Ask 411 Wrestling: What Did WWE Have Planned For Daniel Bryan Before He Was Fired in 2010?

Welcome guys, gals, and gender non-binary pals, to Ask 411 . . . the last surviving weekly column on 411 Wrestling.

I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and I am here to answer some of your burning inquiries about professional wrestling. If you have one of those queries searing a hole in your brain, feel free to send it along to me at [email protected]. Don’t be shy about shooting those over – the more, the merrier.

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Uzoma is all tied up:

Had he not got fired for choking Justin Roberts with his own tie, how was Daniel Bryan gonna be used as a member of The Nexus?

The answer is . . . nobody really seems to know.

If you go back and watch the footage of the original Nexus assault on John Cena, it’s apparent that the two members of Nexus that were focused on the most were Wade Barrett and Daniel Bryan. Because of this, one can make a reasonable assumption that Bryan was going to be the number two guy in the stable behind Barrett, who was obviously being positioned as a bigger deal by virtue of his winning season one of NXT.

However, I’ve not been able to locate much evidence that there was a clear plan for where Bryan or the rest of the Nexus for that matter was going to head.

Evidence of that comes from a 2020 interview that Barrett did with the Inside the Ropes podcast (not to be confused with the Between the Ropes podcast, which confusingly also exists and is a totally different show). In the interview, Wade details the formation of the Nexus and indicates that he was flown in to Monday Night Raw that evening along with the other NXT season one rookies, none of them having any idea what they were doing until they were called back to a meeting with Vince McMahon while the show was on the air. All they were told was that they needed to beat up John Cena and destroy as much of the ringside area as they possibly could, excepting the fans and the television cameras.

Bryan was fired three days later, and given how little the guys participating in the angle knew about its future at the time it was being run, it’s hard to say that there were any solid plans going forward – except for perhaps in the head of Vincent Kennedy McMahon.

Redmond questions perfection:

What are the best Curt Hennig matches? For someone remembered as being at such an elite level, outside of his matches with Bret and Bockwinkel, there are not too many unforgettable ones. Perfect vs Tito from SNME? Perfect vs Doink from their Raw trilogy in ’93?

By listing Bret, Bockwinkel, and Santana, you’ve basically listed all of Curt Hennig’s best matches. The main one that I would say is not on your list is Perfect versus Ric Flair on the January 25, 1993 episode of Monday Night Raw (taped January 18) in a loser leaves town match that was the Nature Boy’s storyline exit from the company, though he actually stuck around and worked another month’s worth of house shows, finishing up on a tour of the U.K. and Germany.

Big Al is headed to the rasslin’ war room:

I remember in the mid 90s the WWF did a spoof on WCW with the Huckster, Nacho Man, Lying Baldy, etc. While these were hilarious, I also remember Gorilla Monsoon saying they had received a cease and desist letter from “another company” threatening legal action but they were going to continue doing it anyway. My question is what legal action would WCW have been able to take?

So, WCW actually did sue the WWF (or more accurately Titan Sports) for a pattern of behavior that included the Billionaire Ted skits. The suit was filed in 1998 in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut and included allegations that the WWF had: a) diluted WCW’s trademarks; b) unlawfully disparaged WCW’s product under the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act; and c) created confusion in the marketplace.

The acts by the WWF that allegedly caused these issues included not only the Billionaire Ted segments but also the DX “invasion” of Monday Nitro, the fake Razor Ramon and Diesel angle, and disparaging remarks about WCW by WWF announcers.

Eventually, this lawsuit was settled out of court alongside the WWF’s 1996 lawsuit against WCW that included allegations of WCW infringing on the WWF’s intellectual property by essentially having Kevin Nash and Scott Hall portray their WWF characters on WCW television in the early days of the nWo angle.

If you want more background on WCW’s suit against the WWF, you can read this court opinion which results from a motion filed by the WWF to have the lawsuit dismissed. That motion was denied though, and again, the case ultimately settled.

Here comes the pain! Oh, wait, it’s just Tyler from Winnipeg:

What is Brock Lesnar’s total number of days as champion?

