Ten reasons why Daniel Bryan sucks and five pointers on how he can become good

Ever since Daniel Bryan came to the WWE, all I have heard from people is how great he is, how he is the best worker in the business today.  While Bryan is indeed a fine worker in the ring, there are a number of reasons he is nowhere near up to par with all the former Money in the Bank briefcase holders.  Ten reasons to be precise..

1. He looks like a pretentious art student, not a wrestler.  As Michael Cole wisely said, he looks like he should be a barista in a coffee shop.  Probably a vegan one.

2. He is almost on par with Rey Mysterio for size but tries to get over using moves like kicks instead of speed and high flying.  His kicks don't look tough, they look weak and ineffective.

3. He says he is a submission master, but I've only ever seen him perform 3, maybe 4 submission moves in a WWE ring.  How many credible opponents has he made tap?  Not many.  The Lebell lock looks like a weak version of the Crippler Crossface.  Even Hunico (as the fake Sin Cara) did a better version of the Lebell Lock on Bryan that made the "submission master" look lame by comparison.

4. When Daniel Bryan gets "intense" in his matches I don't recall the likes of Chris Benoit or Goldberg, instead I think of when Jamie Noble used to get angry in his matches.  He looks like a midget comedy figure, not a bad-ass.

5. He has one of the corniest theme tunes ever, based on a flamboyant Wagner piece and the production of the track sounds as bad as a TNA theme.  His debut theme in WWE was great, but he buried it in one of his trademark dull promos by calling it a "generic rock song" and ever since then he has had an array of crap themes that don't make him look like a bad-ass at all.  They make him look like a joke.

6. Stupid people slate Cena for having only "5 moves of doom", but Bryan is even worse.  A running flip off the turnbuckle, followed by ducking a clothesline then hitting his own clothesline.  The same kicks to the chest while his opponent kneels in every match.  The Lebell lock and the Cattle Mutilation which he can never lock in properly because he's too small (so he ends up just stamping on his opponent's thighs instead) - that's only 4 moves of doom, even worse than Cena.  Unless you count the flip off the turnbuckle, then you've got your 5.

7. When Michael Cole stands face to face with Bryan, Cole looks like the tougher son of a bitch.  Cole cuts a much better promo.  Cole is overall better star than Daniel Bryan...  Cole is an announcer, not a wrestler!

8. His promos are boring and the only time he has ever had a decent promo is when Michael Cole has carried him through one.

9. When he first came to the WWE he had an arrogance that he was better than his NXT "pro" The Miz.  He wasn't, and still isn't.  The Miz had been wrestling in arenas for 5 years, Bryan had been wrestling in high school gyms for 10.  While Bryan has improved a lot since he first started out, he still hasn't put on as many standout matches as Miz has had in the same amount of time.  While it's true Miz has been afforded more oppurtunities than Bryan, Bryan has still yet to prove why he had the moniker of "best in the world" during his time in ROH.  Perhaps he was the best guy ROH had at the time, but that's not saying much.

10. As Wade Barrett said on Twitter, "Daniel Bryan is a briefcase wanker"

I don't want to be negative against mah bhhoooy Deeee-Bryaaaan, otherwise I'll start to remind myself of the losers who run guys like Mason Ryan into the ground without giving him a chance.  I hate people who are overly critical of others, and I respect the hell out of all wrestlers for what they do, including Daniel Bryan.  What I will do is give some pointers to him for when he inevitably reads this article, on how to change up his character and make himself more appealing as a WWE wrestler.

1. Get a new theme, one like your original, one that has NOTHING to do with the Ride of the Valkyries.  If you're that obsessed with the song, let me point out to you that the composer, Richard Wagner - while brilliant - was an anti-semite.  Unless you're going to change to a Neo-Nazi gimmick then drop the fuckin' thing because it isn't getting over and never will.

2. Speaking of your entrance, stop doing the side skip thing you do when you come out.  I get you're a babyface, but you don't have the charisma other small guys like Jericho have.  That's not something to be ashamed of - use it to your advantage.  Look at someone like Chris Benoit who also had no charisma, but still got over.  Make yourself deadly serious in your approach and start that by changing your ring entrance.

