09/24/10 SMACKDOWN! REVIEW: PAUL BEARER RISES FROM THE DEAD, ALSO, CROWD IS DEAD

Well, well, well... that crowd was certainly dead. RIP that crowd. Yeah.

SMACKDOWN! 09/24/10

WHAT'S THE OPPOSITE OF JUMPING THE SHARK?

Photo - WWE.com

Swimming under it? It jumps you? Whatever it is, the Paul Bearer angle tonight did exactly that.

For me, this feud has been a butt-ton of overly serious gibberish that makes my eyes un-focus (whenever Kane starts riffin' over Garage Band violins). But tonight, with Paul Bearer sitting up from within that red casket, everything felt... well, perfect. And if "jumping the shark" is a ridiculous moment in a story in an attempt to gain viewership, but ultimately is the moment you can pinpoint as the story's demise (did I get that definition right?), then this is most definitely the opposite, where this ridiculous moment took a shitty story and made it AWESOME.

This is what the feud should be. Forget the long, drawn-out, unbelievably serious promos, and bring on the cartoony, over-the-top absurdity. Forget the trying-to-hard-to-be-creepy Kane laughing/appearing/reappearing devoid of logic, and bring-on Undertaker bowing to the power of Paul Bearer's urn.

As the show went off the air with Kane screaming - ahem... "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!HSJQJHK" and Undertaker was on bended knee with Paul Bearer vibrating with voodoo powers, I was loving it. Now this feud makes sense to me.

No matter how good Kane was at shouting the gibberish, it was still gibberish, and I couldn't get behind it. I liked that he and Undertaker were using their "powers," but I didn't like it when they talked about their "powers" as if there is an actual laundry list of "powers" that they each have ("Okay, body-swapping? Check. Lightning from my hands? Check. Druids? WAIT WHERE ARE MY DRUIDS") - it just seemed out of place.

But now with Paul Bearer here (so fitting with 'Taker's career potentially winding down - I'd have even accepted a grey-haired Paul Bearer - wait, is he immortal?), this feud has had a firecracker of pure drugs shot up it's ass and I'm now excited for whatever unthinkable lunacy is gonna go down at Hell In A Cell.

OTHER THINGS THAT HAPPENED

- Christian was put out by Alberto Del Rio (he is getting quite the unfortunately fortunate rub from guys getting injured at bad times, isn't he?)

- Chris Masters took Kane TO THE LIMIT for some reason. Whatever works, I s'pose?

- Kaval and Chavo Guerrero had a short, but fun match. I wonder when Kaval will get his first big win - losing to Chavo seems kind of random since the focus didn't seem to be on either guy, really. Maybe I missed something. Ah well. Still got to see some good action (best on the show, or at least on par with the tag match).

- Rhodes/McIntyre def. The Hart Dynasty to retain the WWE Tag Team Championships. Two things: 1) As mentioned by Storm on the POW, aren't the Harts RAW guys? Details can be added to the list of Victims of the WWE's Rebranding. And 2) Arda Ocal of Right After Wrestling pointed out something Grisham said, where he essentially asked if Cody and Drew could become a great team... AND THEY'RE THE TAG CHAMPS.

- MVP did something while I was in the other room.

- Jack Swagger had his clothes stolen by the Dudebusters and Hornswoggle, who are essentially doing the same angle that Jesse and Festus were doing the last time Smackdown! switched networks.

- CM Punk def. Luke Gallows in a match that could've meant a hell of a lot more if Big Show didn't obliterate (whilst having a big headband-wearing slobbery laugh) the SES for months. Derp.

- Other stuff? I kinda forget. Oh right, Big Show squashed Vance Archer and Cu--zzzzzzzzzzzz. Actually it wasn't that bad. Fun, but served no point in my mind except for being fun to watch a big fat guy slap a medium muscly guy in the chest. And there's nothing wrong with that.

The focus of this show was obviously Taker/Kane/Bearer, especially with Undertaker doing a lot of emoting in a purple stairwell throughout the show.

I feel like I would punch my future-self in the nutsack region if he knew that I thought the saving grace of an episode of Smackdown (the wrestling show) was a promo between Kane, a casket, Paul Bearer and the Undertaker with his tongue sticking out. But it's just true.

And finally, that crowd... HO BOY. Was there a gas leak or something? They were sitting on their hands for the whole show, until the final segment. Yipes. I think they were even editing out the "WHAT" chants during Del Rio's promo, or there was just some seriously bizarre deadpan reactions from the crowd. Really weird.

