indy style went in a way where people tried to copy him from an aesthetic standpoint and it couldn't be matched. I agree he fell into it from time to time, but he got more out of the other big names of his time than anyone else, really. I think watching his matches with multiple guys doesn't tell the complete story. For me, the story is that when those guys went off and faced off against other big names at the time, they didn't really come close in a lot of ways. They lacked what he added to matches that made them stand out. The one thing I took away from his indy run was that he went out of his way to do something different in a lot of the big matches, which is why regardless of who he faced, it was better nearly 100% of the time (stuff like the Roddy match, Aries 75 minute match are big strikes against him in my eyes, but those are outliers). A lot of me putting him where I originally had him was because I figured he had more time going forward, but the completion of his career has me thinking Top 15. Maybe even Top 10 depending on the names I switch around.

[Matt D]

We don't disagree in a lot of ways, and it's enough to get him into my top 30. It, along with other aspects of his WWE work, good and bad, will get him that far but maybe not into the top 20 anymore. "Better than it had any right to be" takes you far, just not as far as it could, you know?

[Dylan Waco]

I'm just excited to see Christian ahead of Bryan on Matt's final list

[Matt D]

Unfortunately Christian isn't making the top 30.

 

Not for lack of trying.

[Slasher]

I'm not arguing that Bryan shouldn't be ranked highly or given huge credit for it.

 

I'm just noting that for me, and I'm sure others too, his achievement cannot really rival what Flair did for the reasons I outlined. It's not even as simple as saying I think wrestling is better in the 80s than now, it's more that Flair's career is an actual index of American wrestling history. I mean literally guys from the 60s to guys who died 30 years ago to guys who are still on the active roster now. It's just mind-blowing when I think about it.

I think that is the wrong way to look at the comparison. Ric Flair enjoyed so many different benefits for working in the era he did. He also had a strong group of supporters in powerful positions that he was always looked as a guy they could trust being the touring champion and coming into territories as a big deal and thus had more opportunities to work with the best that territory had to offer. He also had two different rivals that helped him get even more over with the fans (Rhodes abd Steamboat). He was given an opportunity to lead a stable with great workers involved. He was quickly designated by WCW as their man and their anchor on a national level. Daniel Bryan has never really come close to being given the same opportunities. The WWE for a long time didn't think he had the right look for their world champion. Before his foray into WWE he just had nowhere else to go that comparea to WCCW or AWA or Mid South or Florida or Carolinas etc. Today's wrestlers are guys who really loved wrestling and was willing to shell out cash for a training and the best of that lot got to go on making a career out of it. Athleticism means nothing nowadays nor does having that innate understanding of how it works and how to get over with manipulation. So Daniel Bryan was always wrestling guys that Flair fans would classify as broomsticks and yet he made it work. It isn't coincidence that the very first hint the fans got from the WWE that Bryan is a major part of their future, fans started hijacking shows to force the company to stick with him rather than letting them move on past him to other wrestlers they wanted to push. He is injured pretty immediately after he had his Austin Mania 14 moment, barely got back on track and then forced to retire. I am confident that if he never retired and had opportunities to put in another 15 years of work in, he would have been widely considered GOAT over even Flair. That's pretty obvious for me to see. So no Flair doesn't get extra pats on his back because Bryan had to retire.

[JerryvonKramer]

It's about what happened not what might have happened.

[Matt D]

I have Bryan criticisms (He'll still do fine on my ballot in the same way Hansen will do fine because there's a lot of brilliance and a lot of good matches). I just don't have time to flesh them out. I'd need to watch a lot more and write up a lot more than I have time for right now. There's just a lot of disparate footage and I just never got around to it. I can criticize elements of a Claudio match or the Kamala match or some of his 2013-2014 selling, but I can't get all the way around it to make more endemic criticisms right now. That's a regret. It also has me feeling that even if he's ten+ below where a lot of you will have him on my ballot, he's still too high.

[WingedEagle]

Bryan was my presumptive #1 or #2 coming into this. He's fallen a few spots the top of my list has taken shape. A few spots.

[Frankensteiner]

I re-watched a lot of Bryan's main run recently and what struck me was how much more I enjoyed him as a worker in 2011-2012 rather than the big run he had in 2013-2014. There's a little too much excess there with the repeated crazy dives, big moves, etc for my liking. He was almost working as a caricature of himself to go along with the long hair and beard image.

 

I'm probably on an island with this, but in terms of WWE style workers, Punk's main run from Money in the Bank 2011 to SummerSlam 2013 was better than Bryan's main run from 2013 to retirement.

[Luchaundead]

I re-watched a lot of Bryan's main run recently and what struck me was how much more I enjoyed him as a worker in 2011-2012 rather than the big run he had in 2013-2014. There's a little too much excess there with the repeated crazy dives, big moves, etc for my liking. He was almost working as a caricature of himself to go along with the long hair and beard image.

 

I'm probably on an island with this, but in terms of WWE style workers, Punk's main run from Money in the Bank 2011 to SummerSlam 2013 was better than Bryan's main run from 2013 to retirement.

I actually agree with this towards the end of his WWE run Bryan at times worked entire matches as if they were hot tags missing a lot of the subtle stuff that had made me love him over the years he became repetitive in a way that was very obvious but it's hard to blame anyone for dumbing down, for lack of a better term, their style while working the WWE schedule

[Matt D]

I think it was a conscious effort by Bryan (or the agents or Vince or whatever) in order to streamline his act a bit for a more general consumption. That said, I think it made for worse matches on a weekly basis.

[Jimmy Redman]

That last part I disagree on. The time around the Shield matches was the best stretch of matches in Bryan's WWE career I think.

[anarchistxx]

Almost surreal to remember Smackdown around the time of those 6 Man tags involving The Shield. The show felt hot as fuck, incredible matches with huge crowd reactions every week. Compare that to the meaningless non event it is now.

[Slasher]

Daniel Bryan has to be the only guy in WWE history to be of a slight stature and still end up being booked as an offensive monster that he was. I don't think guys like Punk or Rey got the respect that Bryan did when putting matches together with the road agents and opponents. People just seemed more willing to get destroyed by this one small guy than they were for just about anyone else.

[Jmare007]

Daniel Bryan has to be the only guy in WWE history to be of a slight stature and still end up being booked as an offensive monster that he was. I don't think guys like Punk or Rey got the respect that Bryan did when putting matches together with the road agents and opponents. People just seemed more willing to get destroyed by this one small guy than they were for just about anyone else.

 

Agreed. Bryan used to beat the shit outta Big Show when he made his heel turn. He was a cowardly heel but he still was a bad ass in the ring. Show bumped his ass off for him too.

[Slasher]

For god's sake he had Triple H wrestle a Daniel Bryan match than the usual bloated epic Triple H match at Wrestlemania. This isn't to say Bryan carried Triple H because he didn't but just the fact Triple H agreed to being plugged into the Daniel Bryan match formula rather than insist Bryan wrestle a 30 minute Triple H match says it all.

[Jingus]

You're right, it wasn't 30 minutes... it was 26 minutes. While I agree it didn't feel remotely like your standard HHH self-conscious epic, they put in the time. In terms of length, it ranked #4 out of 18 with Hunter's matches at Mania. Only the four-way at Mania 2000 and the back to back Undertaker matches went longer.

 

Which I think is overall a glowing testament to Bryan's ability when he can make a longer-than-average Triple H match feel like a shorter-than-average Triple H match.