Daniel Bryan Is Biggest X-Factor in Royal Rumble WWE Championship Match
As much as AJ Styles or the two heels set to collide with him at the Royal Rumble, Daniel Bryan has been at the center of the unfolding WWE Championship story.
The SmackDown general manager's strained relationship with Commissioner Shane McMahon as well as his recent decisions regarding Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens point to him greatly impacting the upcoming WWE title bout. Bryan isn't a figure on the periphery. He's a key player in SmackDown's main event scene.
On Tuesday's SmackDown, Zayn defeated Styles in non-title action.
.jpg?w=256)
The result came about via the confusion swirling around the ring. McMahon ejected Owens from ringside. Bryan threatened to throw out McMahon. The tense moments that followed allowed Zayn to pounce on the WWE titleholder and steal the win.
Bryan then announced that Styles would defend his championship at the Royal Rumble pay-per-view on Jan. 28 against both Owens and Zayn in a handicap match.
A good number of the questions to emerge after that call focused on Bryan. Is the GM in cahoots with KO and Zayn? Is WWE really thinking of turning him heel? Where is all this tension with McMahon leading?
That first item gives the WWE Championship bout an added dimension.
Much like Bryan, Owens and Zayn are well-traveled, unconventional wrestlers who cut their teeth on the independent scene. It's easy to see why there would be kinship there.
The GM has claimed to be impartial but has now stepped up to defend the heels a few times. When McMahon wanted to fire them weeks away, Bryan convinced him otherwise. And now despite antagonizing the show's authority figures and being lying, cheating scoundrels, he rewarded the duo with a PPV title shot.
One has to wonder if there isn't some grand scheme in the works where Bryan ousts McMahon from power or forms a faction with Owens and Zayn.
Uncertainty aplenty lingers ahead of the title bout. Bryan and McMahon's recent bickering and power struggle would normally suggest a match between them is in the works, but the GM isn't medically cleared to compete. It's not obvious what the long-term goal is for all this.
Tim Fiorvanti of ESPN.com wrote: "To date, the pair has swung from hot to cold, and friendly to angry without much sense of direction and it's given us little sense of where this storyline between all of them is going."
Heading into the Royal Rumble, the audience will be expecting answers.
The blue brand has focused on its authority figures for weeks. The GM and commissioner have opened and closed the show several times over. The payoff has to be on its way.
If it's a great one, this will all be well worth it.
Still, it's strange that heading into a WWE Championship match featuring the company's top in-ring performer and two well-liked stars, so much of the talk promises to be about the guy in charge. The spotlight has zeroed in on Bryan. And it may soon illuminate the knife he's set to stab McMahon in the back with.
As Styles tries to fend off both Owens and Zayn, one won't be able to help but keep looking over at Bryan, waiting to see what imprint he leaves on the bout.
.jpg?w=480)
