The Piledriver Report 06.17.10: Scapegoating Bryan Danielson

It’s Saturday, June 12th 8:30am, and I site here at my computer utterly fucking stunned, and in total disbelief. I feel like Booker T on the RAW telecast when Eric Bischoff showed up. “Tell me I did NOT just see that!”

SHOCKING NEWS

When I was on the “Wrestling Observer” website, the first link I saw was “Name change for WWE wrestler and an announced firing.” For some reason, I just knew the name change was Daniel Bryan going back to Bryan Danielson. However, the firing, I had no clue about. I clicked the link to read: “Bryan Danielson, formerly Daniel Bryan and for about two minutes Bryan Danielson in WWE, appears to be Danielson again. His WWE twitter name was just changed to Bryan Danielson and he mentioned it, saying “the winds of change are stirring.”

WWE then announced Daniel Bryan had been future endeavored. It is hard to believe this could be legit given the timing although those in the company insist it is.

No big deal. The WWE future endeavored the character Daniel Bryan, not the performer Brian Danielson. However, the news kept flying in.

WHY VINCE, WHY?

The next snipit of news that came in from the Dave Meltzer/Bryan Alvarez site was “Within WWE, the word has been sent out internally that the Bryan Danielson firing is legitimate the same way any other firing would be done. All the higher-ups in the company were informed that he was gone before the item that everyone assumes to be a work was put on the web site. It’s difficult to believe given the timing that it could possibly be legitimate. The idea they would work their own employees on a wrestling angle is also hard to fathom given the history of companies that have done that.The creative team was also told today that he’s gone.”

Now, they had my attention . Something inside of me was starting to think that this was no angle. Why in the holy hell would the WWE get rid of the best performer they had in NXT Season One? Why would they get rid of the one guy on the NXT side that had the experience to be able to pull off the NXT vs. WWE storyline? It just didn’t make any sense.

The last piece of information on the “Wrestling Observer” website stated “The people who needed to know were told that Bryan Danielson was fired for choking ring announcer Justin Roberts with his tie during the angle on Monday night. That shot was edited from replays of the show. It’s not known why this would lead to someone getting fired and from all accounts, Danielson was described as the type of person you want a dressing room filled with.

The choking with a tie was described as being too violent for what is allowed on WWE television.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Now, I was really pissed, because this really wasn’t going like an angle. Are you serious? One of the best wrestlers in the world today was released for choking an announcer with his tie during an angle! It was a planned storyline! Are you serious? How the hell can you fire a guy for doing an angle that you sent him out to do? This has to be some kind of rib on the Internet marks. It has to be.

One of the best segments in the NXT attack was the visual of Bryan Danielson choking out Justin Roberts. It showed that the group didn’t care who you were. They were going after anybody who was WWE.

Initially, the reports were that everybody in the back loved the angle. According to Meltzer, “The angle got super heat live, and was compared to the original 1996 NWO angle that started the turnaround of the WCW business. Everyone from the NXT roster, including the show also-rans like Michael Tarver, Darren Young and Skip Sheffield, were aggressive, showed great heel like tendencies and basically came through with flying colors. Backstage, the reaction was they hit a home run.”

While they did replay the angle in its entirety on NXT, by Friday Night SmackDown!, the choking segment was removed from the attack. I just don’t understand what the big deal was over the choke.

On 411’s website, it was reported “Daniel Bryan was released by WWE for going too far beyond the WWE PG standard during the NXT assault on last Monday’s Raw. The main issue was his choking of Justin Roberts with Justin’s own tie, which goes against a rule put in place after the Benoit tragedy: you cannot use ropes or other objects to choke your opponents.

The decision was made on Friday and Bryan was informed shortly before the release was made public. All signs point to this not being a work, although some wrestlers in the company believe it is.

It is not known if Bryan was aware of the choking rule when the angle took place. On WWE’s YouTube channel, the video of the incident still shows the choke.”

This news floored me. It appears that he was fired because of a “no choking” rule implemented after the Benoit tragedies. This is ridiculous! When I saw Bryan choking out Justin Roberts, Chris Benoit was the last thing on my mind. Did anyone watching that segment say to themselves “man, didn’t Chris Benoit choke out his wife and kid?” Of course not! Holy shit! If anything, I thought the choking spot was pretty funny, as Roberts’ facials were hysterical.