Can't believe Hell In A Cell is nine days away. Could you imagine spending $110 on the WWE in two weeks time? Hot damn.

Oh, almost forgot. Watch this super creepy (to me at least) video of Paul Bearer getting covered in cement... during, uh... rehearsal, I guess? Check it:

THE WRESTLE SPECTIVE POWER POLL: 09/22/10

Every week I, along with several other wrestling blogs (including my blogging El Generibro, TH of The Wrestling Blog), will be sending in my top ten wrestlers to WrestleSpective My votes are compiled with those of the other bloggers and that gives us the Power Poll. Here's this week's rankings (go to WrestleSpective to view the full write-up, and check out all of the other awesome wrestling content there - you'll find it especially awesome if you're a stat-geek (or any other specific-type-of-wrestling geek - perhaps an old school wrestling geek) like me):

NUMBER ONE THIS WEEK

WWE CHAMPION RANDY ORTON

Photo - WWE.com

NOT RANKED THIS WEEK

WWE CHAMPION KYLE BUSCH

Photo - John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR, via Life.com

WRESTLESPECTIVE POWER POLL: 09/22/10

1. Randy Orton (1)

2. Daniel Bryan (9)

3. Kane (2)

4. The Miz (10)

5. John Cena (3)

6. Alberto Del Rio (5)

7. Dolph Ziggler (NR)

8. Wade Barrett (NR)

9. John Morrison (NR)

10. Sheamus (8)

PIZZABODYSLAM POWER POLL VOTES: 09/22/10

1. Daniel Bryan

- IN KAYFABE: Def. The Miz at Night of Champions to become the new United States Champion; def. Edge on RAW via DQ; debuted new theme music (this, as John Morrison referenced).

- OUT OF KAYFABE: Had the match of the night at Night of Champions; is one of the only reasons I still watch RAW; he's the Ultimate Dragon, I mean c'mon.

2. Randy Orton

- IN KAYFABE: Won the Six Pack Challenge at Night of Champions to become the WWE Champion once again; continued to beat the hell out of Sheamus on RAW because he can, apparently; smiled.

- OUT OF KAYFABE: Still booked stronger than anyone going right now. Seriously, he beat the shit out of everyone (tossing people through tables, winning matches, RKOing countless opponents during and after matches, etc.) and STILL went on to eliminate Chris Jericho and Sheamus to win the Six Pack Challenge. He's like that guy in your class who was so good at video games that you couldn't even beat him when he was JigglyPuff and you were Samus and you'd be like FUCK YOU PAUL YOU CAN'T PLAY ANYMORE.

3. CM Punk

- IN KAYFABE: Def. Christian on Smackdown! with the help of Alberto Del Rio; def. by Big Show at Night of Champions.

- OUT OF KAYFABE: Entered new, uncharted levels of awesome with his promo at Night of Champions, taking the wind out of the sails of the Windy City; hit Big Show with a hilo TO THE OUTSIDE; had a pretty great match with Christian on Smackdown!; and, even though this won't count until next week, he brought sanity to NXT by replacing Michael Cole (for a short time) at the commentary booth, and delivering the greatest hour of pro wrestling commentary since Bobby Heenan.

4. The Miz

- IN KAYFABE: Lost his United States Championship to Daniel Bryan at Night of Champions; cried real tears.

- OUT OF KAYFABE: Provided some top drawer commentary of his own on RAW; allowed Michael Cole to figuratively blow him; bullied Daniel Bryan with his best bro Alex Riley; still holds the MITB briefcase and is anxiously anticipating what could be the most important cash-in since Edge in 2006.

5. Alberto Del Rio

- IN KAYFABE: Appeared via video package at Night of Champions; toyed with Christian on Smackdown! (his answer... is still no!).

- OUT OF KAYFABE: No one has debuted and felt like as big of a star this fast ever (save for maybe a few names). He could be launched into a World Title feud and no one would blink an eye. All of his promo stuff with Christian has been awesome. He is awesome. HE IS EVERRYYYTHING!

6. Dolph Ziggler

- IN KAYFABE: Def. Kofi Kingston for the 4th (100th? I don't know. A lot) time to retain his Intercontinental Championship at Night of Champions.

- OUT OF KAYFABE: Had a great match with a great finish against Kofi, and has just been booked as the better man against Kingston.

7. Kane

- IN KAYFABE: Finally defeated his brother, The Undertaker, to retain his World Heavyweight Championship at Night of Champions.

