Who do you think wins the Royal Rumble now?

[VaderBomb]

Royal Rumble:
Daniel Bryan wins the Royal Rumble.

WrestleMania:
Daniel Bryan def. Brock Lesnar for WWE World Heavyweight Championship
Roman Reigns def. Rusev

Payback:
Seth Rollins cashes in on Daniel Bryan to win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship

Money in the Bank:
Seth Rollins def. Daniel Bryan to retain the WWE World Heavyweight Championship
Roman Reigns wins Money in the Bank

SummerSlam:
Roman Reigns def. Seth Rollins to win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship

There, does it get any better than that? Everyone comes out of this happy. Bryan topples Lesnar and wins back the title he never lost. Reigns is afforded more time to get over and improve on the microphone while being the one to topple Rusev in what would be a solid WrestleMania match along with a MITB win. Seth Rollins goes over Bryan and cashes the briefcase in, which is key here. Reigns should not lose the title 2 months after he wins it but with Rollins having MITB, it would kind of need to happen. Bryan can afford to lose the title that quickly because he's already won it in the past. And Reigns taking the title off Rollins would be probably the best decision for the WWE to make.

I would be cool with this with the only downside being that Bryan has yet another short reign. I want to see him with a reign that surpasses Punk's. The reality is that Rollins holds MITB and deserves to be World Champion right now as well as Bryan.

So yeah, this would be much better than the filth that Reigns/Lesnar would be. That's a match that should never happen.

[Hanley!]

I would be cool with this with the only downside being that Bryan has yet another short reign. I want to see him with a reign that surpasses Punk's.

I'm looking forward to a proper Bryan title reign too, but there's no way it should be that long. It's tough to make one title reign compelling for over a year. WWE tried it twice in recent years, with Punk & Cena. Both reigns became insufferable. And I love Punk, but near the end of that reign he was fighting nobodies like Ryback. And he was rarely in the main event anyway.

On top of that, Bryan isn't Punk. He's better in the ring, and hugely over at the moment, but without Punk's level of mic skills, it's harder to stay over as the top guy for that long. And as a more sympathetic character, Bryan is always going to be more compelling when he's chasing. I wouldn't give him longer than a 6 month title reign. Though provided he stays healthy, he could enjoy more than one run over the next few years.

Finally, there are just too many guys breaking at the moment, and WWE needs to establish these new main eventers badly. Keeping the belt on Bryan for ages would prevent guys like Rollins, Ziggler, Ambrose and Reigns from reaching that main event spot too, and we need a more crowded main event scene in the WWE pretty desperately right now.

[VaderBomb]

I would be cool with this with the only downside being that Bryan has yet another short reign. I want to see him with a reign that surpasses Punk's.

I'm looking forward to a proper Bryan title reign too, but there's no way it should be that long. It's tough to make one title reign compelling for over a year. WWE tried it twice in recent years, with Punk & Cena. Both reigns became insufferable. And I love Punk, but near the end of that reign he was fighting nobodies like Ryback. And he was rarely in the main event anyway.

On top of that, Bryan isn't Punk. He's better in the ring, and hugely over at the moment, but without Punk's level of mic skills, it's harder to stay over as the top guy for that long. And as a more sympathetic character, Bryan is always going to be more compelling when he's chasing. I wouldn't give him longer than a 6 month title reign. Though provided he stays healthy, he could enjoy more than one run over the next few years.

Finally, there are just too many guys breaking at the moment, and WWE needs to establish these new main eventers badly. Keeping the belt on Bryan for ages would prevent guys like Rollins, Ziggler, Ambrose and Reigns from reaching that main event spot too, and we need a more crowded main event scene in the WWE pretty desperately right now.

Granted, WWE and ROH are completely different companies considering passion, presentation and politics but Bryan has proven to shine with long reigns. His ROH World Championship reign lasted 462 days with 38 successful defenses.

I'd have faith in Bryan to pull off a better long reign than even Punk. Bryan, like Punk (within a single reign) can change his look and attitude multiple times without coming across as contrived. He's done it before, and as long as WWE doesn't fuck around with it too bad, he could potentially have the most interesting and entertaining world championship reign ever.

I agree on the third paragraph completely and that's why I doubt that he'd have a super long reign at this point.

[KaiserGlider]

I would be cool with this with the only downside being that Bryan has yet another short reign. I want to see him with a reign that surpasses Punk's.

I'm looking forward to a proper Bryan title reign too, but there's no way it should be that long. It's tough to make one title reign compelling for over a year. WWE tried it twice in recent years, with Punk & Cena. Both reigns became insufferable. And I love Punk, but near the end of that reign he was fighting nobodies like Ryback. And he was rarely in the main event anyway.

Ryack was actually really over when he fought Punk, I don't think it's fair to dismiss him as a nobody. I enjoyed Punk's reign overall, probably because he was able to revitalize it when he turned heel halfway through. The babyface portion of his reign wasn't as good. We're definitely in agreement that Bryan shouldn't have a reign that long, unless he undergoes some character changes. He's too bland at the moment to make a reign that long work.

[Hanley!]

^^ I actually stopped watching WWE for quite a while, during Punk's reign. Because the reign wasn't very good and television wasn't either. I think people ended up being hyped up for the reign just because they liked Punk so much, and he was my favourite at that time too. But they didn't use him well.

Ryback was over enough at the time, but a guy's first feud shouldn't be against the WWE champion. I found that ridiculous. He wasn't that over, nor was he polished enough and the feud seemed pretty naff (I was already on the way out around then). Some of his other feuds at the time were quite bad too. The Jericho stuff was awful. I thought Punk's heel turn was very forced too (even though he plays a good heel). Plus he wasn't even in the main event half the time. Often he was playing second fiddle to some seriously terrible Cena feuds.