3. You have to admit to yourself you're a small guy and take advantage of that fact, not try and hide it.  Mysterio got over because he used his size to his advantage and you should do the same - use sneaky, fast paced moves more and less hard-hitting moves.  While the kick to the chest looks cool, using it every match makes it gimmicky and takes you out of the realism of the match - something a wrestler of your type shouldn't be doing.  Use way more submission moves.  You're supposed to be the submission master, but you barely use as many as you should.  You have to give the illusion your opponents are worried you can lock them into a submission at any time, so use easy ones that you can reverse moves into doing - like the ankle lock, armbar and other such holds.

4. Shave the damn beard off, it looks ridiculous and plays into the coffee shop barista-vegan stereotype.  While it's cool to promote veganism (I'm a meat-eater but I admire vegans for their strength of character and beliefs), it's not bad-ass, which is the illusion you  need to convey.

5. In your promos, less can be more.  Come across as more cold and distant rather than your every day self.  It will give you an edge.  The over-the-top intensity in your matches is stupid and looks fake.  Study the likes of Randy Orton on how to come across as intense without going crazy all over the place.  Make it look as though the intensity is festering inside you, don't just randomly start screaming and jumping all over the ring looking like a spoilt brat child.

See, there's potential in you yet kid.  One day you can make it, because I see the drive in ya.  But you've gotta take a step back, humble yourself and .  Just because 20% of the audience are chanting Daniel Bryan doesn't mean you're over - that just means the internet like you because the dirt sheets have told them to.  The other 80% could care less.  But don't let that get you down, you're on your way to the top and definitely better than you were this time a year ago.  I believe in you..

Now hit my fuckin' music *drops mic*

Review of Chris Jericho's book 'Undisputed'

After reading Vince Russo's beautiful and insightful tome "Forgiven" (review pending), I had the bug to read even more wrestling autobiographies.  Having recently acquired an Amazon Kindle I have been able to get wrestling books much more easily than I would have if I was still a paper book reading, tree murderer (by proxy).  So I got a bunch of them -  Eric Bischoff's, Bret Hart's, The Death of WCW etc...  And Chris Jericho's 'Undisputed'.

I've always been a big fan of Chris Jericho.  As a worker, he is without a doubt one of the best in the business.  His angle with Shawn Michaels when he turned heel in 2008 is one of my all time favourite wrestling feuds and the guy almost carried WWE on his back single-handedly during an era of blandness, Mcmahon million dollar give aways and Z-list Raw celebrity guest hosts (Al Sharpton).

However, Jericho's writing talents are not as sterling as his in-ring work is.  The book is laced with boring attempts at comedy and celebrity-mocking metaphors that sound like a bad Eminem b-side (".. as large as Snooki's hair", "..like Justin Bieber feeling his first titty").  Some of the wrestling-based humour is funny, such as the constant digs at Mick Foley in brackets whenever his name comes up, or the list of silly names for Goldberg in Jericho-promo style (Goldfinch, the Bergmeister etc.) - but rarely did I raise a smile or laugh throughout the 400 or so pages (I don't know how many pages exactly, Kindles don't tell you how many pages you've read for some stupid reason - the only flaw of that beautiful machine).

The chapters on his run with WWE were good, and while I knew most of the backstage info already, there was some good bits I didn't know about that I found interesting.  The best part was him writing in general about his relationships with certain people throughout his career - Vince Mcmahon especially.  Vince seems to be the focal point of all wrestling autobiographies (he is the daddy after all) and reading Jericho's own take on the big boss was quite interesting.

One of the best parts of the book is right near the end, the chapter simply entitled 'Benoit'.  He gives his impressions of the man he grew up in the business with and called his friend, as well as the man he was at his time of death.  I found it to be very touching writing, as well as the chapters about his mother dying and Eddie Guerrero's death.  If the rest of the book had been as sober, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.

But 'Undisputed' was more inebriated than sober, with dozens of chapters detailing his boring drunken antics with rock stars I've never heard of (I'm not a big rock music fan), or his friendship with the Hollywood director Eli Roth and other such trivial crap I didn't care about.  If all this had been compressed into one or two chapters that would have been fine, but it ran throughout the course of the book.  You would be reading about Jericho's angle with Chyna one moment and then all about a Fozzy documentary the next.