- OUT OF KAYFABE: Had a fun-ass (yeah fun-ass) brawl with Taker on Sunday, continuing what they started on the Friday before; didn't talk too much about powers, which is nice.

8. John Cena

- IN KAYFABE: Was eliminated third in the Six Pack Challenge at Night of Champions; def. three Nexus members on RAW before the match devolved into an all out brawl.

- OUT OF KAYFABE: Had the crowd out of their seats during the RAW main event; cut a pretty good promo after the fact that made me feel like this HIAC will be important; I think I'm just high off watching this video, the Adventures of SuperCena:

If you're ever down in the dumps on WWE or Cena, watch that, it'll lift your sports entertainment spirits. Or watch the video they have on their Corporate site. That's pure brain washing right there and I love it.

9. Chris Jericho

- IN KAYFABE: Was eliminated in a matter of SECONDS from the Six Pack Challenge at Night of Champions; lost to John Morrison; hit rock bottom (I like that losing to John Morrison is rock bottom).

- OUT OF KAYFABE: Worked the internet (that's the one with email) by playing up his latest contract talks (although I don't know why the announcers/WWE didn't put that story over more, felt confusing); had a great match with Morrison on RAW; he's got a DVD to plug!

10. John Morrison

- IN KAYFABE: Def. Chris Jericho in squeaky clean fashion on RAW; does Parkour.

- OUT OF KAYFABE: Didn't do his slo-mo poses; loves zoom-ins directly on his face; dove over the ringpost to the outside like it was a pommel horse.

THE PRO WRESTLING LANDSCAPE IS ALWAYS CHANGING

And it's changing like WILDFIRE. One day Bryan Danielson is fired, the next day he's United States Champion. One day Chris Jericho is expected to leave forever, the next day he's laughing at the internet for working them. One day Matt Hardy starts a YouTube channel to give you a glimpse into the WWE life, the next day he's using it to GTFO. One day Michael Cole is the worst announcer in real life, the next day he's the worst announcer in kayfabe. One day CM Punk has never heard of Twitter, the next day he's the best thing that's ever happened to it. One day Eric Bischoff is playing guitar on Impact, the next day I never watch Impact again.

What are your favourite landscape changes in pro wrestling history? Or just lately? Things that your twelve year old self would flip over if you told him. Like if I showed my twelve year old self footage of Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels hugging on RAW in 2010, he'd turn blue and fall over. Stuff like that. Or just funny stupid stuff. Whatever. It seems like there are too many to count.

Take it upon yourself to define "landscape changing" because I don't even totally know what I mean. All I know is that in pro wrestling, shit can flip on a dime. One day we thought we were gonna get Bryan Danielson and Nigel McGuinness tearing it up in the WWE, today we get Danielson and The Miz doing a Jawbreaker Lariat spot on PPV. BAM.

While you think about your answer (or while you mosey on to the next site you want to look at (I suggest this one, Drop Toehold, a wrestling Tumblr feed that's got a lot of different awesome stuff on the go, including this funny picture)), here is a hilarious shot of The Miz I found on F Yeah The Miz - seeing this picture and then seeing him now is more of a manscape changer:

Photo originally courtesy of - TheMiz.net

DANIEL BRYAN IS MORE IMPRESSIVE THAN RANDY ORTON

Er, according to this:

Image - WWE.com

THE BIPOLAR MICHAEL COLE

What has happened to this man?

Photo courtesy of this guy's website

Has it been the years and years of verbal and physical abuse from both fans and wrestlers? Or the years and years of witnessing baffling events unfold before his very eyes? Maybe it's all of the telekinetic mental vibes of rage I sent him whenever he replaced JR on RAW when I was twelve (I sent a lot of rage vibes). Whatever it is, Michael Cole has officially gone postal.

And I don't even mean just in kayfabe. Sure, he's lost his marbles on NXT - but that's the most entertaining thing he's done in his entire career. I'm more talking about the two sides of his ever-evolving character.

How can the same guy absolutely derail one show and make another show completely unmissable? Not only that, but how can he do that by bouncing back and forth between heel and babyface behaviour? I don't know, but Michael Cole is doing it.

On NXT, he is a complete and utter genius. He's quick, clever and actually biting with his commentary. All of this started with his burial of Daniel Bryan on the first season of the show, that gave that entire season a level of emotion that wouldn't have been there without him. But on RAW, flip on that bipolar switch because Cole is a mess. He's confusing, constantly babbling and inconsistent. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to who he hates, likes or gives a shit about, and his commentary detracts from matches more than it adds.

