Daniel Bryan: One Small Step Down
I just wasn't feeling "it" from Daniel Bryan this week on Monday Night Raw. Last week's opening segment was incredible, in part because you could see his emotion on the way to the ring, and because Kane beat the tar out of him to legitimize their Extreme Rules match. This week Bryan had to rely completely on his mic skills, which if we're being totally honest, are not his best feature.
There's a reason Bryan is an underdog champion. Underdogs don't have to talk a lot. You save the talking for the blow-hard heels like Triple H and Stephanie McMahon. The underdog's job is to take a beating, get back up, and take another beating. Somehow in the end the underdog prevails, and that's the entire story of Daniel Bryan as WWE World Heavyweight Champion, but it requires very little vocal presence. The "YES!" movement speaks for him. That's where his strengths are, and it's worked phenomenally well for him up to this point.
Bryan's Raw promo dragged, and it just wasn't very good. I am afraid for the longevity of his title run, because he's not a CM Punk or a John Cena – he won't sell you on a program by cutting a scathing pipe bomb on The Authority. The pinnacle of their program on Monday night was Brie Bella calling Stephanie a bitch.
