Definitely not Hulk Hogan or John Cena's level but more of Eddie Guerrero, especially after he won the WWE Title from Brock Lesnar back in 2004 (in my opinion). Daniel Bryan's title reign reminded me of that somewhat.
Definitely not Hulk Hogan or John Cena's level but more of Eddie Guerrero, especially after he won the WWE Title from Brock Lesnar back in 2004 (in my opinion). Daniel Bryan's title reign reminded me of that somewhat.
Yeah -- Bryan's run / popularity reminds me a lot of Eddie Guerrero in 2004. Both were popular guys who regularly got big pops each night, but certain factors (e.g. injuries, size, age) prevented them from becoming the true #1 in the company, which means they never became mainstream.
I might also include Jeff Hardy in 2008-2009 with Eddie and Bryan's runs, though drugs (not injuries or size) hindered Hardy's rise.
Yes. Kind of. I suspect he never reached the merch sales of someone like Cena, but in terms of being over with live fans and pop culture relevance, he (at that point in time) blew cena out of the water.
Dude was a 100x more over than Roman and Strowman.
Roman could only wish he was as over as Bryan was.
If anyone were destined to be the next big thing were DB and CM Punk.
Every one wanted part of Daniel Bryan he was popular in mainstream media. He gathered the type of attention that not even Cena couldn't get.
The first thing Seattle did after winning the super bowl was hit DB Twitter And show him respect. You don't them doing that for the likes of Roman and Cena.
Dude was over globally.
He was over with kids adults soccer moms casual fans smarks etc. He was everything Vince and delusional Reigns fans wishes the "big dog" to be.
He certainly never did in wrestling but I did find it interesting how he organically broke through into mainstream sports in a way Cena never did despite more than a decade of having the machine behind him.
Nah, but given time and no injury, he might have come close.
Don't think for a second the 'machine' didn't back him either. He closed Mania 30, but he OPENED 31 and won the IC title, which was at his own request.
So he must have had a good deal of pull in the company.
Bryan was massively over and was even cool among other sports due to the "Yes" chant. He wasn't consistently a draw though, or proven to withstand the test of time.
Not even close. Bryan was great, but I don't think even Cena has reached the level Hogan did. There probably won't be anything like that again. It was a worldwide phenomenon.
Nope, WWE never positioned him in that sort of role, they caved in to fan demand and gave him his deserved huge moment but after that there was never really any hope of him being the figurehead of the company. In terms of fan popularity, sure, he was absolutely huge, but when you think of icons in WWE, Cena and Hogan are bigger names than Bryan was.
Punk was always a bigger star than him despite never main eventing WM and beating the entire evolution all by himself.
People shit on Roman's "superman" booking but DB beating Hunter/Batista/Orton all in the same night is the equivalent of Roman beating Taker/Brock/Goldberg all at the same night.
Internet marks are bunch of hypocrites that like to support loser geeks (I don't think DB was a loser geek btw)
Dudes like Kenny, Zayn, Ziggler, etc are all popular among the IWC while Roman gets shit on :mj4 LOL
his overness at times was as good as anyones, espeically considering how shitty the crowds are these days. but in terms of overall level, no. he was only at the top for like 1-2months.
Certainly not. He never had the machine behind him in the same way that Cena or Hogan did, and the injuries snuffed out his career before he had a chance to really challenge that.
In a perfect world, it could have happened. He had the fan momentum, which you can't say about anybody on the current roster.
Cena didn't even reach Hogan level and Bryan got nowhere close to Cena level. We will never know if he could have gotten to Cena level. He was popular enough with the crowd, but this fan base is quite fickle these days. Not sure if he would have sustained it. There no denying that his chase to the title saw him being more over than anyone in the last decade, though. He made his mark and has not a damn thing to be ashamed of.
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