WWE WrestleMania 36 Results: Daniel Bryan’s Days As A Top Star Are Numbered After Loss To Sami Zayn

WWE
WW
took one big step toward pushing Daniel Bryan down to the midcard when he failed to win the Intercontinental Championship from Sami Zayn at WrestleMania 36.

It was only a year ago that Bryan entered WrestleMania 35 as the WWE Champion and the most hated heel in all of WWE, but entering this year’s flagship pay-per-view, Bryan didn’t have a clear path to a marquee match on the show. It wasn’t until just a few weeks ago that Bryan, along with Drew Gulak, began feuding with Zayn, Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura, and as was the case when Bryan won the WWE title at WrestleMania 30 and then dropped down the card a bit when he won the IC title at WrestleMania 31 the following year, that also held true this year.

While an Intercontinental Championship match at the biggest pay-per-view of the year would be a big deal for most WWE stars, you can’t help but wonder if Bryan’s loss was a bad sign of what his future holds.

If you look at the list of recent Intercontinental Champions, the last superstar to truly make that title matter was Seth Rollins two years ago. Since then, a number of top superstars—Dean Ambrose, Bobby Lashley, Finn Balor, Braun Strowman and Nakamura—have held what was once deemed WWE’s “workhorse” title, but exactly none of them had memorable title reigns. Bryan could have changed that trend, but the reality is that Bryan’s loss has a better change of saddling him with a midcard role than it does of igniting a new push for Bryan.

MORE FROM FORBESWWE WrestleMania 36 Results: Becky Lynch Badly Needs A Break, Despite Her Victory Over Shayna BaszlerBy Blake Oestriecher

After all, Bryan finds himself in essentially the exact same position he was in two years ago. Bryan re-signed with WWE in the summer of 2018, but prior to doing so, he had seen himself slide down the card a bit into a tag team role alongside Kane as WWE officials were reportedly “not happy” at the time about his contract negotiations with in the company as he was even removed from a number of live events. At the time, there was ample speculation that Bryan’s role was reduced because of the uncertainty regarding his contract status, and Bryan even admitted that he had plans to work elsewhere in places like Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro-Wrestling had he not gotten the green light to wrestle in WWE, which ultimately led to him re-signing there on a multi-year deal.

Bryan, however, recently noted that his current WWE contract is coming to an end and he longer wants to wrestle full-time, saying on The Bellas Podcast (h/t SEScoops):

“It’s not long until my contract is up. We’ve been talking about, like, what we do from there? But to me, in my mind, it’s almost like I think I’m just done being a full time wrestler.”

Bryan’s comments suggest that the deal he signed in 2018 was only for two years, and now, he finds himself in an interesting position. WWE has demonstrated in recent years that it isn’t afraid to de-push—or downright embarrass—stars who have even a remote chance of leaving the company, as has been the case with stars who’ve departed the company, like Dean Ambrose and Matt Hardy, and names who’ve been linked to a potential exit due to a contract dispute, like Rusev. Virtually everything suggests that WWE will ultimately accommodate Bryan’s desire to land a part-time contract, and given that Edge recently signed a $3 million deal with WWE for a very limited schedule after flirting with a potential move to All Elite Wrestling, that is something that could repeat itself with Bryan.

It looks like WWE may already be starting to “cool off” Bryan by pushing him down the card as it did in 2018. At that time, Bryan dropped from one of the biggest WrestleMania matches at WrestleMania 34 to a lackluster tag team title reign and a disappointing feud with The Miz that ended with a loss at SummerSlam. It wasn’t until Bryan re-signed that WWE reignited a push for him and then catapulted him back to the WWE Championship scene on SmackDown. Might history be repeating itself here?

It’s been baffling to see the way Bryan had been somewhat overlooked in recent months, but the best explanation for that is that WWE doesn’t want to push him to the moon just in case he leaves. Of course, Bryan staying—or leaving—is no certainty, and the booking of his character following his WrestleMania loss will be a telltale sign of how his contract negotiations are going.