With NXT, Cole's direction is clear. He began as the regular old company man he is, getting his back up when everybody starts talking about an "internet darling," a man who's made his name on the independent scene. This of course makes sense, because Michael Cole will defend the WWE to it's death, and this Daniel Bryan guy hasn't done squat until he does it in the WWE. Now, after being subject to another season featuring an "internet darling" in season two, Cole is watching the third season of NXT flush down the toilet, and he snaps. It all makes sense.

What doesn't make sense is the guy that we see on Monday nights. Cole is forced to continue this same character on a show that requires him to do more than just hate on everything. He needs to promote RAW, it's wrestlers and the WWE in general. But now he's also weaving in this character that buries the Hart Dynasty, hates "What's Up?!" but still gets behind John Cena and Randy Orton.

There is serious conflict in the 2010 Michael Cole - both in the quality of commentary he produces, and conflict within the character himself. Something needs to be done. I don't know what that is.

What I do know is that the little bit we got to see of Michael Cole in a feud all on his own was certainly special. The way he cut down Daniel Bryan ("because losers have no HEART!") was stellar. So if we were to see Cole as a manager (or even just hanging out with Miz and Alex Riley), it would be phenomenal. It would cure us of the seriously frustrating commentary on RAW, and would give us a character that the WWE Universe is already conditioned to hate. Whether there is someone ready to take his place at the announce table on Mondays is a whole other question, but if Cole were to step out to really embrace this new, outspoken character, I think we'd have something far better than what he's doing on RAW right now.

Maybe, to go full heel, he'll go back to the frosted tips and round goatee.

LOOK AT BANNER, MICHAEL!

Just put up this bangin' new banner, once again made by my good buddy Mike over at World Champion of Something. Mike does this without me asking, which is pretty awesome. In return, I do nothing. Quite a deal I've struck.

This time around, he ditched the Ultimate Warrior, Austin Aries, the Hardy Boyz, Michael Hayes and Batista in favour of...

MICHAEL

COLE

DAVEY

RICHARDS

RIC

FLAIR

OWEN

HART

DESMOND

WOLFE

and finally,

EVAN

BOURNE

Thanks Mike! Someday I'll repay you by making you a banner for something. Except it'll have to be a real life banner made with pencil crayons, because I can't make things on my computer.

WWE PPV PREDICTION GAME: NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS - RESULTS!

Took a while to get these up, but here they are.

WWE NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS (EVENT #5)

PREDICTION RESULTS

Photo - WWE.com

1. (18 PTS) MASA
T2. (16 PTS) Mike1494
T2. (16 PTS) Sly Dogg
4. (13 PTS) Monkey Man
T5. (11 PTS) Canadian Vampire
T5. (11 PTS) Forthy
T7. (10 PTS) Arn Anderson
T7. (10 PTS) SSJ Storm
9. (9 PTS) TH - The Wrestling Blog
T10. (7 PTS) SETUP DISK
T10. (7 PTS) TheTazDevil
12. (3 PTS) Kastrada
T13. (1 PT) Mario
T13. (1 PT) PIZZABODYSLAM

Click here to view the overall standings, and I'll see you for Hell In A Cell in-- wait, it's starting right now! Just kidding, it's in two weeks, which is still sheer insanity.

09/20/10 RAW REVIEW: COMMENTARY VS. WRESTLING

This is the only way I can describe how it felt to watch tonight's RAW: It's as if I was watching the show, paying attention to a match, and Michael Cole entered my home and starting poking me and tugging at my arms but I couldn't tell him to fuck off because he was actually on the TV screen and not in my home. Make any sense? I'll try and explain.

MONDAY NIGHT RAW - 09/20/10

LIKE: MIZ & A-RI'S ROUGHING UP OF DANIEL BRYAN

DISLIKE: MICHAEL COLE DERAILING THE SHOW

Photo - WWE.com

LIKED

- DH Smith's Drew McIntyre impression.