He’s got 823 days holding the original WWE Championship, 504 days holding the WWE Universal Championship, and 280 as IWGP Heavyweight Champion for a grand total of 1,607 days (or 4.4 years) holding a major championship in professional wrestling.

JonFW2 is walking through hellfire, brimstone, and the greater Knoxville metropolitan area:

In the late 1990s, the WWF really leaned into the “realism” of their show – acknowledging it was “episodic television”, calling guys jobbers on screen, and referring to previous characters people had played. Stone Cold, Rock, DX, and more were all out there being as real as possible with their promos and interviews.

And in the middle of all that: Kane. A backstory right out of a b-list horror movie, the insinuation that he had supernatural powers. Basically, he’s a mid-80’s rasslin’ character.

How in the hell (pun intended) did this work in the midst of a show that was moving 180 degrees in the other direction?

I think there are two factors at play here.

First off, you’re overstating the “realism” of the Attitude Era. Yes, all the things that you mentioned happened, but pro wrestling was still over the top and cartoonish. It was just over the top and cartoonish in a way that it hadn’t been previously. Keep in mind that this is the period of wrestling that gave us Kaientai trying to chop off Val Venis’s member, Mae Young giving birth to a hand after an affair with Mark Henry, and Goldust being Goldust.

When you frame things in that context, Kane effectively being a movie monster doesn’t seem so out there.

Second, Kane beat the shit out of everybody. If you have a halfway talented wrestler that smashes their opponents in a matter of seconds and does it time and time again, they are going to get over, even if other elements of their act are a bit suspect. It worked for the Ultimate Warrior, Goldberg, Umaga, and many, many more over the years . . . including Kane. The role of his in-ring dominance in getting him over cannot be understated.

Richard U. is asking a no holds Barred question:

Back in the day when you first started watching wrestling, who was that one awesome wrestler who you always hoped would be “on TV this week” but you’ve now forgotten and would have never thought about again if it wasn’t for this question? Mine? “The Juicer” Art Barr in 1990 WCW. He could have been better than Rey Mysterio had he not allegedly raped a teenager and died.

This isn’t when I first started watching wrestling – it was about seven years in – but the first name to pop into my mind in response to this question was WCW wrestler Blitzkrieg. This guy was a freakish natural athlete who could perfectly execute all sorts of high flying offense, and he seemingly came out of nowhere and vanished as quickly as he arrived.

Bryan is bleeping and blooping:

In Nintendo Pro Wrestling, you can’t suplex or piledrive your opponent unless you’ve weakened them. A game from the mid 80s had better psychology than some modern day workers. You think game developers had help from those inside the business? How can wrestlers give advice to game developers without “exposing the business”?

Also, did you ever play a wrestling video game and intentionally let the computer or your opponent get offense in for the sole purpose getting a ***** match ? Or was it just me?

The NES Pro Wrestling cart was developed and programmed by just one man: Masato Masuda. I have found no evidence that he directly consulted with those in pro wrestling in putting the game together, but the “psychology” built into the game that you’re talking about doesn’t necessarily have to have been inspired by those who have actively participated in wrestling. These are patterns that fans can figure out for themselves, particularly when they’ve watched wrestling that has good announcers who will point out when a wrestler is weakening an opponent for a particular maneuver.
It should also be noted that, after Pro Wrestling, Masuda went on to develop the Fire Pro series of games, which is renowned for the strategy that players have to put in to softening up opponents for an eventual finish, so Pro Wrestling as just the beginning of his life’s work. (And, unfortunately, he passed away ten years ago at the age of 48.)

And, no, I can’t say that I ever intentionally let an opponent, real or AI, get offense in on me in a wrestling game. I’m too competitive for that. If anything, I spent time doing extended squash matches in which I would deplete a computer-controlled opponent’s health early and just keep beating the tar out of them for ten or fifteen minutes because I had nothing better to do.

MNMNB is running the numbers:

With Peacock (and therefore WWE PLEs) costing so little (you can get a year of service for $20 if you sign up for a deal) and Netflix costing so much ($6.99 for the cheapest plan in America according to a google search I just did), does Raw become the new “premium” live event?

