Heyman's plan for Danielson if both signed to TNA last year

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More Of Paul Heyman's TNA Plans Revealed - This One Involving Bryan Danielson/Daniel Bryan
by Gabe Sapolsky on Monday, June 20, 2011 at 5:50pm
You might have heard the new Paul Heyman interview from over the weekend where he revealed some of his plans if he went to TNA last summer, particularly with younger, new talent. I'll add something to that involving the man now known as Daniel Bryan in WWE. I was in the loop with Heyman about going to TNA. Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't about to give up Dragon Gate USA and EVOLVE, which are both very close to my heart, but I was going to figure out a way to possibly be involved with everything and even possibly tie in DGUSA and EVOLVE, but that's another subject for another time and was a long, long way from happening.

In the middle of all the TNA/Heyman talks, Bryan Danielson was fired by WWE last June. After Bryan called me, I immediately called Heyman and in just a little while Paul had a brilliant plan to make Bryan a star in TNA. It was a four parter:

1) Have Bryan debut a new submission and tap out EVERYONE in under a minute.

2) At the same time introduce a new, huge monster with a new high impact move and have him beat everyone quickly. I'm thinking Goldberg meets 911 here.

3) After 3-6 months, have Bryan and the monster collide and have Bryan tap him out in under a minute. This puts over the submission and Bryan like a million bucks. Have Bryan continue tapping people out. After a year or so, Bryan cuts a promo saying "I've tapped out everyone in this company..."

4) This all leads to Kurt Angle, after one year, coming out and confronting Bryan saying that he never tapped him out and that TNA is Angle's company. Bryan vs. Angle is on! Tell me that wouldn't sell some PPVs with that build up.

Instead, we were fortunate to have Bryan Danielson/Daniel Bryan for a nice run in both DGUSA and EVOLVE. He gave us some great matches in DGUSA against Shingo at "Enter The Dragon", YAMATO at "Untouchable 2010" and recent WWE signing Jon Moxley at "Way Of The Ronin". We happen to have just started a www.DGUSA.tv Weekly Special where all these DVDs are 25% off. Trust me, all these are worth going out of your way to see, especially if you are a Bryan fan.

We also had Bryan on two EVOLVE events before he returned full-time to WWE. He had hard-hitting, brutal matches against Bobby Fish at EVOLVE 4 and Munenori Sawa at EVOLVE 5. You can get both these DVDs at www.EVOLVEwrestling.com for just $25. Again, these are a must see, especially for all Bryan fans.

I don't know if Bryan would have signed with TNA, but I do think there was a window in June/early July of last year where he probably would have if Heyman and I went there. Now the window on everyone is slammed shut. Just another "what could have been.

Wasnt sure whether to make a thread for this or put it in the TNA thread. But it is kinda fantasy booking.

Obviously very MMA based. It is also worth noting that Heyman fought and fought for Punk to tap out Lashley to win the ECW title at December to Dismember when Punk was a midcarder. Also he was a strong advocate of Kurt Angle tapping dudes clean from early 2001 on. Then finally you have Taz in ECW choking people out.

Instead of Heyman's idea we got vegan/virgin comedy :rolleyes:

flahavaj

Still wouldn't have sold any PPVs tbh.

Mr. Guappa

Why waste the talent of Danielson in 60 second matches for 6 months?

wrestlefan101

yea it does seem like this idea would have done wonders for danielson and angle but every1 else would be buried

parker kent

Mr. Guappa wrote: »

Why waste the talent of Danielson in 60 second matches for 6 months?

You could say the same about a lot of his Raw and Smackdown matches. Heyman would put Danielson at the very top of any company he is involved in. This sounds like something different and it might have created some buzz. Goldberg got over with a long run of short matches.

flahavaj wrote: »

Still wouldn't have sold any PPVs tbh.

Long term planning. Any wrestling organisation should be looking to build long-term and build sustainable increases in their audience. This sounds like it may have been one element of that. You shouldn't bow to PPV figures in the short term. Sure it wasn't going to get PPV figures through the roof immediately, but TNA need to build a sustainable fan base first.

flahavaj

parker kent wrote: »

Long term planning. Any wrestling organisation should be looking to build long-term and build sustainable increases in their audience. This sounds like it may have been one element of that. You shouldn't bow to PPV figures in the short term. Sure it wasn't going to get PPV figures through the roof immediately, but TNA need to build a sustainable fan base first.

