WWE SmackDown: The Daniel Bryan, Drew Gulak story is only beginning

Daniel Bryan may have defeated Drew Gulak at the Elimination Chamber Pay Per View on Sunday, but this story is only just beginning on WWE SmackDown.

It often feels like WWE underestimates how much fans are interested in good, old-fashioned professional wrestling. But that doesn’t come as a surprise since the company has branded itself as “Sports Entertainment” and often goes out of its way to avoid referring to “wrestling”. On WWE SmackDown, though, we’re getting to see a real technical feud developing between Daniel Bryan and Drew Gulak.

Bryan called out Gulak for a match on the episode of Friday Night SmackDown before the Elimination Chamber Pay Per View on Mar. 9, and the two men kicked off the show with one of the most highly-anticipated matches of the night. They, of course, didn’t disappoint, putting on the kind of technical masterclass we don’t get to see nearly enough in WWE.

The Philadelphia crowd took issues with other aspects of the Pay Per View, but they ate up every second of the battle between Bryan and Gulak. And while Bryan emerged as the unsurprising victor against the upstart, Gulak more than got over after pushing the former multi-time world champion to his limit.

Afterward, both Bryan and Gulak were interviewed by Sarah Schreiber. While both men were upbeat after the victory, they hinted at very different approaches heading into this upcoming episode of WWE SmackDown.

Bryan concluded his interview by simply stating that he wants to see if Gulak can help him. This match all stemmed from Gulak telling others that he could find Bryan’s weaknesses – or the weaknesses of any other competitor for that matter. While Bryan always knew that Gulak was a good wrestler, Gulak’s performance in Philadelphia made him realize that the former Cruiserweight Champion is “much better” than he initially thought.

And now he’s sold on getting some coaching advice from Gulak to take his game to the next level.

Meanwhile, Gulak kept his ambitions closer to the vest, though he made sure to state that, in his heart, he believes he is better than Bryan at this stage of his career. Maybe that’s wishful thinking on his part, but he showed at the Elimination Chamber that he’s awfully close. Gulak could look to challenge Bryan at WrestleMania 36 – if there’s room on the card for a technical masterpiece – and get that win.

There’s clearly a desire to win emanating from both competitors, but Bryan and Gulak also have a great deal of mutual admiration for each other.

Gulak as a coach? It could work, but we want to see him in the ring. Bryan formed an ill-fated tag team with Erick Rowan with the overall message of wanting to upgrade tag team wrestling in WWE. Now that WWE SmackDown has The New Day, The Usos back, The Lucha House Party riding high, and John Morrison and The Miz, maybe Bryan and Gulak could be a team in the division.

Or maybe they go their separate ways after Gulak finally proves he can beat Bryan.

Whatever the case, there’s more to the story here, and there’s more than enough room for one more great match between two of the world’s best technical wrestlers. It’s not over yet.