All I can think about now is Punk. Bryan comes off as the most legitimately humble, nice and cool dude, whereas Punk comes off as legit, but also a huge asshole who can't be happy with anything and is hard to get along with. Bryan comes off as a guy who is really pretty happy to be doing anything with wrestling. Even at his lowest points in WWE, he still seemed to be happy that he was doing anything at all. And I think Bryan has had a more genuine and stronger connection to the crowd than Punk ever did.
All of this stuff could have been Punk if he wasn't such a miserable prick all the time. But as a dude who was introduced to indie wrestling in 2002 and saw Punk and Bryan evolve into what they became, this thing was so cool. I can remember finding Bryan/Daniels/Low Ki from the first ROH show on Kazaa and getting hooked. And being able to follow a dude from that to main eventing WM and getting a documentary about him is so cool and is really something that only possible in this era. You never used to be able to follow a guy from the lowest rung to the top like you can now. That was a big part of Punk's appeal, but Bryan is SO much more likable both as a character and person.
Bryan's constant near or actual corpsing is so endearing because he's a dude that can't even hide how happy he is to be doing what he's doing, whereas Punk always looked miserable even as a top guy. He never looked like a guy who you could be happy for. Bryan's connection to the fans feels so much more real than the connection to Punk and if Punk leaving is what it took for Bryan to get to where he is, then so be it.