From #hamler
It’s entirely laughable the WWE wants me to cheer Shane McMahon over someone that’s so universally loved like Daniel Bryan. After everything Bryan has been through, it’s impossible for me to do so. Bryan shouldn’t turn heel and there isn’t a single reason to for him to do so.
Under what reason should I choose Shane McMahon over Daniel Bryan? Shane constantly interjects himself into feuds that often take priority over the younger talent. Shane has repeatedly taken steps to prevent Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn from succeeding on his brand. Shane non impartially refused to count a pin at the Clash of the Champions pay-per-view to try and cost two workers their jobs. Most of all, he’s a McMahon. Daniel isn’t the one showing signs of an eventual heel turn, it’s Shane. He’s a jerk and I don’t like it.
Bryan could literally put the Yes Lock! on a toddler and get cheered. It’s baffling how the WWE won’t utilize that for the Daniel Bryan character. No, instead we get a very forced heel turn to cool down his character before he makes his inevitable exit from the company a few months from now.
From Jack-Hammer
I gotta go with Hamler on this. WWE tried turning Bryan heel with the whole bit with the Wyatt Family in late 2013 and it was a disaster because fans WANTED to cheer for Bryan. Hell, they liked cheering for him and didn’t want to see him as a “bad guy” just because Vince wanted it. To this day, Bryan still gets some of the biggest pops of anyone in the entire company despite the fact that he isn’t wrestling anymore, at least for now.
To me, Shane McMahon fits more into the role of a heel because it’s what he did for the vast majority of his time in WWE. He was Vince’s bratty, bastard son and while he’s at an age where that doesn’t work so well, it’s just so incredibly easy and natural to expect to see Shane step into a more “Mr. McMahon” type of role, only without Vince’s corny sense of humor getting in the way of things sometimes. It’s just so much easier, simpler and crowd pleasing to have Daniel Bryan trying to fight the good fight against Shane’s increasing disposition to adopt the traits we’ve seen in his father and sister; even though Owens & Zayn are heels, Shane was and is behaving just as heelish by using his authority to make their lives miserable and by purposely putting them into what he feels are no win situations so he can fire them. All Bryan also has to point out is Shane’s growing insistence that he be the centerpiece of what’s going on, again, much like Mr. McMahon and the Authority. Bryan putting AJ Styles in a handicap WWE Championship match definitely has heelish undertones to it but, again, all Bryan has to do is turn around and say that he had faith in Styles and that this was an opportunity for him to get rid of two rivals at once. There are holes in that logic, I realize that but I see no way out of it with WWE going down this road.
People know too much about who Bryan really is and how he is I think to effectively buy into him as a heel unless WWE really wanted to push the boundaries. For instance, if they want to make Shane look sympathetic while making Bryan look like a bastard, they could set up an angle where Bryan says something extremely nasty to one or all of Shane’s kids or, better yet, actually “assaulted” them by putting one of them in the Yes Lock or something. Some would cheer for Bryan no matter what but there’d be no way to reconcile such behavior with being a “good guy” character. Of course, WWE won’t even consider doing something like that, even if Shane and his kids were all for it, because Vince McMahon is absolutely scared to death of anything that might generate the slightest bit of controversy.
To be fair though, you know, I mean we all know, that someone would see that and would try to raise holy hell on social media about WWE championing child abuse or some such bullshit. If someone can stir up some shit just for the sake of getting under somebody’s skin on social media, they’ll do it and they’ll get off on it. So, it’s just simpler and safer all around for Bryan to be the babyface and for Shane to be the heel. It’s easier and it’s the more natural feel.
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