I wanted to touch on a bit of news today that most of you would probably not see or care about if you did. But which I think is a direct result of Linda McMahon's doomed and comical run for the US Senate. Friday evening one of the greatest workers in his profession lost his job so that Linda doesn't have to answer one more uncomfortable question. I'm speaking of "The American Dragon" Bryan Danielson. And after the fold, I'll tell you why it isn't right that he is unemployed today.
To start off, tonight at 9pm I could be made to look like a complete fool. This is pro wrestling. It could all be part of a storyline and I'm making hay of nothing. However, seeing as every reputable website on the subject (prowrestling.net, pwtorch.com, Dave Meltzer, etc.) are reporting this as actual we'll go on that assumption.
So I should probably right off the bat concede that I'm a pro wrestling fan. Before you immediately reduce my expected IQ to 13 I would like to say that what Vince & Linda put on TV these days is not my cup of tea. The only company today that even comes close to what I'm a fan of is Ring of Honor. When I think of a great pro wrestling match, I think of Ric Flair vs Ricky Steamboat...not a Hulk Hogan leg drop.
The man we're talking about today, Bryan Danielson, is pretty widely held as one of the greatest professional wrestlers alive today. Just in the past year he finally got his big break to make some money in WWE, after toiling for ten years in Ring of Honor and Japan. He lost his job because he pretended to choke someone with their tie on national TV.
See, when Chris Benoit gave in to the dementia that came from a thousand unprotected chair shots to the head and a few thousand "flying head butts" he ended the life of his wife and child by choking them to death. And it just so happened that his "finishing maneuver" was called the "Crippler Crossface" and was a choke hold. After the tragedy WWE had so many things to explain for (steroids, lack of concussion testing, inhumane schedule of their performers, etc.) that they decided to ban any of their wrestlers ever using a choke with a "foreign object". Lest the media put **that** picture on the nightly news.
This of course wasn't well applied across the board. If you were a top performer, you could get away with it. One Chris Jericho was just on TV seven months ago choking with a cable cord. But apparently for most it's a big no no.
Fast forward to last Monday night and Bryan, under his WWE Corporate name of Daniel Bryan, was sent out to the ring with seven other "rookies" for the biggest night of his life. He was a part of a new NXT "rookie" stable that was in the process of beating up the marquee star of the company, John Cena. In a wild melee that included announcers being assaulted, ring crew being assaulted, and so on Daniel Bryan accidentally pretended to choke a ring announcer with his own tie while the victim made pretend cartoonish choke eyes. Less than a week later, despite playing said video again and again on all of their tv shows, the "Best In The World" (another moniker that Bryan was known by) was unemployed.
I may be wrong, maybe he just broke an important company protocol and it has nothing to do with politics. But with Linda McMahon having to constantly address things like steroids and their wellness system and so on, I think there is a direct link. Linda didn't want to have to explain why there is no real link between a madman choking a child to death and a performance artist pretending to do so as part of theater. It's much easier if it comes up to proudly state that such things won't be accepted and the performer was fired.
Not right, and I really hope some interviewers take her to task for why this happened. Why a clean living vegan who prefers to read books to watching TV has to worry about how he'll provide for his family for just trying to do his job well. All so Linda can try her damnedest to buy herself a Senate seat. A hopeless fools challenge which will end in nothing but wasted money. And if the right thing isn't done, perhaps a wasted career for Bryan Danielson.