I am an old school wrestling fan.
Like most people my age, my love for wrestling started when Hulk Hogan and the WWF at the time was gaining mainstream attention, but I wasn’t just a WWF fan. I watched WCW, NWA and whatever wrestling I could find on television.
As a teenager and young adult, I was knee-deep into the Attitude Era and Monday Night Wars. I would say this was the pinnacle of my fandom because back then everything about wrestling was about pushing the envelope.
It wasn’t for kids anymore, it reminded me a bit of the rise of rap music, it was COOL to watch wrestling during those days.
The Rock, Stone Cold, DX, NWO, Ric Flair, Mick Foley, Goldberg and so many more, it was just a golden age of wrestling.
Then Vince bought WCW and the product started to suffer. I also was growing up and dealing with certain struggles that made watching wrestling not a priority. I had a kid, a lot of debt and a stalled post college career.
I know the exact time when I stopped watching wrestling, it was when the Rock decided to leave the WWE to make movies full-time back in 2004.
The Rock is key the story I am telling. The Rock is my favorite wrestler of all-time, but it went deeper than that. While going through college and during the early days of BSO, I studied how the Rock gave promos, the creative way he used words and used it in early BSO posts and YouTube videos. That started to brand me as not just another blogger, but a personality.
During The Rock’s absence I simply didn’t watch WWE, maybe a PPV here and there, but the love was gone. As I stated before, I was dealing with my own struggles as an adult, trying to build BSO up and just keeping my head above water.
Around 2010, I started to indeed get my head above water and as part of that I decided that I would start knocking some things off my bucket list, because when you been all the way at the bottom, you appreciate being able to do things while you still can.
One of those things was to attend Wrestlemania and I thought Wrestlemania 28 in Miami would be awesome because…….
The Rock was coming back after seven years away from the ring. The Rock was my guy, so it made sense, that would be the Wrestlemania I’d go to.
Because I wanted to speak about Wrestlemania intelligently, I figured I should start watching the WWE again.
So, I started watching and immediately this one wrestler and his valet caught my eye.
At that time Daniel Bryan was the World Heavyweight Champion (back when the WWE had two title belts) and his valet was AJ Lee. I had never heard of either of them because I hadn’t been keeping up with wrestling for 7 years. I knew the old guys like Triple H, but a lot of these new guys I had never heard of.
While guys like CM Punk were obviously great wrestlers, something about Bryan and AJ were intriguing to me. Even though he was a heel at the time, I just like the way wrestled even though I kept messing up his name in tweets (I would tweet Daniel Bryant).
So, while my attention was on Cena and The Rock, I kept finding myself hoping that Bryan would wrestle on whatever show I was watching at the time.
By the time Wrestlemania came around I had no idea how big Bryan would become, but I remember feeling cheated when Sheamus beat him in like 10 seconds after he kissed AJ. I remember thinking, this guy is one of the most talented guys in the company and you give him a 10 second moment at Wrestlemania, that sucks.
AJ and Bryan “broke up” after that. My love for AJ is well documented and why people know I will fight CM Punk in the streets if I ever see him (that is another editorial for another day). Even with the Cena vs. Rock feud over (at least until the following year) I decided to keep watching mainly because of Bryan.
Then everything just started happening.
Bryan and CM Punk were having these incredible matches (with Kane mixed in and AJ being involved). Actually any match Bryan was in during those days were guaranteed to be a 5-star match. He was just on another level. He was like a hybrid of Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero. Then Kane and Bryan became one of the most entertaining tag team the WWE had in years.
It just all happened so organically, which is a rarity in the WWE, especially these days where they try to force feed wrestlers down our throat.
Bryan to me has a lot of qualities that are similar to Peter Parker. Not the strongest, doesn’t have the “LOOK”, had a lot of bad luck, but simply outworked and fought for everything he got.
While some of “B+ Player” was scripted a lot of it was true, Vince McMahon never saw Bryan as a BIG STAR. Bryan spoke to me and millions others not just as one of the best pure wrestlers in the world, but as an example of not listening to people who say you aren’t good enough because of things you can’t control.
You can’t increase your height or your look, we all can’t look like the Rock or Randy Orton, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get to the top.
The YES movement is much more than a chant, that is why it is called a MOVEMENT and not a chant. It is for the people who have been told NO all their life because they didn’t FIT the mold to scream at the top of their lungs YES I can do whatever THEY say I can’t do.
If Daniel Bryan an independent wrestler who no one believed in could be biggest name in wrestling, what was your excuse?
People ask me all the time……
“Why do you watch wrestling????”
My job forces me to be emotionally detach, that is by choice, it helps me do my job better, because I don’t have any feelings.
I didn’t feel bad for Cam Newton losing and I didn’t happy for Peyton Manning winning, my job is to analyze, report and give my opinions, not to care.
I watch wrestling for the same reason I read detective novels, read comics, watching The Big Bang Theory to have an escape from my real job.
People in one sentence will complain about wrestling being fake, then throw a fit when someone dies in Game of Thrones.
It is good to have joy like when you were a kid or even a young adult. Daniel Bryan brought that joy back to me, when he won the WWE title at Wrestlemania 30, it felt like a win not just for him, but for all of us who have ever been told NO. The story that was told, the things he had to go through but in REAL LIFE and WWE SCRIPTED LIFE created an emotional connection with fans that can never be broken.
I watch wrestling today because of Daniel Bryan. He brought my joy back and reminded me why I loved wrestling in the first place.
I am sad Daniel Bryan is retiring, but I want him to live a long, happy life and have a bunch of kids with Brie. Daniel Bryan was an excellent wrestler for a very long time, but the run he had from 2011-2014 may never been duplicated again.
The Rock as I stated before was my favorite wrestler of all-time, but going forward if anyone asks me if Daniel Bryan is my favorite wrestler of all-time, I will have one word for them……
YES
One final #YES chant for @WWEDanielBryan on @WWENetwork! #ThankYouDanielBryan #RAW https://t.co/vFl3b1Jdj0
— WWE (@WWE) February 9, 2016