While I respect Jericho has tried to attempt trying other career paths (and I'd love to see him do well 'cause he seems like a nice guy), when you write a book that will be bought 99% by wrestling fans - then 99% of the book should be about wrestling.  While I found it to be an easy read and there was interesting parts, I would only recommend it if you're a big Jericho fan or if you're willing to flick past the rock band fanboyism and drunken antics to get to the good stuff.  Vince Russo's 'Forgiven' was undisputedly much better (review pending).

Now hit my damn music.



Gotta say 'Enemy' is a tune

I'm Back!

So I was out with a torn quad for a few months but now, like masked Kane, I'm back.

And what a time to return as well, as the end of the year approaches.. It's awards season time!  The Slammies have just taken place this past monday on Raw - which as a show was a fun show, but the actual awards themselves sucked.  Over the next couple of weeks you will start to see me present the most prestigious awards in the history of our sport - the Smarkies.. or the Chickies..  Perhaps just the "Washington David Awards For Excellence In Sports Entertainment."

In the time I've been away I went to see Raw live in Liverpool which was my first ever live Raw.  That was fun and we had a great time despite being in the nosebleed seats.  My only disappointment was that Michael Cole didn't grace us with any mic time, but seeing him walk out at the beginning of the show was a pleasure, nonetheless.

Anyway, I've given you enough of my precious time already and I don't want to sour my return by overstaying my welcome - need to retain some of my enigmatic charisma.  So hit my damn music..

How I Would Book John Cena vs. CM Punk at Money In The Bank, or what I think is going to happen

Since CM Punk's shoot-style promo on Raw a couple of weeks ago, the internet has been buzzing over the forthcoming match between John Cena and CM Punk for the WWE title.  If you've been living under a rock, the jist of it is that CM Punk's contract with WWE is due to expire and his final match will take place at Money In The Bank for the WWE title.  The big stipulation here is that Cena will be "fired" if he loses and Punk has claimed he will leave the company with the belt and namedropped 2 small-fry promotions, ROH and NJPW, along with a bunch of other guys like Colt Cabana to get the smarks wetting themselves.  So far, so good, but WWE is known to fuck up these hot angles (see Nexus), so I'm gonna help them out by giving them some free advice on how to book this epic feud of feuds.  Well, it's sort of a prediction too.

Plenty of insider references have been mentioned by all 3 men involved in the angle - Punk, Cena and Vince, and a lot has been made of the difference between the two opponents - Punk being the outside and Cena being the company guy.  Punk calling John Cena not the Boston Red Sox but the "New York Yankees", the "dynasty" and "everything that you hate" was a genius touch to set apart the difference between the two guys.

But there is one thing that both wrestlers share in common: they both hate The Rock.  Punk has shot out at the Rock legitimately through Twitter and on TV, referring to his "bad Disney movies", disrespectfully calling him "Dwayne" as Cena often does, as well as putting over Cena by comparing him to The Rock at a house show, basically calling out Rock for not being a wrestler, but an actor - just like Cena does.  But where am I going with this, you may be asking yourself..

The fact that this match is at Money In The Bank is no coincidence.  They could've ran this angle at any time in the past few months and I don't buy that Punk's contract is legitimately ending that very night.  This angle must have been planned long in advance, but there are too many things that add up to say this isn't something they've just thought up on the spot (which they often do), such as the PPV being in Chicago and the last Raw before it being in Cena's hometown of Boston.  Remember, in the weeks prior to this, Punk had kept hinting something "big" was coming, which means they knew well in advance what they were doing.



What I predict will happen in the finale is CM Punk will win the WWE title clean over John Cena to the adulation of his hometown crowd.  They have played up the fact this is Punk's hometown on Raw, something they wouldn't usually do as they try to keep Cena from taking a beating from the fans as much as possible. The Miz, accompanied by Vince, will come out and cash in the Money In The Bank contract and become a two time WWE champ.  But this is where the whole angle begins, rather than ends.

