Bengaluru, Nov 22: WWE Universe saw a psychotic avatar of Daniel Bryan on the Smackdown go-home edition of Survivor Series. He was perhaps the most natural babyface superstar present on the current WWE roster. One could have barely thought of seeing him as a heel but it did happen in a big way as he became the new WWE Champion.

The 371-day reign of AJ Styles came to an end in a shocking fashion as Daniel Bryan not only connected the Running Knee but also assaulted the former champion for nothing. This cemented his heel turn and also changed the Survivor Series match card in a big way. But the question is why did Bryan choose to adopt a villainous gimmick.

Reports about the situation disclosing that the discussion on this was going on for a long time. Daniel Bryan himself was willing to turn into a villain for months, according to Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Newsletter. He did have a huge comeback at Wrestlemania from retirement but the initial hype vanquished.

The Miz looked so good in the feud against Bryan during this summer dominating the most part. Although he lost the final match at Super-Show-Down, it can be considered as a fluke. So the leader of the YES nation accepted that the 'booking as a babyface against The Miz was counterproductive'. So going heel was the only option left for him to be relevant.

Here's what Meltzer has stated (courtesy wwfoldschool.com)

"It’s amazing to me that he came back in March and here we are in November and obviously, he made this choice some time back — not a long time back but weeks back — that he had to go heel. So that was Daniel’s call, well, in the end, it was Vince’s call. So that was something that he wanted to do that had not been approved.”

This could not be done until Vince McMahon gives the green signal. He initially planned a championship change to book the dream match between Brock Lesnar and Daniel Bryan. But the heel-turn was finalized on the day, itself. The creative team had a meeting on Tuesday afternoon regarding this and got the green signal.



They were initially unable to reach an agreement as Brock Lesnar is the biggest heel of WWE. So booking another heel against him might not be the right decision. However, that logic was ruled out as the two veterans were bound to deliver a memorable affair. So Vince McMahon went ahead with the plan saying, 'Let’s do it all in one day and get the biggest impact'. We hope this transition should bring good times for Bryan, going ahead.