I understand that you don’t want to do anything that would remind people of the Benoit tragedy. I really get that. However, there is a double standard going on here. John Cena chokes people out every match with the STFU. According to reports, isn’t that a similar move that Chris Benoit used to kill his little boy. Didn’t Heath Slater use a ring rope to choke Cena with on Monday night?

According to an audio report with Dave Meltzer, Vince got heat with people from the outside about the angle being too violent. Therefore, Vince used Bryan Danielson as a scapegoat, and fired him. What about the director? He focused the camera on the act. Shouldn’t he have been fired too? Vince got some explaining to do.

GOOD BYE TO A GREAT ANGLE

First, this is WRESTLING, not ballet! You are supposed to have some form of violence in wrestling! Secondly, why fire Danielson? Couldn’t you have just suspended him for a month? As Meltzer said, this firing has ZERO logic behind it. At least if you suspended Danielson, people would feel like it’s bullshit, but they would know that in a month, he would be back, and all would be good. Now, you have a bunch of pissed off people who think that Danielson is getting fucked, and the WWE screwed up another huge opportunity to turn the wrestling world on its ear.

That’s the kind of potential that the NXT/WWE angle had. Firing Bryan Danielson, and taking him out of the NXT mix would be like running a WCW Invasion of the WWF in 2001 and not having Ric Flair, Sting, Hulk Hogan, or Goldberg in the mix. Oh wait, they already did that. Seriously though, can we really take the NXT storyline seriously with Skip Sheffield, Heath Slater, and Wade Barrett leading the charge. Sure, Wade Barrett has some clout since he won the NXT show. But the rest of the group doesn’t have the star power or the ring skills to be seen on the level of the WWE Superstars. Bryan Danielson was the only one who did. Now, I see the NXT/WWE angle suffering the same fate as the WCW/ECW Invasion of 2001.

MORE CONTRADICTIONS FROM THE WWE

A few weeks ago, the WWE decided on a new directive that they want more reality based story lines. Which wrestler did they use to kick off two of those angles? Bryan Danielson! His war against Michael Cole, and then the NXT destruction of RAW showed he that can pull off the new direction. If the WWE truly stands by this philosophy, they need to realize one thing. A fight like what was show on RAW, in reality, would be violent. Even more violent then what the WWE did. So, what do they do? They fire the one wrestler who has been able to truly pull off that reality-based storyline without it looking forced.

Here is another thing that annoys me with the whole firing. If you fail the WWE’s beloved Wellness Policy, you get one chance, two chances, and then a third strike before you are shown the door. However, you pretend to choke a guy out with his tie one time in a storyline, and you are fired! Where’s the justice there? Like I said earlier, suspend the guy, but don’t fire him. Hell, what ever happened to the good old days when a wrestler would get fined. This whole PG directive is such bullshit. It’s one thing to go PG. It’s another thing to go completely overboard like the WWE does. It’s like they are so scared to offend anybody. From “poopy” jokes, to having doctors run into the ring during the middle of a match to stop an accidental cut, and now this. I’m so sick of this PG crap that they constantly remind us of. We know you’re PG. You don’t need to remind us of this all the time. Hell, at this point Nickelodeon is racier then the WWE. Sorry for such a negative rant, but the whole Bryan Danielson situation really got me aggravated, especially after an awesome angle that was getting me exciting for the WWE product once again.

The question remains did Bryan Danielson really get fired, or is this one elaborate work by the WWE? Wrestling is a strange business, in that the belief is that everything is a work. If it’s not a work, there is still doubt regarding the legitimacy of the non-work. So which is it in this case? I would think we will get those answers by the pay per view. If we see no Brian Danielson at the Fatal Four Way, then we know this is legitimate. If he shows up, then the work was on us. Personally, I think they really let him go. I am so aggravated over it at the moment, which is why I am writing this almost a week before this article gets posted. UPDATE: As I sit here Wednesday night with more time to think things over, I still think Danielson was fired. However, I’m more confused as ever as to why he was. The reason is because none of this makes any sense. That being said, because this is the strangest firing I have ever seen, I believe Bryan Danielson will be back before his 90 day no compete (or should I say no TNA) clause expires. When he comes back, I believe that the Daniel Bryan character will be dead, and the WWE will use the Bryan Danielson name, as well as this firing to bring him back as a babyface. Update over.

According to Meltzer, the firing gave the impression that the two (WWE and Danielson) may do business again in the future. That future better take place within the next 90 days before his no compete clause ends. Otherwise, as one person inside the WWE said, the WWE just handed TNA a main eventer on a silver platter.