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Bryan Danielson signs with WWE


Boondocks Kernoodle

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http://www.rohwrestling.com/news/article.aspx?id=2952

 

Bryan Danielson has agreed in principle to a contract with World Wrestling Entertainment.

 

Bryan has been an exemplary talent and a wonderful member of the Ring of Honor locker room and family since the inception of the company. We couldn’t be happier for Bryan and all of his successes, many of which Ring of Honor has been proud to witness first hand.

 

We congratulate Bryan on the beginning of this next journey in his brilliant career, and wish him all the best as he progresses. Many Ring of Honor fans refer to Bryan as the “best in the world” and we look forward to looking on in earnest as he shows everyone watching the wrestling world’s biggest stage just why that is.

 

Bryan will appear as scheduled at all of the September Ring of Honor events. Please join us in Philadelphia, Dayton, Chicago, Boston, and New York as we say thank you and farewell to a truly one-of-a-kind talent.

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Hell, if he gets anything that normal, it'll be a sigh of relief. This is a company which thinks that names like Dolph Ziggler or Zack Ryder or Braden Walker are all great money-drawing monikers.

 

I do seriously wonder why the WWE would even want the guy in the first place. He's about the size of a Guerrero but with none of the muscle mass and very pale skin. Despite being a cruiserweight by WWE standards, he doesn't do any flashy flying moves. He's best known for putting on extremely long, workrate-heavy matches that tend to rely on a lot of matwork. His entire gimmick is that he doesn't need a gimmick, he's a wrestler dammit and he wrestles, etcetera. Now, what about any of that screams "Sports Entertainer"? Even his stylistic ancestor, Regal, spent long years trying to find a way to fit in with the WWE, and he's several inches taller and has a foreign accent to lean on. I understand that some of the wrestlers and most of the road agents would probably mark for Danielson's work, but they're not the ones who control the hiring process. What does the company that runs Raw expect to get out of American Dragon in a WWE environment?

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According to PWInsider (by way of the F4W board), WWE is looking to raid a few guys from ROH because they are mad about ROH doing a "wrestling returns to Monday night" campaign.

 

Bryan Alvarez posted this on Sunday night:

 

Now that we're almost six pages in, I should mention that I've talked to several people in WWE and several people in ROH in all areas of the company and none of them had heard anything about this. Not to say WWE may not sign a couple of guy in the next few months, and ROH is expecting it may happen with a couple of them. In fact, the ROH guys I talked to were hoping a few guys would be signed because they said they deserved the WWE money.

And then six hours or so later the Danielson thing was announced. LOLvarez.

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I do seriously wonder why the WWE would even want the guy in the first place. He's about the size of a Guerrero but with none of the muscle mass and very pale skin. Despite being a cruiserweight by WWE standards, he doesn't do any flashy flying moves. He's best known for putting on extremely long, workrate-heavy matches that tend to rely on a lot of matwork. His entire gimmick is that he doesn't need a gimmick, he's a wrestler dammit and he wrestles, etcetera. Now, what about any of that screams "Sports Entertainer"?

Danielson can work different stuff.

I've seen him as a fun vanilla babyface highflying tag worker opposite Rene Dupree and Carl Oulette in a Euro fed.

He's a guy with good execution who bumps well. No reason to believe that he won't be at least as effective as Crash Holly. I don't want to see him falling off ladders but no reason to believe that he is incapable of falling from ladder style work either.

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The perception of Danielson as this slow working mat grinder is just weird. Is he good at stretching an opponent? Sure. But he does tons of flashy, high-impact stuff -- many varieties of suplex, flying elbows and knees, dives into the crowd. He's an offensive machine. Even the cattle mutilation is sort of a mat highspot.

 

From the way some people talk, you'd think he was Dory Funk Jr.

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This is a company which thinks that names like Dolph Ziggler or Zack Ryder or Braden Walker are all great money-drawing monikers.

No, it's a company that gets it's rocks off giving ridiculous names to talent they perceive as jobbers.

 

Even his stylistic ancestor, Regal, spent long years trying to find a way to fit in with the WWE, and he's several inches taller and has a foreign accent to lean on.

This is simply a ludicrous statement to make given that Regal's biggest push ever in the promotion occurred when he was Commissioner and Intercontinental champion from late 2000 to early 2002, mere months after making his TV re-debut. Also Danielson's style is closer to Benoit's than Regal's.

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According to PWInsider (by way of the F4W board), WWE is looking to raid a few guys from ROH because they are mad about ROH doing a "wrestling returns to Monday night" campaign.

