Bryan Danielson Leaves ROH for WWE

Earlier I was on pwinsiderelite.com looking for PPV results for Summerslam when I saw something I think is a very interesting development. Ring of Honor has announced that Bryan Danielson has agreed to a contract with WWE and will be leaving the company after he fulfills his September obligations.

Danielson’s size notwithstanding, I think he is a no-brainer for the company. He knows the system because he was there before under a developmental deal; was talent for Heat and Velocity;  was trained by Shawn Michaels and William Regal;  has faced people like CM Punk, John Cena, Jamie Noble and Low-Ki (who is currently in WWE developmental); and has ties to Randy Couture’s gym.

Even though the WWE higher ups like to pay lip service to how they approach their brand of entertainment as making mini-movies, as MMA gains on them even more in terms of PPV, DVD sales and most importantly, mainstream mindshare, they will continue to co-opt a lot of what they think makes MMA so popular and just introduce worked finishes and spots. I think that is why they keep exchanging wins and losses in their midcard. If they want people to get to the point where they think wins and losses matter a lot less than the performance in the ring, then I think their brand of faux-MMA is what they are building towards. If they are going to go in that direction, then Bryan Danielson is the right person to bring in. He has a mixture of styles and a such a variety of finishers that none can really be called his signature move.

I only hope the people in charge don’t write him off as a vanilla midget and waste him. If given the opportunity to have the type of matches he can have (and I’m not talking about hour long iron man matches, but rather hard hitting matches with definitive finishes), then he won’t end up like Paul London, Brian Kendrick, Billy Kidman and a long list of smaller guys who are out of the company for no really good in-ring reason.

Tags: bryan danielson, ring of honor, wwe