WWE: Daniel Bryan Should End The Yes Movement

Daniel Bryan, one of the most successful WWE superstars and one of the most talented in-ring performers, has no clear path to WWE WrestleMania 36 and there seems to be a lack of fan interest in his character as of late. This could have something to do with the Yes Movement growing stale and/or running its course. The following will pontificate why it needs to be terminated as soon as possible.

At the beginning of 2019, Daniel Bryan had an eventful WWE Championship reign that resulted in a historic WrestleMania moment for Kofi Kingston. However, at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, Daniel Bryan’s career seems to have reached a crossroads, especially after losing two Universal Championship matches to Bray Wyatt at WWE Survivor Series 2019 and WWE Royal Rumble 2020 respectively.

Now, he finds himself in pointless matches on Friday Night SmackDown against the one man rock band, Heath Slater. Although Bryan has been winning those matches, the fans remain uninterested in them since Slater is quite frankly booked as a jobber in WWE who loses the majority of his matches anyways.

So, why is Daniel Bryan in this rut all of a sudden? After 10+ years in the WWE, why is his career at a crossroads now? After becoming a Grand Slam Champion, why does he now seem like a B+ player? Although he is fighting for his dreams, why are his dreams no longer fighting for him? Rest assured, ‘Yes’ cannot answer any of these questions.

The ‘Old’ Yes Movement Has Run Its Course

Yes! Yes! Yes! After years as a scrappy underdog, the Yes Movement catapulted Bryan into the main event of WrestleMania 30, where he defeated Randy Orton and Batista to capture the coveted WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

Back in 2014, the ‘Yes’ chants signified the denial of the status quo, in which bigger, muscular, body-building superstars were the only superstars believable enough to be in the main event scene and eventually be considered faces of the company. Indeed, the ‘Yes’ chants were saying ‘Yes’ to the small, scruffy, yet powerful superstars who convey to the WWE Universe that skill, heart, and grit matter so much more than size when it comes to professional wrestling.

As Daniel Bryan once said, ‘I am not the biggest. I am not the strongest. But I am damn sure the toughest.’ The Yes Movement was a revolution that put an end to the ‘body building fetish’ and set meaningful pathways for professional wrestlers who spent years in the Indie scene (i.e. Ring of Honor (ROH), New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), etc.) to make it in the most globally attractive pro wrestling industry on the planet, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

But now that Bryan is an established superstar in the WWE and superstars like him have a more significant representation in the main event scene today (e.g. AJ Styles, Seth Rollins, Finn Balor, Kofi Kingston, Ricochet, Johnny Gargano), do those ‘Yes’ chants mean anything anymore? Needless to say, ‘Yes’ does not answer this question either.

The ‘New’ Environmentalist Movement Was Genius

Once Daniel Bryan turned heel on AJ Styles to become the new WWE Champion in 2018 after a near-miraculous recovery from a three-year injury-induced retirement., he put an end to the ‘Yes’ Movement and reinvented himself as The ‘New’ Daniel Bryan. The ‘New’ Daniel Bryan was a merciless, environmentally conscious revolutionary leader who augmented environmental awareness by insulting the consumerists who polluted the planet to its core.

This new gimmick seemed promising and added another layer to Daniel Bryan’s character that the WWE fans did not know they needed. However, the WWE suddenly stopped Bryan from doing the environmental lectures on WWE Television because it came off as too political, which the WWE did not want for their product onscreen.

There are two problems with this approach: (1) Politics is inescapable in every facet of life and humanity, and (2) Environmentalism is far more scientific than political. In fact, even Bryan articulated that environmentalism is a ‘bulletproof idea’ that calls for everyone on both sides of the fence to help their surroundings for the betterment of everyone on the planet, rather than being an issue stemmed in right-wing or left-wing politics.

Nonetheless, the WWE tends to dictate not only the political environment but also the creative freedom of the WWE superstars. Can Daniel Bryan somehow fight the system and reignite an environmental revolution that is so desperately needed in the 21st century? As expected, ‘Yes’ does not answer this question either.

Sami Zayn’s Offer is Still On The Table

On the October 25, 2019 episode of Friday Night SmackDown, Sami Zayn conveyed to Daniel Bryan that the animal agriculture industry and factory farming are repulsive and that he wants to save the planet just as much as Bryan does. He slyly conveyed this to persuade Bryan to move forward and join him and Nakamura’s artistry rather than move backwards and revive the Yes Movement with the WWE Universe.

When Bryan got attacked by ‘The Fiend’ Bray Wyatt whilst Zayn and Nakamura were nowhere to help him, Bryan felt that Zayn and Nakamura did not have his best interests at heart and decided to revert back to the ‘Yes’ Movement, the same movement he promised would never return to WWE television. Although the WWE Universe may be happy to chant ‘Yes’ with Bryan, it was still a step backwards in his character development and unfortunately lead him to the aforementioned pointless matches with Heath Slater.

Although Sami Zayn may have seemed malignant in his intentions with Bryan, he was actually correct. Bryan has reached a pivotal crossroads in his career and he needs a new direction. Since The Yes Movement has run its course and the Environmentalist Movement is banned, Bryan needs to strongly re-consider Zayn’s offer from four months ago. It could do wonders for his career as well as his road to WWE WrestleMania 36.

So, should Daniel Bryan accept that offer? Yes!