 

Bryan Alvarez posted this on Sunday night:

 

Now that we're almost six pages in, I should mention that I've talked to several people in WWE and several people in ROH in all areas of the company and none of them had heard anything about this. Not to say WWE may not sign a couple of guy in the next few months, and ROH is expecting it may happen with a couple of them. In fact, the ROH guys I talked to were hoping a few guys would be signed because they said they deserved the WWE money.

And then six hours or so later the Danielson thing was announced. LOLvarez.

 

Alvarez in this week's F4W then says something like how WWE is interested in 1 or 2 ROH guys, one of them being Danielson, but that they weren't necessarily looking to raid ROH and don't really seem to care that ROH exists. Not sure how true it is, but considering the ROH TV show is available in like 5 households, and they would appear to have few people remaining that would hold any interest to WWE (Nigel maybe?), I don't know that I'd dispute it.
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I think Bryan's being worked. WWE always gives an air of aloofness off regarding other smaller promotions, even when they do actually care about what they're doing. If WWE truly didn't care about ROH's existence, then they wouldn't have gone to such lengths to stop Ric Flair appearing on their TV shows. Vince has flipped his lid over much more minor things than ROH running a "wrestling returns to Monday night" campaign.

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From the way some people talk, you'd think he was Dory Funk Jr.

He still tends to work longer matches than the WWE is used to. When's the last time that any Raw match went the length that your average Danielson match tends to? Sure he's capable of doing shorter stuff, his old Velocity match against Cena was one good example, but it still makes me wonder why the WWE wants him since he's so completely the opposite of the tall tanned steroid monsters that they usually prefer.

 

No reason to believe that he won't be at least as effective as Crash Holly. I don't want to see him falling off ladders but no reason to believe that he is incapable of falling from ladder style work either.

You could say the same about Cabana. Sure, he's not the same level as the Dragon, but he had a goldmine of talent which the WWE never even gave a second glance. Lots of talented guys have gone there and either been screwed or failed on their own.

 

No, it's a company that gets it's rocks off giving ridiculous names to talent they perceive as jobbers.

But the most ridiculous of those three names, Ziggler, was stuck on a guy who had been with the company for years and was perceived as having lots of potential. And they're pushing him. Even after his early wellness bust, he was put right back in the same spot like it never happened. He's not been treated like a jobber.

 

This is simply a ludicrous statement to make given that Regal's biggest push ever in the promotion occurred when he was Commissioner and Intercontinental champion from late 2000 to early 2002, mere months after making his TV re-debut.

I was talking in terms of match styles. Lots of people aren't fond of Regal's WWE work; I think it was Coey who once called his Mania match with RVD "the worst real match" he'd ever seen. He didn't mesh well with a lot of the more Sportz Entertainment style of workers. Danielson's more adaptable than Regal with a bigger bag of tricks, but they're still similar in many ways.
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Guest Kenta Batista

Matches that NEED to happen :

 

Regal

Finlay

Mysterio

Morrison

Kingston

Killings

Knox

Cage

Benjamin

Punk

 

Give me those ten matches and I will be a happy guy.

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But the most ridiculous of those three names, Ziggler, was stuck on a guy who had been with the company for years and was perceived as having lots of potential. And they're pushing him. Even after his early wellness bust, he was put right back in the same spot like it never happened. He's not been treated like a jobber.

He was treated as a jobber when he debuted on Raw in the gimmick. It's only since he was moved to Smackdown that he's got a serious push and he's been perceived as a guy with lots of potential. He's obviously one of Michael Hayes's pet projects, whereas Bryan Gerwirtz didn't see much in him.

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  • 2 weeks later...

As per Meltzer, Nigel McGuinness is following Danielson into WWE:

 

http://www.f4wonline.com/content/view/10497/

 

ROH has announced today that Nigel McGuinness will be leaving the promotion for World Wrestling Entertainment.

 

McGuinness, like Bryan Danielson, has agreed to finish up his scheduled bookings and will be on all the major shows this month, finishing up on 9/26 in New York.

Good move for Nigel, I bet he winds up a bigger star in WWE since he has more of a look.

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ROH cards are looking worse and worse by the season, and that's BEFORE these two left.

 

At this point I think the best move would be for them to do an "old ROH vs new ROH" feud, bringing in castoffs like Xavier and the SATs who weren't good enough for 2006 ROH but aren't worse than frigging Super Smash Brothers.

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