The following night on Raw I expect Vince to dress down Cena and go ahead and "fire" him for losing the WWE title to CM Punk and putting the WWE in jeapordy.  Cena will then be kayfabe out of contract, much like CM Punk and The Miz will be Vince's new golden boy.  There are things that I have seen hints of to make me believe that this is the plan - such as Cena putting Miz over as a guy who works hard for the WWE brand on his Twitter account.  Many believe Alberto Del Rio will win the match, but I think him becoming #1 contender on the 4th July Raw was a red herring to make you forget about The Miz.

This is where things get interesting, as one thing that has been buried in this whole feud is the fact that CM Punk is the leader of Nexus.  Nothing has been made clear about what is going to happen after Punk leaves and Nexus are left to fend for themselves and they haven't referred to it once on WWE television.  The history of Cena and Nexus is also no secret.  Bring up the Nexus angle and one immediately thinks of the 6-month feud between the faction and him.  Why am I mentioning Nexus though?  Because I believe that Cena will become not a heel, but an edgier outsider anti-WWE character and either join forces with CM Punk, a guy who despite their war of words, have shown one another some kind of mutual respect - and/or he will become the new leader of Nexus, who will return to being a strong anti-WWE faction like they originally were.

This whole angle goes back to what I mentioned earlier, which is The Rock.  Everyone knows Cena will get booed out of the building at Wrestlemania.  Despite the fact Cena cut some great promos and Rock's were not up to his high standards in their mini-feud pre-Wrestlemania, Rock still won over the majority of the fans and overshadowed the main event of Wrestlemania, John Cena vs. The Miz.  Having not been seen in a WWE ring for 7 years, it was understandable that fans would go crazy for his return, but The Rock harmed Cena even more than he would have by directly targeting him in his opening promo.  The anti-Cena bridgade has become even more vocal than ever since that moment and it will be the loudest it has ever been since the ECW One Night Stand in Chicago - by design!

So WWE have realised they need to do something about the Cena character, while still not effecting merchandise sales on his "fruity pebbles" t-shirts.  Instead of being fully heel, as leader of Nexus, Cena could remain in-character but feel hurt and bitter about how Vince treated him after working hard for years to put the WWE brand over (as he has mentioned in all the promos leading up to the PPV).  Now Vince has a new posterchild and has disposed of Cena, he feels betrayed that Vince only ever saw dollar signs in him.  He and Punk can agree with each other that Rock was only brought back for the money.  Here, Miz will be the full-blown heel and the anti-Cena fans will naturally begin to side with Cena and/or CM Punk as the outsider anti-heroes.  This angle can carry on easily til Wrestlemania, with Cena inevitably winning the WWE championship back before then and putting it on the line against The Rock.

Come Wrestlemania, the difference then will be the crowd will more likely be a hot-crowd and give Cena less of a bad time than they would if the worst of the worst happens on Sunday: Cena wins the belt and holds it all the way to Wrestlemania.  Let's hope they don't fuck it up this time!

Opening Promo

This is probably my 50th ever attempt at writing a blog, but this time I'm determined to follow through with it and make it a smash hit.  The basic idea is this: I love watching wrestling and I love to chat shit about it... that's it.  Simple, concise and effective.

But this won't be your typical run-of-the-mill wrestling blog.  I hate most other wrestling blogs, especially amateur ones, because they're so negative and critical.  That is what is wrong with the whole internet wrestling community these days - y'all can't just enjoy some good old fashioned wrasslin' without bitching about something.

I had a subscription to Wrestling Observer for about a month, but it wasn't worth the dollars I parted with, because all I got was Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer telling me how much wrestling sucks and MMA rules.  I get that negativity sells, but don't completely downplay the product you cover, otherwise you'll kill off your audience. Your site is called "Wrestling" Observer for a reason, so either change the name or stop moaning.

So in short, I aim to bring some of the joy back into watching wrestling by posting blogs that will be humourous, positive - not that I'm ruling out negativity entirely, cause that shit sells.  In fact, this debut post itself is highly negative and somewhat inflammatory.. but thats because I'm here to challenge your current perceptions and misconceptions.. It's all because I'm a passionate fella and in time you will see me sing praise and spew vitriol in equal amount - but you'll like it all because it's original and I'm here to shake things up.. My name is Washington David and this is No Smark Chicks!  Now hit my fuckin' music.. *drops mic*