That is convincing. And awesome. I think Punk fit for all of the same reasons. And he was a lot more Stone Cold-ish with it. The thing left out below is that there is no recent generation who is not a sucker for nostalgia in the right doses. If we're willing to agree on that, then who does American Dragon remind us older wrestling fans of? To me (35), he is Benoit/Malenko/Eddy in one guy with a lot of the issues those guys had previously somehow 'fixed'. He isn't the short guy who wanted to be a big meathead that Benoit was. He isn't the borderline out-of-shape-looking guy that Malenko was. And he isn't tied to his race to a point of his detriment like Eddy was (and ADR is now). And his style of working matches is more Flair than Misawa...aka his style is more phsyically demanding than it is dangerous.

And now...every wrestler isn't 6' 4", 270 pounds. And more folks are clearly fine with wrestlers not looking like Cena or Ryback as long as they have a decent character and/or can work (nostalgia..word to Dusty, Duggan, and Dog). If a loud-enough sound gets made when you kick someone, the crowd buys your kicks. If midcarders don't kick out of your finisher, get up and immediately pin you with theirs, people generally buy your finisher as a finisher. DDTs of any variation are gaining value again. You don't have to dragon suplex somebody through a table for the crowd to think you're inflicting pain. All of this works in Bryan's favor. And I'm happy about that.

Side: the WWE did a damn good job with toning things down, allowing submissions/rest spots to gain heat by putting folks over with them, etc. Things had gotten out of control in terms of what was required to sell pain and fatigue. The 80s had a problem: either you had to have huge power wrestlers, smaller guys going 30-60 minutes (Flair/Steamboat anybody), or specialty matches to sell the fatigue. The late 90s...well, everyone knew 42-minute matches wasn't where it was at so high spots, absurd weapons, and dangerouse AJPW suplexes came into play. For WWE, it took deaths, pain killer addictions galore, and losing main eventers for a year at time with serious injuries for at least half a decade before they figured it out, but still...they eventually took measures to get it together.

The scary thing about believing in WWE to get Bryan right for good...wrestling minds from the powers that be still change so slowly. I catch myself when I hear Hogan going overboard to put over Austin Aries in a 'I know he's little, brother, but he's awesome and stuff too, dude' way. I wonder when I hear HHH doing the same to put over American Dragon..it reminds me of what they did when they decided to put Benoit over. The good news is that...even then, they figured out the best way to put over stupidly good wrestlers was to put them in the ring a lot and let them tell their stories vs established names and other good workers without the old guard thinking/coat of paint over it. Monday night was a sign that MAYBE they get it with Bryan.

