Because I’m such a good friend, I’m going to step up for Steve and cover the latest WWE Network collection! You can find info on “collections” here. I think you can figure out the subject going by the title, but I should emphasize the “moments” portion of it. This isn’t just matches. This collection covers everything from Daniel Bryan’s greatest matches to his funniest skits and even his biggest personal moments outside the business. Finally, with 22 videos in total as part of this collection, this review will be split into 3 parts. Let’s do this!
DANIEL BRYAN RETROSPECTIVE – FEBRUARY 12, 2016 (4:02)
This is an extended version of the tribute video that aired on Raw, but with Bryan’s comments from his retirement speech spliced in. I don’t think I have to tell you how moving this video is, but is that really a surprise at this point? The music is a perfect choice, it sums a career up perfectly and only takes up 4 minutes of your time. Watch it already!
DANIEL BRYAN’S TRYOUT MATCH – FEBRUARY 08, 2000 (13:40)
This match was originally released on DVD and as such includes a segment prior to the match itself where Daniel Bryan explains both how his tryout came to be and why they were given so long to showcase themselves. There are a couple funny anecdotes here, so it adds a little more value to the video as a whole.
The match is raw footage of a tag team contest (with production markings and no commentary), with every wrestler graduating from the Shawn Michaels’ Wrestling Academy. The American Dragon (Bryan) teams with Shooter Shultz to face Lance Cade and Brian Kendrick. Some pretty notable names, huh?
All four guys are literally unknowns at this point, but manage to gradually win over the crowd with their high speed showcase. I’m not going to BS you and pretend this is a classic. We’re talking rookies who are as green as grass at this point, with only 4 months of training. There’s a fun cruiser-weight vibe to the whole thing, but it’s also obviously just a group of hungry kids trying to get their best stuff in.
It’s worth watching for the historical importance and breezes by pretty quickly, but keep your expectations in check.
DANIEL BRYAN VS JOHN CENA – FEBRUARY 08, 2003 (4:45)
This match comes from Velocity, back when John Cena was still toiling in the mid-card and WWE couldn’t even be bothered to spell Bryan Danielson’s name correctly. Also, this confrontation took place over a decade before their epic Summerslam 2013 title bout (that I looked at here).
Both men have greatly improved since 2003 and this was just a vanilla squash match for a Vanilla Ice wannabe Cena. Add in terrible commentary from Ernest “The Cat” Miller along with Josh Mathews only giving token mention to the action in front of him, and I really can’t recommend this. At 4 minutes plus change, it’s a curiosity at best.
DANIEL BRYAN’S DEBUT – FEBRUARY 22, 2010 (13:39)
This video is taken from the very first episode of old school NXT and is somewhat of a double header. It features Daniel Bryan’s introductory video package and promo on NXT, along with his first televised WWE match in 7 years against Chris Jericho.
The video package and promo are fine. The video gives a relatively unaware audience a chance to get to know the man, while his promo is somewhat stilted, but sets up a rivalry with The Miz. It’s not exemplary, but it all does its job well enough.
The real gem here is the match with Jericho. When I was writing my retrospective earlier this week, this was the match I wanted to start things with. I even considered forsaking the WWE Network and including a Youtube link. Damn timing! This match does a brilliant job of making Daniel stand out in a field of pretty terrible rookies. The former Bryan Danielson was allowed to look pretty much equal to a World Champion, only falling to a rarely seen Lion Tamer submission hold. Once you add in further post-match interaction with Bryan’s “Pro” Miz, it was obvious WWE knew they had a rough diamond already.
Say what you want about the rest of old school NXT, but this 7-minute match was a true highlight that should be given a chance by all.
DANIEL BRYAN’S SURPRISE RETURN – AUGUST 05, 2010 (44:40)
I’m not going to go into too much detail here, as I already covered this 7 vs 7 elimination contest in my retrospective. I don’t want to be ultra lazy and copy and paste though, so I’ll just give my quick thoughts instead.
This match had a lot of issues and practically killed The Nexus as a viable threat. However, it did end up being a very good vehicle for reintroducing Daniel Bryan. He looked like a star and was immediately pegged for a mid-card title feud against US Champion (and his former NXT pro) The Miz. It could be worse.
I’m not going to recommend you spend 45 minutes on this though, as you likely already know if you like or detest this main event.
BRYAN BREAKS THE BANK – JULY 17, 2011 (30:20)
This is the complete Smackdown Money in the Bank match from 2011 (including entrances). This is another match I already recently covered.
This was the first breakout moment for Daniel Bryan in WWE. He’d always been a solid hand, but this was seemingly the first time where WWE felt he deserved a proper run near the top. Daniel was a majorly surprising winner at the time, with Wade Barrett seemingly destined to ascend. The underdog got the nod though and the rest is history.
As for the match itself, I think you know what to expect. It’s solid car crash television that gets knocked up a notch for having a beloved winner. It’s an enjoyable 30 minutes (including Sin Cara going through a ladder!) and do modern ladder matches ever truly disappoint in WWE?
DANIEL BRYAN VS. WILLIAM REGAL – NOVEMBER 07, 2011 (13:52)
This originally aired on Superstars and emanated from Manchester, England. This is also the infamous match where WWE played a rib on Regal, switching his regular theme music for the hilariously terrible “Real Man’s Man”.
This was a really fun “student vs teacher” contest. It had no story going into it, but was just 12-minutes of a veteran being shown the respect he deserves and being allowed to put on a technical clinic. Make no mistake, there are moments of aggression from both, but this is mostly a chain wrestling “hold-into-counterhold” affair.
Considering how overlooked this understandably was at the time, it’s good to see a fun bit of history added to this collection and the WWE Network. Definitely give this a watch.
So there we have part 1! It was an interesting start, with a mixture of hidden gems and borderline curiosities. One thing that I will definitely praise WWE for so far, is mixing in the bigger moments with those that most people wouldn’t think of immediately. I hope to see this continue in future collections. See you next time for part 2 of this review, only on The WWE Network Chronicle!