the rise of the beard
part 3: the yes movement
by kevin addison
After losing the titles, Team Hell No split up and Bryan went back to singles competition. Bryan’s popularity was growing and growing, whenever he came out, a loud thunderous ‘YES’ chant would break out, sometimes making it impossible to hear him actually talk. Despite some higher ups behind the scenes, who felt this new ‘Yes’ craze was just fad and that Bryan was too short to be the face of the company. Some felt that this wasn’t a fad, and they were witnessing something special, this resulted in Bryan getting a title shot for the WWE Championship at Summerslam, against John Cena.
During this time Bryan’s size and image was the big part of the storyline, some of it was obviously scripted, but there was a lot of reality to it. This was just the beginning of wrestling mixing storylines with reality, like I’ve said Bryan is not the biggest wrestler, and doesn’t have the million dollar smile that Cena has. These issues what brought up further on TV when Vince McMahon said he doesn’t want Bryan as the face of company, because of his appearance. Were as Tripe H was all for him being the face, this resulted in Triple H making himself the referee in the match between Cena and Bryan. Summerslam finally came round, and despite many fans wanting Bryan to win, this wasn’t something fans knew would happen. Cena is the WWE’s biggest asset, he doesn’t lose matches, which annoys fans, because they grow tired of seeing the same guy win every time, and if Cena ever loses it’s never a clean finish. However the WWE do like to throw us a few surprises once in a while.
During this time Bryan’s size and image was the big part of the storyline, some of it was obviously scripted, but there was a lot of reality to it. This was just the beginning of wrestling mixing storylines with reality, like I’ve said Bryan is not the biggest wrestler, and doesn’t have the million dollar smile that Cena has. These issues what brought up further on TV when Vince McMahon said he doesn’t want Bryan as the face of company, because of his appearance. Were as Tripe H was all for him being the face, this resulted in Triple H making himself the referee in the match between Cena and Bryan. Summerslam finally came round, and despite many fans wanting Bryan to win, this wasn’t something fans knew would happen. Cena is the WWE’s biggest asset, he doesn’t lose matches, which annoys fans, because they grow tired of seeing the same guy win every time, and if Cena ever loses it’s never a clean finish. However the WWE do like to throw us a few surprises once in a while.
At Summerslam the WWE Universe was in shock when Daniel Bryan defeated John Cena cleanly in the ring to become the new WWE champion. This is something fans had never seen in years, and were up celebrating with Bryan, however the WWE had another twist to this tale. After Bryan had won the match, Randy Orton came out to cash his money in the bank contract, but before he did that Triple H laid Bryan out with the Pedigree, then Orton cover Bryan for the win becoming the new WWE champion.
At first this wasn’t a big deal as many fans wanted to see a heel Orton and Triple H again, I know I did. But it became clear within the next couple months that Triple H really didn’t want Bryan to be in the main event scene. The next couple of special events Bryan thought Orton, all with the same outcome, and eventually Bryan was replaced in the feud with the Big Show. This angered many fans as they did not want to see Big Show vs Randy Orton in the title picture, they wanted to see Daniel Bryan.
The feud with Big Show did not work, so he was replaced with John Cena, which angered fans even more because this was match that had been to millions of times. This was evident when on an episode of Raw they had the two square off in ring together, with bunch of other legendry champions, including Bryan. Yet the fans weren’t interested in what Orton ,Cena or even Triple H had to say, and they demonstrated this by chanting Bryan name whenever they talked. This was a start of what is now been named as the YES! Movement.
At first this wasn’t a big deal as many fans wanted to see a heel Orton and Triple H again, I know I did. But it became clear within the next couple months that Triple H really didn’t want Bryan to be in the main event scene. The next couple of special events Bryan thought Orton, all with the same outcome, and eventually Bryan was replaced in the feud with the Big Show. This angered many fans as they did not want to see Big Show vs Randy Orton in the title picture, they wanted to see Daniel Bryan.
The feud with Big Show did not work, so he was replaced with John Cena, which angered fans even more because this was match that had been to millions of times. This was evident when on an episode of Raw they had the two square off in ring together, with bunch of other legendry champions, including Bryan. Yet the fans weren’t interested in what Orton ,Cena or even Triple H had to say, and they demonstrated this by chanting Bryan name whenever they talked. This was a start of what is now been named as the YES! Movement.
The YES! Movement was a term that started with the fans which was then brought onto the show, this is unusually because the WWE don’t bring up things that started on the internet, it all has to be original material they created. The movement was basically to show their disapproval of what is being going on, at the Royal Rumble you had Batista, who had just returned to the WWE after he quit four years, win the Rumble match. Fans were annoyed that someone like Batista can just come back and be giving the main event spot at Mania. It wasn’t just fans that were upset, CM Punk who is one of the WWE’s biggest stars walked out on the WWE due to fact that it was originally meant to be his spot. Punk was angry that his chance to main event was taken away from him, he was offered a match with Triple H instead, but turned that down. The match with Triple H was then offered to Bryan.
Daniel
Bryan was the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion, and the
YES Movement had succeeded in their goals. The movement started a new era in
the WWE known as the Reality Era, and it was all thanks to The Rise of the
Beard.