Granted, WWE and ROH are completely different companies considering passion, presentation and politics but Bryan has proven to shine with long reigns. His ROH World Championship reign lasted 462 days with 38 successful defenses.

Yeah, I don't doubt that as a performer he could make a good long term champion, but WWE isn't ROH in terms of booking and for that matter Daniel Bryan isn't the same as Brian Danielson. The companies and the characters are markedly different and I don't think the WWE would be able to make it work.

It's rare that we get a character that should/could hold the title for over a year anyway.

[Str8Shooter]

WWE is never going to book a smaller guy like Bryan as a long term champion like Punk was. Their booking philosophy has almost always been to have the babyface chasing the heel champion if they can do it. The main exception to that is Cena of course.

They don't see Bryan as that type of guy, I definitely see him being champion again, maybe multiple times. But I doubt any of those reigns get to even 6 months. They think people want to see the underdog Bryan fighting all odds to get the title, not running through challengers.

[Messiah]

Just listened to Reigns' promo from last night, yeah Roman Reigns cannot win this Rumble. I love the guy and his potential / natural charisma and I'm happy that he has gotten much better in the ring (which doesn't surprise me - he is quite athletic) but his talking skills are miserable. I can't imagine a scenario where a Reigns / Lesnar feud didn't end in disaster because when you consider Lesnar won't be there for every show, the story will be dependent on Reigns being able to properly hype the match up on the microphone and he just isn't capable of that, especially since he will be across from Paul Heyman in a lot of segments. Not that Daniel Bryan is the best talker himself, although I enjoy his promos personally, but you can make an easy story out of it. David vs Goliath, Bryan never lost the title.

It was a lot better when they portrayed Reigns as just an ass-kicking machine. So I don't put all the blame on him, because like I said I love the guy and think he will be World Champion material soon enough. WWE needs to do a much better job hiding his weaknesses. Some of the stuff they have him say just sounds so damn cartoonish and even Cena, who happens to be a great talker with the right material, can't even make that work in this day and age.

[VaderBomb]

Just listened to Reigns' promo from last night, yeah Roman Reigns cannot win this Rumble. I love the guy and his potential / natural charisma and I'm happy that he has gotten much better in the ring (which doesn't surprise me - he is quite athletic) but his talking skills are miserable. I can't imagine a scenario where a Reigns / Lesnar feud didn't end in disaster because when you consider Lesnar won't be there for every show, the story will be dependent on Reigns being able to properly hype the match up on the microphone and he just isn't capable of that, especially since he will be across from Paul Heyman in a lot of segments. Not that Daniel Bryan is the best talker himself, although I enjoy his promos personally, but you can make an easy story out of it. David vs Goliath, Bryan never lost the title.

It was a lot better when they portrayed Reigns as just an ass-kicking machine. So I don't put all the blame on him, because like I said I love the guy and think he will be World Champion material soon enough. WWE needs to do a much better job hiding his weaknesses. Some of the stuff they have him say just sounds so damn cartoonish and even Cena, who happens to be a great talker with the right material, can't even make that work in this day and age.

Exactamundo.

[Hanley!]

Just listened to Reigns' promo from last night, yeah Roman Reigns cannot win this Rumble. I love the guy and his potential / natural charisma and I'm happy that he has gotten much better in the ring (which doesn't surprise me - he is quite athletic) but his talking skills are miserable.

I agree that Reigns isn't great on the mic and needs a lot of work in that department, but after watching his last few promos I don't think that's the biggest issue. The biggest issue is whoever is writing this shit for him. Jesus, CM Punk couldn't say this stuff and make it work. Paul Heyman couldn't do it. On Smackdown he was using terms like "donkey dung" and “suffering succotash”. I mean, fucking hell. Who thinks this is going to get him over? It feels like someone on the writing staff is playing a rib on him.

I know guys like Ambrose and Wyatt have been suffering from this too, but Reigns is getting it worse than anyone. Just let his promos be short and sweet and badass. They did this exact thing with Batista in 2005 and it worked fantastically. And he wasn't a great talker either. He probably wasn't any better than Reigns. Have they really lost touch that badly over the last 10 years?

That was hypothetical by the way, they obviously have.

[CubsIn5]

Also, a Rollins/Bryan feud would be fucking GENIUS.

If I may....from the last time they met

[PorkChop]

Just listened to Reigns' promo from last night, yeah Roman Reigns cannot win this Rumble. I love the guy and his potential / natural charisma and I'm happy that he has gotten much better in the ring (which doesn't surprise me - he is quite athletic) but his talking skills are miserable.

I agree that Reigns isn't great on the mic and needs a lot of work in that department, but after watching his last few promos I don't think that's the biggest issue. The biggest issue is whoever is writing this shit for him. Jesus, CM Punk couldn't say this stuff and make it work. Paul Heyman couldn't do it. On Smackdown he was using terms like "donkey dung" and “suffering succotash”. I mean, fucking hell. Who thinks this is going to get him over? It feels like someone on the writing staff is playing a rib on him.

I know guys like Ambrose and Wyatt have been suffering from this too, but Reigns is getting it worse than anyone. Just let his promos be short and sweet and badass. They did this exact thing with Batista in 2005 and it worked fantastically. And he wasn't a great talker either. He probably wasn't any better than Reigns. Have they really lost touch that badly over the last 10 years?

That was hypothetical by the way, they obviously have.

Meltzer on Reigns' promos:

https://mobile.twitter.com/davemeltzerW ... 6242528256