- The good and bad of what's going on with John Morrison. Holy hell. Okay, there is some bipolar shit going on with whoever is behind the recent focus on his Parkour stuff. First, it's awesome that they're showcasing it since it totally adds an entire new dimension to Morrison. So they show the replay from last week where Morrison applied his Parkour training to his match with Sheamus, and then they show him warming up backstage. BUT THEN, they do that weird Tim & Eric Awesome Show extreme zoom-in on his face for some reason right after he flips his hair back. It's not an accident, because they did it last week too. So they saw it then and were like, "hey, looks great, PRINT IT!" and now they're doing it again. It's clearly a choice and an idea someone came up with, zooming in on his face like there should be a slidewhistle sound accompanying it. It's so weird. Phew. But the focus here should really be on the crazy shit Morrison has pulled out two weeks in a row now. Even if he punches weird, he is doing some bonkers stuff I've never seen before, so that makes up for it.

- Zack Ryder/Edge budding bromance. I like these two together. Ryder can be funny without making me smack myself in the forehead, because it makes sense, and he's not banging chalk brushes at a nun while being taught by Teddy Long how to speak.

- Also, back to Morrison. He looks way cooler and way less lame when he doesn't do his Melina posedown during the slo-mo fireworks. Tonight he just took off his coat and glasses and walked on. If they turn him into some kind of real life superhero (not like Cena) then I'm all for it, no matter how hokey that sounded to me right after I typed it.

- Michael Cole may as well have been reaching across the table to jerk Miz off when he showed up. That was hilarious, no matter how much it truly annoyed me deep down to my core.

- Bryan Danielson using the Ride of the Valkyries as his theme music. That is awesome. So are all of the comments that are already up on this song's YouTube video (including the one guy pointing out that this is in fact also Sara Del Rey's theme music).

- Edge vs. Daniel Bryan and the beatdown that followed. This entire segment made the show worth watching. Edge and Danielson may have had a pretty good match, although it was hard to tell what with all of the super distracting bickering going on at the commentary booth. Alex Riley (now signed to a "personal services" contract, lofl) and Miz beating down Danielson was great. It pissed me off and made me want to see Bryan make Miz tap out again. That, along with Edge's infuriated rant towards the omnipresent general manager, made this the segment of the night. And I can't stress how awesome of a pairing Miz and Riley are. They look like two spoiled rich kid buddies fell out of a teen movie.

- Chris Jericho playing internet private detective.

- John Cena adding a dropkick to his moveset being news! Not only that, but he delivered one last night to someone and totally whiffed on it.

- The final segment. Cena actually seemed to bring it in this promo, same for Wade Barrett. The booking of the main event had the crowd hot as Michael Cole's taint after shaking The Miz's hand. But I'm going to touch on Cena in a second here...

DISLIKED

- John Cena is a strange character. Going into a match, all he cares about is the WWE Title, the WWE Universe, the WWE, etc. It's the most important and most serious and most preacher-voice-worthy thing ever. He's our hero and will only settle for victory. Then the next night, after he loses, he jokes and plays it off and doesn't really care. He smiles and passes his loss off as nothing. How long can this go on before people are like "why should I believe that you care about something when you show time and time again that you don't?" Maybe I'm nitpicking, but the video package for Night of Champions had about twelve quotes from Cena saying THIS IS ALL I GOT!!! and then he lost but it doesn't matter.

- Randy Orton needs to remain a badass. He's walking a fine line right now where I can sense some pointing and smiling on the horizon. Thankfully, he still talked about RKOing grandmothers, so he's not there yet. I wonder if Sheamus' grandmother would take the RKO by jumping into it headfirst like Sheamus does.

- Also, I still don't understand the Sheamus character. Does he believe what he says? Is he scared of people or not? He says he's not, but runs away all the time. He says he ended Triple H's career with his bare hands, but he used a pipe. He says one thing, does another. But no one questions him. The announcers, wrestlers, whoever, they just keep trying to convince us that he's dominant and dangerous and whatever other thing they want us to believe.

- R-Truth's new song is SO BAD. What's Up worked because it was at least catchy on some basic level. This song is so goddamned bad. Doesn't everyone realize that rap and rock NEVER WORK?! STOP IT. JUST STOP. FUCK. They really should've tried to get someone good to help him write the song. This song is literally less catchy and relevant than "Gettin' Rowdy" and I'm not saying that to be funny at all, it's actually how I feel. Having Eve do her aggressive dance moves does not help. Nor does it distract anyone from how terrible this is.

- After writing that rant, Ted DiBiase's new theme came on. ...

- And finally, Michael Cole. He was in fine form tonight. Normally, I can totally dig Michael Cole's heeling out at times, but it has to make sense. His attempt at burying the Hart Dynasty in the most forced sounding way (right when he introduced them) was ridiculous and awkward. The rest of the commentary on that match was so distracting and frustrating and didn't put anyone over. Not even the heels in the match - he was just giggling about Cody's legs. So the commentary didn't help the match, it didn't help the guys on guest commentary, nothing. It was just five minutes of chaos on the ears while you tried to watch what seemed like it could've been a fun match.

