Being a nit here but no he wasn't. He fought one fight for another promotion against some guy whose idea of conditioning was raising and lowering his hands to pick up another burger. And still almost lost. Dana White won't be calling him any time soon and he is generally mocked for thinking he was going to be great just because he has big muscles. He definitely won't be bringing any mma fan buys to WM.

Batista taunting the crowd with the "Yes" chant after the PPV went off air last night, but using the middle finger instead of index finger

Best case scenario, right, is Lesnar goes under Orton due to whatever interference, Orton drops to Bryan in the Chamber and Bryan (c) vs Healtista @ WM?

I just cant see them going that way, and it is still completely dumb compared to what could have been with Bryan vs Orton (c) given their history going back to Summerfest.

Some of you guys are so optimistic about Bryan. I don't think he's getting inserted into the main event. He lost to Wyatt so he has unfinished business there and now Cena is involved. He'll be tagging with Cena and defeat Harper and Rowan to protect Bray. Conveniently this keeps Cena out of the WM title picture. You guys don't really think they'll feed the whole Wyatt family to Cena by himself, right? Don't answer that.

Anyway I'm not going to say I'm never watching again because I've been watching with some level of dedication for most of my life. I'll watch somewhere between 30 - 90 minutes of Raw tonight. If they don't somehow make this better, it's back to letting Raw sit on the DVR most of the week, maybe I finish it and maybe I don't. But truthfully WWE probably doesn't and shouldn't care about fans like me, I stream most PPVs and might go to a show every other year. So I guess I don't really get to complain.

I kinda feel like this WM needs a re-run of WM 2000 with a four way elimination, Bryan vs Orton vs Batista vs Reigns, and Bryan holds the title at the end.

Which, lets admit it, would be potentially the GOAT

In reality (edit, as cab sorta suggests) I reckon we are going Cena and Bryan vs Wyatts in some 2 on 3 with Hogan in their corner or whatever bull**** they do.

The story of Mick's tweets is now on TMZ. I'm really leaning towards work now. Remember the airport or hotel confrontation he had with Dean Ambrose right before the Shield debuted?

It's hard to tell if he was actually using the middle finger.

Also, did anyone notice that they used the generic RAW setup without the stage last night? Normally we get very elaborate stage setups, yet for the 2nd biggest show of the year, a less elaborate production than a regular RAW.

I'm with this guy.

I honestly think it's a total work and everyone is buying it. WWE want WM 30 to be their biggest WM of all time. They don't want to give fans the pay off at RR and then have a predictable two and a half months in to a Bryan victory. They want to be so evil that they get headlines around their world and get everyone so mad that when the pay off comes it blows the roof off.

but watching last night's show would have zero indication that dbry is being held back by the corporation. i have a hard time believing WWE is running an entire angle based on the perception of smarts.

So what are we looking at, Bryan winning MITB and cashing it in that night? That's about the only way I can see them blowing the roof off without tipping it off beforehand.

"Get everyone so mad" seems like a poor decision at this time. I'm no businessman, but I think that when you're less than a month away from the biggest change to your business model since the company went public, you keep your supporters happy in the short term first.

Yup

Fk this company.

Cleveland - do your bit.

I'll be looking forward to Bryan/Sheamus - Thrice in a Lifetime, being hands-down the greatest 5-star match in Youtube Pre-Show Wrestlemania history!

If that's going to be the premise of the match, that's pretty dumb. They already had their match @ Extreme Rules 2012. It was 2/3 falls and it was good. **** off with this plz

IMO it's an obvious work. They've already put this into storyline terms. HHH lifted Orton over Bryan to begin with because Orton was the "corporate chosen face" and Bryan "just didn't have it." They acknowledge Bryan's chants and HHH's disdain for them. They would have buried him long ago (legit burial, not 'losing at high profile ppv' burial) if they just wanted YES gone. Now Foley and his son are over the top outraged, Bryan himself is taking his job into his hands by tweeting about it, "face" Batista is outwardly LOLing at fans for cheering him.

Batista/Bryan works even better than Orton/Bryan, because Batista - a movie star "celeb" main eventer who left years ago and got a spot handed to him by name and physique - is exactly what Bryan fans loathe. Bryan beating him would be the ultimate payoff.

Seems to me only mistake was Rey @ 30 like others have said, they missed putting BNB or Bray in there for a heel getting mega heat reaction (insert but it's random draw! remark). It's about $ and those supporters are basically buying no matter what; roman reigns isn't getting the casual $. (and I'd suspect batista still much > than bryan on that front as well)

Good post, but this is the WWE and at times such logical explanations are absurd to their writers. Look they turned Bryan face again after crowds started doing the yes chant outside WWE. Its ridiculously obvious they do not plan properly.

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Sorry but I've heard "wait and see where it goes" or "wait for the big payoff" too many times. WWE for the past ~3 years has seemingly intentionally given the smart fans the opposite of what they want. Let's review:

* Summer of Punk hijacked by HHH
* DB's insta-loss to Sheamus
* Punk gets a title reign but half the time it plays second-fiddle to "more important" things on the card (this is exactly what will happen to Bryan too if he manages to win the title). Then he undramatically loses it to Rock so Twice in a Lifetime can have a prop.
* Series of screwjob finishes last year in Bryan vs. Orton matches

There is payoff coming. Yes, it's a "work" - all the smarks are getting worked thinking their guy will finally get the big win one day.

To be absolutely clear, I'm not convinced what they are doing is optimally correct or worth it. I'm just saying I think it's more likely this is all a planned work than not. Bryan tweets tipped it over for me.

I still feel like Bryan wins EC for a second title shot and a three way dance.

Bryan's tweets seemed like an attempt at damage control to me.

They never made any hint that Bryan was getting screwed over during the PPV. If this is a planned storyline, they did a ****ty job of advancing it.

Yeah, my theory wasn't necessarily that there's some big payoff, just that there's more self-awareness to the Daniel Bryan thing than we're giving them credit for.

Basically, I think they see him as a guy who appeals to a niche base (smarks), but not someone to build the company around. So they're working the smarks a bit by leaving him out and then playing it up on social media. They value DB in his spot and want him to keep getting the strong crowd reactions and know this will do that. The mistake they made was drastically overrating Batista and probably underrating the popularity of DB among non-smarks.

Bryan's music at 30 and Barrett walking out cutting a promo before entering would have been epic, for sure

****ty job?

It's on BBC. Every wrestling forum in the world has exploded. Everybody is talking about what happened last night.

Guys. We want it to be one way. But its the other way.

Yep. People are being delusional about it being a well-crafted long con. All we're realistically left to hope for here are that plans will be changed based on crowd reaction.