I don't disagree with any of that. My comment was in relation to Sapolsky's comment above - "Don't tell me that wouldn't shift some PPV's." No it wouldn't, not straight away.

I also think the fanbase that would be into that kind of storyline is smaller than people realise, smarks are a small niche group as ROH and their attendances/PPV butys can testify.

parker kent

flahavaj wrote: »

I don't disagree with any of that. My comment was in relation to Sapolsky's comment above - "Don't tell me that wouldn't shift some PPV's." No it wouldn't, not straight away.

I also think the fanbase that would be into that kind of storyline is smaller than people realise, smarks are a small niche group as ROH and their attendances/PPV butys can testify.

I'm not saying there is a massive fan base for that. I'm just saying it would have been an excellent building point in conjunction with a lot of other stuff. I think Heyman knows how to build from a low base and get mass attention. You get the smart fans on board and build from there. It is not as if TNA has a massive audience in the USA anyway. You may as well create a solid, stable base of PPV buying fans before expanding.

ECW had the potential to go properly national had there been somebody with a financial brain on board or a sugar daddy type around.

rossie1977

parker kent wrote: »

Goldberg got over with a long run of short matches.

goldberg got over with that gimmick because he was a big athletic monster guy (6'3 270lb) coming straight off the nfl field, goldberg also had incredible intensity (which bryan doesn't have) to go with his fantastic look so people bought into the gimmick easily just as they bought into brock lesnars 2002 wwe run

parker kent

rossie1977 wrote: »

goldberg got over with that gimmick because he was a big athletic monster guy (6'3 270lb) coming straight off the nfl field, goldberg also had incredible intensity (which bryan doesn't have) to go with his fantastic look so people bought into the gimmick easily just as they bought into brock lesnars 2002 wwe run

Taz got over with a similar gimmick. You don't have to be a big monster for it to work. Obviously there would be differences in how they book the matches. Good booking would make it a believable angle. All you have to do is get across than Danielson is a dangerous submission wrestler.

Not every gimmick has to match previous gimmicks. I just mentioned Goldberg as proof that unbeaten runs with short matches can be successful.

rossie1977

taz in his ecw days had about 80-100lb on bryan as of today though and ecw fans very certainly far from happy with heymans booking when taz choked out paul varelans in about a minute

bryan going in there and easily beating the likes of matt morgan and abyss in under a minute, sorry but there is only so much a fan will believe

gimmick

Sound enough thoughts, but the under 60 seconds thing would not get fans behind him, as they would never be able to connect with him in the ring. I would be all for the submission specialist gimmick, but just not as Heyman suggested.

As for comparing to previous gimmicks, lightning never strikes the same way twice. You have to create the new lightning and that is what heyman obviously had in mind..

parker kent

rossie1977 wrote: »

taz in his ecw days had about 80-100lb on bryan as of today though and ecw fans very certainly far from happy with heymans booking when taz choked out paul varelans in about a minute

bryan going in there and easily beating the likes of matt morgan and abyss in under a minute, sorry but there is only so much a fan will believe

If it was well done (note: well done), fans would buy into anything. It would require effort to ensure that fans bought into Danielson as a dangerous submission wrestler, so dangerous that size doesn't matter.

Taz choking out Paul Varelans was not wholly unliked. Besides it is extremely unfair to pick out one element of a push that lasted a few years. Taz cannot be seen as anything other than a success in ECW.

drayme

wrestlefan101 wrote: »

buried

There is that word again.

Any I took it that Bryan would tap people in a minute ONCE the hold is locked on. None of the prolonged reach for the ropes BS.

parker kent

gimmick wrote: »

Sound enough thoughts, but the under 60 seconds thing would not get fans behind him, as they would never be able to connect with him in the ring. I would be all for the submission specialist gimmick, but just not as Heyman suggested.

That's also important to note. This is still just an idea in Heyman's head. It probably doesn't represent what would actually have appeared on screen. They'd probably slowly increase the length of his matches.

As for comparing to previous gimmicks, lightning never strikes the same way twice. You have to create the new lightning and that is what heyman obviously had in mind..

I totally agree. Mentioning Goldberg was just used to show that matches don't have to be very long to get somebody over. There is something in leaving fans wanting more. But that was what I referred to earlier when I said not every gimmick has to match previous gimmicks. You can just use one previous angle for inspiration and match it to a different wrestler.