10 Wrestling Storylines Where Evil Won

 

5. The Miz Vs. Daniel Bryan

The tale of the Miz Vs. Daniel Bryan was knotty.

A fusion of reality and fiction, sometimes within the same worked segments, Daniel Bryan and The Miz were diametric opposites. Bryan was the in-ring killer who treated wrestling as art to the detriment of his health; The Miz valued doing his job safely so that he'd never miss a date or a responsibility.

When this was adapted into their criminally piss-poor programme of 2016, WWE couldn't exactly go full meta. NJPW managed something similar, with Kenny Omega and Hiroshi Tanahashi, but then, NJPW were competent. The Bryan and Miz conflict was repurposed as more traditional fare.

Bryan was virtuous, Miz took the shortcuts, and in the end - after a shockingly subdued crowd reaction at SummerSlam indicted this outrageous botch of a programme - Bryan won in two minutes at Super ShowDown with a small cradle. The projected euphoric WrestleMania main event manifested, instead, as a few sheepish knob gags.

Bryan technically won the feud - in the most anticlimactic fashion, of course - but he lost his character in doing so. He turned heel almost immediately after it ended, sensing that the "fickle" fans who sat on their hands were no longer behind him.

Probably because of all that bullsh*t with toy babies.