There’s nobody I look forward to seeing more when watching WWE right now than Daniel Bryan. Which in itself is really ironic, considering a year ago, I didn’t really like the guy at all. He was a boring U.S. Champion, and I wasn’t the least bit bothered when his match was cut from the Wrestlemania card last year.
All it took was a heel turn and belief in the word “YES,” to make the mega-superstar we have today.
I don’t know whose idea it was for him to focus his character around the word YES, but it’s incredible how forcing it in peoples’ faces at first ended up turning it into the biggest chant since “GOLDBERG” or Steve Austin’s “WHAT.” Admittedly, at first, I still didn’t care about the character when he won the WCW title, but the further Bryan embraced the heel turn, the more entertaining the YESes became. When a barely conscious Daniel Bryan started chanting YES while on his back, after winning a match by a cheap disqualification, I officially became a Daniel Bryan fan.
Wrestlemania was an incredible sight, as a result. With the YES! signs all over the crowd, and the incessant chants from the fans, it was clear that Daniel Bryan was very much finally over; thus making the buildup of the match that much more exciting. Although Bryan would end up getting squashed out of the WCW title in 18 seconds, it was pretty obvious what the underlying message was – Daniel Bryan didn’t need a title belt to stay over with the crowd. He had YES!
In smark-speak, despite losing the belt, Daniel Bryan was getting somewhat of a promotion. Sheamus may have the belt, but he’s a limited worker with a limited arsenal, and he’ll get a few months of archetypical feuds before eventually running into a contender with bigger plans behind them. We call this, a transitional champion.
It’s no clearer than the two weeks of WWE programming since Wrestlemania that Daniel Bryan needed no belt. If anything at all, him losing the belt made the fans that much more rabid and willing to chant YES! with a larger furor and enthusiasm than before. With each successive week of entire venues chanting YES!, the fans at home and the fans of the next city where WWE programming airs, are more willing and enthusiastic about their own opportunities to spam YES! all over live television. It’s even more amusing when the crowd goes into opportunities to use YES! in matches and segments that have absolutely no relevance to Daniel Bryan. If this were ECW, I’d bet Paul Heyman would use such opportunities to entangle Daniel Bryan into just about every single storyline, resultantly.
I love this segment Daniel Bryan did with AJ and Kofi Kingston this past week. I have no problem with him renaming the Lebell Lock into the YESlock; the promo was pure gold – “who did Gene Lebell even beat?” And then the way he goes into getting up in Kofi’s grill to do nothing but spam YES! over and over again, pure gold.
But as is the nature of wrestling, and life itself, no good thing is going to last forever. I fear that already, the YESman gimmick has already peaked, and will soon be on its way out. The crowds are rabid with support of the YES!, and it’s only a matter of time before the fans force the hand to sooner, rather than later, convert Daniel Bryan back to being a face. And frankly, him being a face is what made him boring and stagnant in the first place.
But I certainly hope I’m wrong on this, and the heel YESman Daniel Bryan continues on for a long while. YES! YES! YES!
