Hoo boy. Buckle up everyone, there be spoilers ahead.
On Smackdown Live, Daniel Bryan challenged AJ Styles for the WWE Championship. I’ll make this short and sweet: Daniel Bryan defeated AJ Styles after a blatant low blow followed up by a Busaiku Knee.
So, personally, I love this. I think this is great for mainly two reasons.
I figure somewhere along the line someone realized, “Oh, we’re going to have AJ Styles lose to Brock again?” So they just used the same formula they used when Jinder Mahal was WWE Champion, but in this scenario AJ Styles is Jinder Mahal. What followed was a fantastic match between Brock and AJ. Here’s hoping we get the same quality match with Bryan as the WWE Champion. It’s a dream match, that’s for sure. This is also a match that Daniel Bryan has wanted since about 2014, so you know he’s hyped about this. Let’s just hope we don’t get the typical “Suplex City” match.
My second reasoning for loving this is the return of heel Daniel Bryan. I’m not talking about before the YES MOVEMENT Daniel Bryan, not at all. What we saw at the conclusion of Smackdown Live was more of a Ring of Honor Bryan Danielson. In ROH, Bryan was losing faith in his ability to win matches cleanly so he started resulting to cheating. He became, for lack of a better phrase, a cocky asshole. There was so much good stuff in that run for him, and fingers crossed we get the return of his classic submission: The Cattle Mutilation. “I have til FIVE referee!” The American Dragon appears to be back, and I think this fresh heel turn will be a fantastic edition to Smackdown Live going forward. Let’s just hope that we get a decent run for him on top with the WWE Championship!