If professional wrestling is an art, Daniel Bryan is the master of his generation

Welcome, Daniel Bryan.

He's back on the WWE active player list since WrestleMania, but Daniel Bryan's second act as a major wrestling star has been largely disappointing until last week. He was treated as a cast member in his first game, a long-awaited feud with The Miz, who did not really motivate, after an outstanding week, and Bryan had not really had any big game since his return. The good news is that this apparently has nothing to do with the health problems that had already brought him to retirement. It was simply a mistake committed by the WWE: Bryan did not have good scenarios and the best of them were regularly knelt down. It was becoming increasingly frustrating to see such a brilliant performer – an all-time talent as a wrestler in the ring and a very good speaker – which made him so stifled even more. Bryan was well known for his experimental stories outside the WWE, but he seemed stuck with no story to tell.

In any case, it's over now. Bryan is back and that's fine.

As part of a last minute reshuffle at the 32nd WWE Survivor Series on Sunday, Bryan won the A.J. Modes WWE Champion title. This match in itself was quite fun, but the one set up for Bryan was more alluring: a champion champion fight with champion Universal Brock Lesnar. This is a match that fans have been demanding for years, especially once they have been announced for the 2014 SummerSlam season, before Bryan is sidelined by a neck injury.

In retrospect, it was probably better to wait. This SummerSlam was in the middle of Brock Lesnar's rehabilitation tour, when years of bad creations after the return were being canceled to make Brock the big monster of the company. John Cena took over Bryan's role in this process, in keeping with the original plan: to silence him dominantly before Lesnar won the world title, which was previously Bryan's. Since Bryan's return, Lesnar and him have been part of separate Raw and SmackDown lineups, leaving the undefeated game against the now-annual Survivor Series champion as the only clever way to make this dream match a reality. reality WrestleMania scenario.

However, there is one factor that complicates things: most of Lesnar's matches are a bit useless nowadays. When he delivers, it is either thanks to shortcuts (blood, weapons, quick matches, etc.), or it is part of the ring with one of the best wrestling storytellers in the world. His recent good matches with The Undertaker and Bill Goldberg were the first type of success, his Survivor Series match a year ago against Styles was the latter. The relative lameness of Lesnar does not matter against Bryan. Revived by the victory of the title and a sudden nasty turn, from Tuesday evening SmackDown LiveBryan apparently found clarity / was driven crazy by too much time spent in a hyperbaric chamber – Bryan not only brought the necessary visceral excitement, although he did. He has also delivered Daniel Bryan's first real game for years.

When Bryan imposed himself as the best wrestler in the world on the independent scene in the mid-to-late 2000s, under his real name of Bryan Danielson, he made a point of telling his story differently from all the others. Especially once he became ring of honor champion in 2005, his matches were just as likely to end suddenly as during his characteristic moves. One night he would have a series of elaborate faux finishes, but would catch a quick cradle the next day to face another challenger or would then go on to a series of sudden strikes. This approach recognizes that wrestling is a fundamental part of wrestling, a form that remains, however, often neglected: a wrestler who can win in multiple ways also has multiple ways to make a match spectacular.

The best wrestlers can do it; just look at how much A.J. The matches for the WWE of Styles bring him four distinct and well-established finishes. Daniel Bryan's best games are like that, but since he's not often so brilliant, there's more and more danger for any new moves that he might break out. His ROH title defense against KENTA in 2006 (now Hideo Itami in the WWE) is still one of the biggest matches I have ever seen in concert, largely because of the way his story was punctuated. . The public loses all sense of thinking that it is ahead of the performers. At a time when overwork is excessive, Bryan never seems to want to just go beyond his last blow with something bigger. It just seems like he's trying to win the fight he's been in.

In the WWE, one of Bryan's best games was his title win against John Cena at SummerSlam 2013. Despite the very different As a dance partner, this SummerSlam match looks strangely more like its classic against KENTA than anything Bryan did for WWE. Cena is perhaps Cena, a jaw-dropping, jaw-dropping bodybuilder who works in a very entertaining but very WWE-based style. worked a very physical, non-WWE style. And as it was Bryan, the finish allowed him to beat Cena cleanly, with a fresh start – KENTA's former Buisaku Knee Kick – that he had literally never used in the promotion. And because Bryan, you know, beat John Cena with it, it instantly became one of the most protected and protected movements in WWE.

But back to Bryan and Lesnar Sunday night. The first half of the match was inevitably like every Brock Lesnar match. Lesnar defeated Bryan, throwing him too high and too vertically on some suplexes before straightening the bumps and showing the crowd that he was playing with his food. Instead of letting the referee count, Lesnar would take Bryan back in his place and continue the blows. It's an old trope, but it was enough to make it clear that this match was not about to end and prevent it from taking on the same tired and demoralizing aspect of a typical Lesnar squash match. . When Brock finally decided to put Bryan out of his misery, he found himself sloppy, trying to get his F5 finisher closer to the referee and knock him out. Bryan then seized the opportunity to give Brock an impetus. From there, the match rolled.

Bryan trampled Lesnar. He kicked out of the animal's legs. When the tallest man regains signs of life, Bryan would urge him to continue and dodge, causing him to crush and burn him. Bryan was technically a villain and a violent and convincing sting, but he still did it all in a way clearly designed to root you. It's an incredibly hard line to ride and it made it work. When Brock made him go up again for the F5 … only to collapse in Bryan's Yes Lock because his leg had been chewed, work. That turned the usual relentless inevitability of Lesnar into something wilder and more surprising: you immediately thought that DANIEL BRYAN could get the call from BROCK LESNAR.

(It is also, to be quite right, a testimony of Lesnar's brilliant ability to give his opponents a good look, which is a limiting genius when he decides to do so.)

Unlike most of Lesnar's matches, however, when Brock put himself to the test and finally hit the F5 for the win, he did not feel like an anticlimactic bullshit. He felt completely won. Both wrestlers did their job brilliantly. Each raised the other.

There are a lot of great professional wrestlers these days. Many of them are really smart, and many are better athletes than pro beat, a two decades pro pro who shared the ring with Brock Lesnar on Sunday. But match for match and moment for moment, there is still only one Bryan Danielson, and he is the absolute and undisputed genius of the professional wrestling of his generation. After the last five years, where he has become the biggest unexpected star in the fight, but whose life has been brutally and depressingly taken from him, Bryan deserves all the recognition he can get. He is back and we should cherish him as long as we have him.

David Bixenspan is a freelance writer from Brooklyn, NY, who co-hosts the Between The Sheets podcast every Monday at BetweenTheSheetsPod.com and everywhere else where podcasts are available. You can follow him on Twitter at @davidbix and see his portfolio at Clippings.me/davidbix.