He won clean in his pay per view matches leading up to Wrestlemania. Also, his character he was playing played a part on how he booked during the television.
I know that here its always negative negative, but his title run up to Wrestlemania went very well and was written great. Bryan Alveraz loved his run and it worked because he got over during the run with the writing and the Yes thing. We forget before he title run he was a bland face that got no reaction and with his title run got him over.
Then the 18 second lost made him super over and has been in the main event scene since December.
Yes, true. But he's never made into a legitimate threat. Here's a rundown.
-He won the title by pinning an unconsious Show.
-He defended by tricking Mark Henry to attack Big Show to get a DQ.
-He defended again by having Show run into AJ.
-He defended against Henry by having the Lumberjacks in their match attack him.
-He managed to climb out of the ring by slipping out of Big Show's grasp at the Royal Rumble. (Which, although a win, wasn't a decisive win by any stretch of the imagination).
-At elimination chamber he got a decisive win via LeBell Lock... On Santino Marella...
-At Wrestlemania he died via Kick to the face.
And that's just his title matches, he won his WWE Title shot by beating Jerry Lawler. He got Punk to tap out after he was pinned 1,2,3. He was nowhere in sight for 5 minutes in the last match.
Bryan is over, despite WWE's best efforts. He has been gold in his promo's, he is the best worker in the company and he puts on the most entertaining matches. Yet every damn time WWE books him to look like shit.
Lets look at TNA. Bobby Roode is a heel and uses heel antics. But he wins matches by knocking people the fuck out, he makes them tap, he smashes beer bottles over their head and it makes the guy look tough and unbeatable in the process. It's such an easy thing to do, yes, you can do finishes like the ones above, but the guy is supposed to be a submission expert. Is it that hard to have him win every other match by making people tap out?
It's such basic stuff it blows my mind WWE isn't booking any of their heels in any form to be a legitimate threat. They manage it maybe once or twice a year. Look at how fucking over Henry was as a heel because people actually thought he could kill his opponents. Same goes for Kharma when she came in, it was good. They could do it with smaller guys, but they choose not to.
Sure, we like to be negative here, but these are legitimate concerns. It's the reason why WWE is having such a hard time in the ratings. Why heels rarely get over in WWE and it takes guys like Bryan, who have fought hard and worked on every aspect of their character to get over. It's also the reason why their ratings just drop and drop and drop each year. We know wrestling is fake, but is it too much to ask that they at least pretend this is real, that these guys are fighting over chamionships and that both the heels and faces are tough guys that could kill you if you looked at them wrong? Don't need to be 7 foot, 400 pound guys for that either, as long as you make them look tough by having them beat people with actual finishes.
Look at Christian for fucks sake, during his Heel run I'd be suprised if he hit the Killswitch succesfully more then 5 times. He's managed to hit more of them since his return last month then he did for the whole of last year. It's ridiculous.
Terribly sorry about the rant, but this is so basic it's amazing they won't do it.