An A+ Sports Entertainer
First off you look at it from the WWE/Vince perspective. Here is a guy who you didn’t particularly want to begin with, signed and not given a prominent/winning role on NXT, fired after the first night but who, starting with his shock return with Summerslam connected with the fans better than anyone you have tried to “create” in the last 30 years. It wasn’t an “epiphany” thing like Austin 3:16 or a “throw whatever it takes till they cheer” like Cena… this was just a guy the fans could relate to, cos in essence he was one of them… he looked “dorky”, acted a bit goofy/nerdy and could wrestle rings around everyone else in the company…but most importantly despite his fearsome “wrestler” reputation, he turned out to be a A+ Sports Entertainer.
From the fans perspective, it would be an absolute insult if D-Bry didn’t go into the HOF if he had to retire. It would genuinely be a tragedy to them to lose him, if not to the WWE as their avatar in the world of WWE was now gone. How many “scrawny, beardy, goatfaced” fans dream of one day being able to get to WWE? Bryan showed it was possible, whether you knew his history or not and if they aren’t that guy now, how many younger fans look at their dads and see someone like Bryan rather than someone like Cena?
-THTRobtaylor