(Seems kinda silly to call something that costs viewers less than $2 “premium” IMHO.)

Getting cable to watch SD live when it moves to USA costs a ****load more than either Peacock or Netflix, so an argument could be made that SD will be the NEW new premium live event, but I get Hulu for like a dollar or two per month and can watch it on demand the next day, which is fine for me, so an argument could also be made that it only costs a couple dollars to watch SD, not the full cost of cable).

Of course, average the cost of Netflix over four weeks of Raw, and Raw comes down in price to close to the cost of a month of Peacock.

So which of their shows/events is actually the most “premium”?

I think you’re focusing on the wrong definition of the word “premium.”

The “premium” in “premium live event” doesn’t mean “more expensive.” The “premium” in “premium live event” means “higher quality.” In other words, if you’re watching a PLE, you’re on the whole seeing higher quality/more significant matches and, on average, seeing bigger storyline moments.

Also, though I’m sure they’re out there, I’d be willing to bet it’s only a small minority of fans who are subscribing to these streaming services just to watch pro wrestling. I’ve had Netflix for years before WWE signed a deal with them, and I’ll likely continue to have it long after the WWE/Netflix deal comes to an end. That also hurts your argument about the economics of watching these various wrestling shows, because the $15 per month or whatever it is for Netflix these days isn’t just being spent on Raw. I need to see my Derry Girls, too, dammit.

IMissMarkingOut is well trained:

In your humble opinion, would you prefer the Power Plant or the Performance Center for developing talent? The Plant arguably produced bigger stars, but didn’t exactly put emphasis on safety. Also, how in the world did someone like Giant Gonzales “graduate” the Power Plant when there was such a high drop out rate? Is it because skill was not a priority? I think the Performance Center has done a decent enough job producing talent and is likely much safer.

Trick question. The real answer is that, in its heyday of the late 1990s/early 2000s, Ohio Valley Wrestling was miles better than either one of them in terms of developing talent.

Cena. Batista. Orton. Lesnar. Numerous talented wrestlers who didn’t reach that same main event status but were very talented and helped fill out cards like Benjamin, Nitro, Rico, and so on.
However, if I have to choose between the Power Plant and the Performance Center, I’m actually going to go Power Plant, at least for the time being. There have been some good wrestlers to come out of the Performance Center, don’t get me wrong, but Performance Center graduates feel very “cookie cutter” on the whole to me. You can tell that they’ve all been trained the same way to wrestle the exact same style in the ring even if the moves that they use differ. I don’t think that you could say the same thing about the Power Plant, because even when they cranked out big “classes” of wrestlers at the same time (think about the Natural Born Thrillers) they all felt like unique performers with their own in-ring styles.

And when it comes to guys like El Gigante graduating the Power Plant, I think you know the answer to that question. WCW wanted him to be a wrestler because of his size. They wanted that so badly that they got him some training and put him on TV, other factors be damned. He was a pet project for the company, not a young kid who showed up one day with stars in his eyes and a hope to be a huge wrestling star like the ones he grew up watching on TV.

Paris look time off from hosting the Olympics to write in:

Would you be ok with any other titles being defended sparsely depending on who’s holding the title? For example, Paul Heyman forms Beast Inc. consisting of Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar, and Solo Sikoa. They win the tag titles and defend using Freebird/New Day rules every other PPV, if even that much?

I’m generally a fan of there being fewer defenses of every title and even fewer titles overall because my philosophy is that, if fans see something all the time, it’s no longer a special event and thus you will have a harder time getting them to tune in (and especially pay money) to watch it. In my perfect world, most championships would only be defended on premium events with one or two titles that are designated to be defended more regularly on standard television shows, similar to the original concept behind promotions having TV Titles.

We’ll return in seven-ish days, and, as always, you can contribute your questions by emailing [email protected]. You can also leave questions in the comments below, but please note that I do not monitor the comments as closely as I do the email account, so emailing is the better way to get things answered.