Cole zapping back and forth between heel Cole and company shill Cole is completely jarring to watch. The heel stuff made way more sense when it was just on Bryan Danielson - Michael Cole is a company shill and is offended that Danielson has been getting so much praise for what he's done on the indies, and yet he's done nothing in the WWE. Therefore, Cole hates on him. Makes sense. Michael Cole raking the Harts over the coals (pun not intended) makes no sense.

Even Cole himself doesn't know what he believes. At one point he talked about how much he loved it when Jericho calls people (a.k.a. John Morrison, a guy he was just putting over in that same match) a "stupid man." King quickly pointed out, "why would you like that?" And Cole admitted himself that he'd been called that by Jericho and he didn't know his name for about 10 years or so. Is he schizophrenic? A masochist? WHAT ARE YOU

If this somehow leads to Michael Cole leaving commentary in favour of being a manager, then colour me ELATED. He could join up with Miz and A-Ri and instantly keep them from turning full-blown face. Not only that, but when the time was right to turn Miz, they would have an easy way - beat the living shit out of Michael Cole. But I get the feeling this isn't happening.

They need to sort this out because my brain already hurts enough when I watch this show.

NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS REVIEW: AMERICAN DRAGON UNITED STATES CHAMPION

"It's not the Night of Nerds!" - Alex Riley, claiming Daniel Bryan doesn't belong at Night of Champions. Hint - it's always Night of Nerds (it's wrestling)!

NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS REVIEW

LIKE: BRYAN DANIELSON, US CHAMPION

DISLIKE: MELINA'S TELL

Photo - WWE.com

Actually, I'm not going to do a Like/Dislike. There's not too much to say (Like: Kofi/Dolph, Punk's promo, Tyson Kidd's terrifying springboard moonsault, etc. - Dislike: Melina essentially telegraphing that she was going to lose by coming out looking pouty and not doing 30,000 poses on the way to the ring (we called this before the match started - Batista does the same thing, looking sad on the way to the ring = I'm about to lose), the Divas match was hilarious, Hart Dynasty getting buried for no apparent reason, etc.).

But the focus of this entire show for me (and hopefully most other people) was the unlikely story of Bryan Danielson. Let's look at a timeline here:

BRYAN DANIELSON TIMELINE

- Makes the leap from ROH to WWE

- Debuts on NXT by losing to Chris Jericho, begins epic feud with the Miz that tugs at IWC heartstrings across the globe.

- Eliminated from NXT. At the time this was thought to be the greatest injustice in wrestling history.

- Helps the Nexus destroy RAW by choking a topless Justin Roberts with his own tie and spitting in John Cena's face, getting him FIRED FOR REAL. The NXT elimination is now put into perspective.

- Works Indy dates while not saying much about his firing. Rumour is that a sponsor or higher-up of some kind complained that the Nexus segment was too violent, and Danielson, being the most violent, was the scapegoat for the WWE.

- Everyone accepts that it's not a work and crawls into bed sobbing (maybe that was just me).

- Returns at SummerSlam in the biggest angle (and biggest rub) of the summer by being the 7th member of Team WWE vs. The Nexus! More Mountain Dew: Code Red is spilled simultaneously around the world than ever before at this very moment.

- Helps John Cena defeat the Nexus, not before rekindling his feud with The Miz.

- Defeats The Miz at Night of Champions to become the new WWE United States Champion.

I don't think anyone could've predicted Danielson's first WWE year going like this. From being ranked first in the NXT polls to being first to be eliminated from NXT to being so violent he was FIRED FOR REAL to going back to the indies to being the 7th member of Team WWE to being United States Champion all in a matter of months. That's a mouthful.

Danielson vs. The Miz itself was an awesome match. There were near falls galore, all of which had the crowd hanging on for dear life - those flash roll-ups can be heart-stopping sometimes. There's too much of this match that I liked to list it all (Danielson recreating his first big dive onto Chris Jericho, for example - or Danielson and Miz doing the Jawbreaker Lariat spot with Danielson crotched on the ropes, then landing on his head, for another example!).

So, to celebrate the United States Championship victory of the "American Dragon" Bryan Danielson, here are some awesome photos of the former champions that lead to Daniel Bryan. Enjoy.

Image - WWE.com