Inverted Archetypes: The Curious Case of the Underdog as Villain

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!”

You know exactly who I’m talking about.

It’s rare that one word can completely encapsulate an entire character, mainly because it’s nearly impossible to do well; however, when it’s done properly, it is the pinnacle of excellent writing and characterization. 

Once upon a time, Jim Duggan did it to near perfection with “USA!” Steve Austin tried it with “What?” and it almost ruined his legacy (though it can be argued that he earlier revolutionized professional wrestling with the infamous “3:16”).

And now?  Now we have Daniel Bryan.

Yes!

Over the years, the world of professional wrestling has given us a myriad of classic archetypes.  We’ve had the hard-bodied All-American superhero (Hulk Hogan), the in-your-face everyman antihero (Stone Cold Steve Austin, DX, the nWo), the hated foreigner (The Iron and Original Sheik, Nikolai Volkoff, Ivan Koloff, etc.), the unstoppable juggernaut (both the face and heel varieties)…

…oh yes, and then there’s the underdog. We’ve seen so many underdogs in wrestling that it’s easy to lose count.  However, when Daniel Bryan started his heel turn by getting himself intentionally disqualified against Big Show to save his World Title, it made me think that we might be seeing something special in the works. 

After his DQ, he ran around cheering like he’d just won the Super Bowl; in reality, he may have finally created the most interesting of personas: the underdog cast as the villain.

It can be argued that we’ve seen this character before.  Spike Dudley did this once, but he was never a main eventer (and he always had Bubba and D-Von to back him up).  If you really think about it, the best example of this character might have been Kurt Angle and his inverted American Hero persona (the Three I’s, to me, were always an ironic job at Hogan’s “demandments”), but no one ever really thought of him as an underdog because – with all due respect to CM Punk and Chris Jericho – he was the best in the world at what he did.

Daniel Bryan, however, is different.  Daniel Bryan was not an Olympic gold medalist like Angle was, so despite Angle being smaller than most of his peers it was not inconceivable that he could legitimately beat them.  Bryan, while he is an absolute stud in the ring, does not have that same pedigree.  Daniel Bryan is a pseudo-string bean who made his name in the indies and, through hard work and determination he made it to the big leagues and, after biding his time, to the top of the big leagues.

Yes!

“Yes!”-mania has taken the wrestling world by storm. But everyone says yes. I’m writing an article for Bleacher Report – yes!  I’m getting married soon, yes!  I drank four Gatorade bottles and a water and just got home to use to the bathroom, yes!  But Daniel Bryan’s “Yes!” has created a sensation. What makes him special? Why has “Yes!” taken him from being a main-eventer with no support to being one of the fastest-rising (re-rising?) stars in WWE and a likely future champion?

What makes Daniel Bryan’s “Yes!” special is because, as I said earlier, it perfectly encapsulates where he came from, what he’s had to do, and where he is now. “Yes!” is the trick of the motivational speaker who teaches you to never give up on your dreams (“You can do it if you try hard enough! Yes!). “Yes!” is the cry of the underdog (“I overcome all the odds! Yes!”). “Yes!” is also the cry of the cocky a-hole who knows he is better than you and will always beat you (“I said I’d do it and I did! Yes!”).

Daniel Bryan—the cocky, plucky, never-say-die-but-also-never-say-anything-nice underdog.  People hate him because he’s chauvinistic, underhanded, and cocky; people love him because he’s a feel-good story and was once just like them. He’s the American Dream, except he made it and now is rubbing your face in it.

While his current feud with CM Punk has the potential to be fantastic, Daniel Bryan’s most logical feud is with John Cena. Daniel Bryan is the bizarre-Cena – they both get a heavy mix of cheers and boos, but Cena is the face and Bryan is the heel. Daniel Bryan made it through the indies, worked his way up for years and years, and finally made it to the big time. Cena comes from a middle-class hometown in Massachusetts; his father (“Mr. Cena” aka Johnny Fabulous) is a big-shot on the indie scene; Cena has gotten the superman push and the movies and the TV spots and the Make-a-Wish requests.

What people seem to misunderstand about John Cena is that people don’t think that “Cena Sucks” because he’s repetitive and lacks a dynamic move set.  Both of those things are true, but it’s been true of a lot of champions in the past. What makes people hate John Cena is that he sold out. He’s a good-looking, fortunate son who—while he did once pay his dues in the undercard and created an original and entertaining rapper gimmick—has gotten the lion’s share of the attention from Vince McMahon and Creative.

People don’t want to see the golden boy anymore. The economy is still terrible. People are scratching and clawing to survive. People don’t want to see someone show up, do five moves, win matches, and cut promos about how much of a warrior he is. Daniel Bryan, on the other hand, is what we all want to be in society today. We know what it’s like to struggle; so too has Daniel Bryan struggled. But he made it. And now that he’s made it, he’ll never let you forget it. He has mastered the underdog role and he has made us boo him for rubbing it in.

He’s original, he’s interesting, and he’s here to stay.

Yes!