The Underdog Who Punched Upwards For This Historic WrestleMania Win

Though it's not always the case, WrestleMania usually involves one of its participants faced with a ton of obstacles, as they look to win one of the many World Championships atop the WWE pyramid. That makes sense; everyone loves an underdog after all, and they love it when the underdog has to overcome insurmountable odds to achieve their goal. And it's a formula WWE has used to great effect over the years, whether it was Hogan overcoming Andre, Shawn Michaels overcoming Bret Hart and 60+ minutes of grueling action, Steve Austin overcoming Vince McMahon. Of course, the similarity between all of those victories was that, while Hogan, Michaels, and Austin overcame, there was also very much a sense that they were chosen and that the promotion was happy to have strapped their rocket to them.

That was not entirely the case at WrestleMania XXX, however, when Daniel Bryan had one of the greatest feel-good moments in wrestling history. Like the aforementioned examples, Bryan had to overcome the odds. Unlike those, the deck was stacked even more. Hogan may have had to conquer Andre, but while Andre was the size of three men, he was still just one guy. Michaels may have had to wrestle sixty minutes, but he only had to wrestle once. Bryan? He wrestled twice, first opening the show by defeating Triple H to earn himself a World Title shot later in the show, then wrestling the champion, Randy Orton, and a fellow challenger, Batista. Oh, and he did it all while Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, playing their own version of Vince McMahon to Bryan's Austin, did everything they could to stop him. 

To be clear, all those storyline obstacles still made it pretty sweet when Bryan prevailed and held up two World Titles as he chanted "Yes!" with some 70,000 fans. But it was arguably made even sweeter by the fact that Bryan faced just as many, if not more, obstacles outside of the ring in order to get to this moment. As the years have gone by, fans have gotten a glimpse behind the curtain regarding WrestleMania XXX, and the big reveal has been that Bryan was never supposed to be the guy standing tall at the end of WrestleMania. In fact, his quest for the World Title was supposed to have concluded in the fall, with his third failure to beat Orton for the World Title leading him back to the upper mid-card, either feuding with Bray Wyatt all the way through WrestleMania or, as Bryan himself has suggested, facing Sheamus, who's 13 second defeat of Bryan at WrestleMania 28 was considered the catalyst to Bryan's rise two years earlier.

As late as the Royal Rumble, that all still seemed to be the plan, as Bryan lost to Wyatt, then wasn't in the Royal Rumble match, leading to enormous fan backlash as Batista emerged victorious. Today, it's believed that backlash, coupled with the walkout of CM Punk a day later, ultimately led to WWE switching course and giving Bryan the first of two major title victories on a massive stadium show. Regardless of the reason, Bryan's real-life road to WrestleMania mirrored his kayfabe one, and made his triumph at the "Showcase of the Immortals" a true underdog story, as opposed to ones like Hogan, Michaels, and Austin that, while historic in their own right, were in some ways manipulated and prepackaged.