wrestling / Columns

Road to WrestleMania (Week 4) – The Longest Road

March 23, 2018 | Posted by Jeremy Lambert
Daniel Bryan WWE Smackdown Stretcher

That goat that I mentioned last week that was blocking the road to WrestleMania for Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens? Yeah, Zayn and Owens beat that goat so bad that PETA has a warrant out for their arrest.

Funny thing about that goat. It’s not dead. Not even close. No, that goat is the most resourceful goat in the history of animals sometimes mistaken for lambs. And because it’s not dead. It’s coming for revenge.

Tuesday was a celebratory day in WWE as it was announced that Daniel Bryan has been cleared to compete. He wasted no time getting his hands dirty, bumping like a mad man for Zayn and Owens while getting in some signature offense.

And it’s all leading to a story that has been building since last summer. I’m often a critic of WWE failing to build a longterm story, and this one certainly dragged over the last few months, but they ended up with the best possible payoff.

It’s unlikely that this was the original payoff. Unless they knew in October that Bryan would be cleared and held off announcing it until now. That seems like a cruel thing to do to the man, but not something I’d put past WWE.

Owens and Zayn have now positioned themselves as the top heels in the company with the second biggest match at WrestleMania. No match is toping anything involving Triple H and Ronda Rousey, but this is a close second. It involves Shane McMahon, still perceived as a top draw, and Daniel Bryan, the biggest babyface in the last 10 years, making his in-ring return.

When fans chant “you deserve it” after a big title victory, it’s a dumb chant. Owens has buried the chant multiple times because he’s a smart man. This match is what Owens and Zayn deserve. They’ve carried SmackDown for months and been forced to participate in awful segments with Shane and Bryan. They’ve been in a storyline that should have wrapped up months ago, but kept going for…reasons.

Owens and Zayn were supposed to fight each other at WrestleMania. That was the match made by Shane on last weeks edition of SmackDown. Instead of accepting the match, they took matters into their own hands and ended up with a monster tag team match. They deserve it.

As for Bryan, there is a genuine happiness around wrestling right now. He’s not only a likable wrestler, he’s a likable person who had to give up his dream too early. And now he’s back.

Albeit, with a conflict of interest. While Kurt Angle is picking and choosing his big matches as RAW general manager, Bryan will be a full-time participant on SmackDown. Unless you’re LeBron James, it’s impossible to be the star player and general manager. We know Bryan will choose to wrestle over making matches. After all, star players are paid more than general managers.

Let’s just hope Bryan doesn’t try to top Shane with one spectacular WrestleMania bump.

Other Roads to WrestleMania

*Kane?

*AJ Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura is going to be fantastic because Styles delivers nine out of ten times and Nakamura won’t mail it in. But man, they’ve done nothing to make me care about this match. If you’re a casual fan and know nothing about the history of either man, what’s your hook for this match? Just calling it a “dream match” 100 times doesn’t mean anything if you don’t give people a reason to dream.

*Same goes for Asuka vs. Charlotte.

*Poor Roman Reigns. They’re doing the most compelling WresteMania angle they’ve done with him in four years and it doesn’t matter. The crowd doesn’t care because none of it is believable based on his history. Worse yet, Daniel Bryan is back. And that’s the guy everyone wants to see in the main event. Guy really can’t catch a break.

*Dolph Ziggler dropped the US title so he could main event WrestleMania. Now he’ll be in the pre-show battle royal while Jinder Mahal in a US title match. What a screw up he turned out to be.

*Bray Wyatt will be Braun Strowman’s tag team partner.

article topics :

WrestleMania, WWE, Jeremy Lambert