Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
Yeah, Bryan's been gaining viewers for two months. You guys are high.
That said, given how he's been booked, it's unsurprising to me that he's maybe lost some of his drawing power. I know I'm not a tenth as excited for him as I was a few months ago, whereas Cody Rhodes and Goldust - who've both been booked incredibly strong as a result of all this company BS - have me glued to the screen when they're on.
I think they problem is they simply didn't play to Bryan's strengths. If you were gonna do an underdog thing, you really should've kept him OFF the mic. He'd work much better as an intense presence the McMahons just can't keep down, and you can progress the story in backstage segments, where his amateurish acting wouldn't matter as much. And he NEEDED to keep the character that got him popular, i.e. fucked-up angry guy with a goofy streak. Instead, they've made him some weird Punk/Cena hybrid where he gets a CM Punk-style story of being a small indie guy they wanna keep out of the main event while doing the mic work you might expect of John Cena, i.e. being sarcastic, pandering, etc. And the thing is, while he's a better wrestler than Punk, he's not a tenth as dynamic and natural on the mic. What got Punk so big were things like the pipe bomb promo, demanding ice cream bars from Vince, telling The Rock his "arms aren't long enough to box with God", pouring the Undertaker's parents' ashes over him, etc. Bryan's not unpredictable like that on the mic, and he's not had any cool, memorable things to do on the show in a while. I'm not on board with people that say he's gotten TERRIBLE, which is massive hyperbole, but there's no denying he's missing some of that "it" factor he had with Kane.
But in retrospect, I'm maybe coming to the conclusion that he simply needed to win the title at Summerslam without any shenanigans following. The best way to get him over would've been to have him butt up against HHH's new regime, become a "target", and simply beat all comers. Instead, they've made him look like a bit of a putz, made most of the faces on the roster look like amoral pussies, and the only person that's come out of this with any more hype from the crowd than they went in with is Big Show. Contrary to that one article posted a few pages ago, the show's been pretty entertaining since at least Payback or so, maybe even before, but it seems like it was all a house of cards that kinda came crumbling down in the last few weeks when everyone realized that WWE was still gonna WWE.
Edit: I'm still of the opinion that Bryan vs. Corporate Man Punk would be the best angle for the WWE Title picture going into Wrestlemania. John Cena can fight HHH, Brock Lesnar can take on The Undertaker, and the card will still draw. but the limelight needs to go to your two most reliable workers - one of whom has several years on main events in front of him. And Punk deserves it, for all the shit he's put up with and all the work he's done.
That said, given how he's been booked, it's unsurprising to me that he's maybe lost some of his drawing power. I know I'm not a tenth as excited for him as I was a few months ago, whereas Cody Rhodes and Goldust - who've both been booked incredibly strong as a result of all this company BS - have me glued to the screen when they're on.
I think they problem is they simply didn't play to Bryan's strengths. If you were gonna do an underdog thing, you really should've kept him OFF the mic. He'd work much better as an intense presence the McMahons just can't keep down, and you can progress the story in backstage segments, where his amateurish acting wouldn't matter as much. And he NEEDED to keep the character that got him popular, i.e. fucked-up angry guy with a goofy streak. Instead, they've made him some weird Punk/Cena hybrid where he gets a CM Punk-style story of being a small indie guy they wanna keep out of the main event while doing the mic work you might expect of John Cena, i.e. being sarcastic, pandering, etc. And the thing is, while he's a better wrestler than Punk, he's not a tenth as dynamic and natural on the mic. What got Punk so big were things like the pipe bomb promo, demanding ice cream bars from Vince, telling The Rock his "arms aren't long enough to box with God", pouring the Undertaker's parents' ashes over him, etc. Bryan's not unpredictable like that on the mic, and he's not had any cool, memorable things to do on the show in a while. I'm not on board with people that say he's gotten TERRIBLE, which is massive hyperbole, but there's no denying he's missing some of that "it" factor he had with Kane.
But in retrospect, I'm maybe coming to the conclusion that he simply needed to win the title at Summerslam without any shenanigans following. The best way to get him over would've been to have him butt up against HHH's new regime, become a "target", and simply beat all comers. Instead, they've made him look like a bit of a putz, made most of the faces on the roster look like amoral pussies, and the only person that's come out of this with any more hype from the crowd than they went in with is Big Show. Contrary to that one article posted a few pages ago, the show's been pretty entertaining since at least Payback or so, maybe even before, but it seems like it was all a house of cards that kinda came crumbling down in the last few weeks when everyone realized that WWE was still gonna WWE.
Edit: I'm still of the opinion that Bryan vs. Corporate Man Punk would be the best angle for the WWE Title picture going into Wrestlemania. John Cena can fight HHH, Brock Lesnar can take on The Undertaker, and the card will still draw. but the limelight needs to go to your two most reliable workers - one of whom has several years on main events in front of him. And Punk deserves it, for all the shit he's put up with and all the work he's done.