Jimaveli

>http://angrywrestlingguy.com/2013/07/23/the-world-is-ready-for-daniel-bryan/
>
>I have a theory that the top, iconic, wrestling characters
>reflect the society that births them. In the world of
>professional wrestling, how could this not be true?
>
>Vince McMahon’s traveling circus version of the wrestling
>model provides a perpetual, massive, national (and sometimes
>international) focus group. People make a lot of noise about
>ratings, but nothing is more instructive than the genuine
>reactions of thousands of people in real time because those
>ratings are just numbers — they don’t capture the FEELING of
>the audience. The WWE owes its longevity to listening to those
>feelings, understanding them, and out-putting a product that
>reflects those feelings. You give the people what they want.
>
>My theory is that individual audience members, from all
>generations, all share a common bond through the cultural
>architecture of their times. Consequently, iconic characters
>are successful because they somehow tap into that collective
>consciousness in a way that, not only thrills us, but holds a
>mirror for us to see who we are and what we desire.
>
>You can learn a lot about history just by watching old
>professional wrestling shows…
>
>In the 1980s we had Hulk Hogan, the quintessential Cold War
>superhero. He was a manifestation of the desire for strength
>through patriotism, belief in self, and loyalty to your own.
>Like Rocky Balboa fighting Drago, he was a reaction to the
>subtle current of uncertainty and fear running through
>American society. In the face of that fear, he represented the
>rationalization that we, as a people, were powerful, righteous
>and that nothing could overcome our dominance. He was “The
>Real American”.
>
>In the late 1990s we had Stone Cold Steve Austin, an
>emotionally unstable, unpredictable, violent anti-hero who
>very much represented the same sense of discontent and anger
>felt by young adolescent males at the time. The late 90s,
>though it ushered in an era of economic prosperity, stability,
>and relative peace, left many white youth with an aimless
>yearning for something more than a steady nine to five job.
>These sentiments were captured perfectly by Tyler Durden in
>Fight Club: “We’re the middle children of history, man. No
>purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression.
>Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our
>lives”. From the deluge of cultural malaise came “The
>Rattlesnake”. He wasn’t here to beat the communists. He wasn’t
>here to teach your kids to take their vitamins. He was here to
>bring down the establishment. It didn’t matter why. It didn’t
>matter how. Stone Cold Steve Austin was here to unleash a can
>of whoop ass just because he could, just because he was angry.
>Every Monday Night RAW was catharsis. When Austin went crazy
>so did we and there was no greater release than watching
>someone tear down everything just to watch the world burn.
>
>Finally, John Cena has embodied the attitudes of Post 9/11
>America to a T. Like during the Cold War era, the threat of a
>foreign enemy (terrorism) rekindled the desire for indomitable
>strength, but not at the expense of our prosperity and
>leisure. John Cena doesn’t really fight for anything in
>particular. “Hustle, Loyalty, and Respect” are just buzzwords.
>Why are we hustling? To whom are we loyal? To what do we owe
>our respect? They are words that make us feel good, wholesome,
>but we’re not meant to put too much thought into the matter.
>
>His strength is no longer aimed at defeating an enemy, but is
>supposed to be a comforting distraction from the unknown
>perils that lie outside the purview of our awareness. We don’t
>want to look into that abyss we merely glimpsed at on 9/11. We
>need someone to make us feel like it’s going to be all right.
>We may not fight our Post 9/11 wars personally, but we’ll go
>over-the-top with our show of respect to the
>less-than-one-percent who wear military uniforms in Iraq and
>Afghanistan. We offer our show of gratitude to the military
>establishment as prayers to the universe hoping that our
>reward will be never having to endure the horrors of war
>personally. John Cena is the yellow ribbon bumper sticker, the
>jets flying over The Superdome before the Superbowl. He is the
>business-as-usual champion; a nice guy; easily digestible like
>organic vegetable juice; the consummate company man; the
>dutiful consumer’s hero.
>
>Now we arrive at Daniel Bryan. Could he be the next iconic
>wrestling mega-star? If one merely glances at his short
>stature, shaggy beard, and often goofy demeanor, it’s easy to
>dismiss the possibility. And yet, there’s something to the
>notion that Daniel Bryan is a mirror reflecting the current
>stream of collective consciousness.
>
>It seems like we are entering into a post-hipster world, one
>in which people are more aware of the shortcomings of society
>and themselves, but also able to avoid the cognitive
>dissonance that comes with those revelations. People are
>becoming cynical to the jingoism of the early 2000s. People no
>longer trust the government to look out for their best
>interest. Simultaneously there is a conflicting sense that
>something must be done, but that “something” is nebulous.
>
>We know we are trapped within a technological vacuum; we spend
>our lives finger poking smart phones, making connections with
>people hundreds of miles from our physical location, while we
>sit across an actual person at a restaurant. We are a society
>of deep contradictions, simultaneously more and less connected
>than ever before. How many people, surrounded by technology,
>crave a lifestyle of simpler times, or seek connection through
>yoga, social causes, Crossfit, or even Reddit.
>
>Perhaps the most signature aspect of this new paradigm is that
>we, collectively, have not only become aware of the absurdity
>in our lives, but have met it with good humor. Our reaction is
>sometimes to lament our state of affairs, but more often than
>not, it’s to simply laugh and resign ourselves to our fate —
>like an episode of the Daily Show that points out government
>corruption without even a hint sanctimonious outrage, but by
>turning it into one big joke. In the face of our
>powerlessness, we sometimes just have to laugh. We try to
>enjoy the ride, even if it is a downward spiral.
>
>When I re-watch Daniel Bryan interacting with Kane in Anger
>Management, I realize that Daniel Bryan is actually a terrible
>actor. At no point during his tantrums did I believe he was
>actually angry. He always seemed like he was just on the edge
>of laughter. It’s as if the Daniel Bryan character always has
>some meta-awareness that he’s just a Daniel Bryan character.
>And I don’t mean that the actor who plays Daniel Bryan has
>that awareness, I mean it’s like the character itself has that
>awareness. In other words, if WWE were a comic book universe,
>Bryan would be Deadpool, the comic book character who knows
>he’s in a comic book. Somehow, I think this is relevant to who
>we are as a people. Like the financial analyst who secretly
>sympathizes with Occupy Wall St., the lawyer working at a big
>law firm who secretly wants to be an activist, or the urban
>teen who plays sports to fit in, but is really interested in
>gay rights, we routinely adopt roles due to societal demands,
>knowing deep down, we’re just playing a character.
>
>Even this past Monday, during his confrontation with Cena, as
>he pleaded that he was out to prove himself, you could detect
>an undercurrent of subtle joy as if he was already secretly
>enjoying his sudden popularity.
>
>And somehow, all of that is all right. My enjoyment of Bryan
>never comes at the expense of my immersion. In fact, there’s
>something intangible about his persona that makes what should
>be shortcomings into endearing qualities that I would miss if
>he got rid of them.
>
>Bryan embodies contradiction in other ways too: he carries the
>beard of a huntsman raised by wolves, yet he’s a vegan; he has
>one of the most complex in-ring styles in the history of
>professional wrestling, yet has the simplest catchphrase; in
>terms of in-ring storytelling, he is the best wrestling artist
>to come along since Shawn Michaels, yet his character
>stretches the limits of the “goofy nerd” label.
>
>When people speculate that Bryan could replace Cena as the top
>dog in the company, it’s easy to reflexively say “No”. I mean,
>after all, just look at him. Look at that beard. Listen to his
>theme music. Look at that goofy side-step entrance on his way
>down the ramp…
>
>And yet, in the age in which contradiction defines who we are,
>it is for those very reasons that I say “YES!”