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24th January 2019
09:36pm GMT
It is an angry young-ish man perfectly explaining the culture war that is tearing apart polite Western society.
Daniel Bryan is not the archetypical WWE wrestler, neither physically or ideologically. He is only 5ft 10, with facial hair more suited to being in Fleet Foxes than headlining Wrestlemania. He is also, in real life, a vegetarian non-drinker who endorsed Green Party candidate Jill Stein in 2016.
On Tuesday night's edition of SmackDown Live, he let loose with a remarkable verbal assault on WWE's 73-year-old owner.
https://twitter.com/orinanne/status/1087898915540746240
Vince, of course, you don’t want to listen to this. Because you, and the entire baby boomer generation, are the great parasites of this world.
You see, these people bowed down to you when you came out. But they don’t realise that you and your entire generation, you take, you take, you take, and you give nothing back.
Putting profits over both the people, and the planet, every single time.
And they bow to you for it. They bow to you for it!
It’s like you pulled this incredible magic trick, this illusion, where you’ve concealed from them all economic and environmental debt that you’ve created, and they’ve become satisfied with trading Instagram likes, and Facebook messages, and social media stuff.
All while you’re in the back, hoarding all the wealth, hoarding all the power.
And they ignore it.
This howl of anger felt more like something from a Momentum rally or Chapo Trap House, or at least the Twitter feed of a socially active millennial, than a sports-entertainment show that's soon to be broadcast on a FOX network. It is a rallying cry for an exasperated generation who will never own a house, have no job security, and will probably face a climate change apocalypse.
The thing is, though, in current WWE continuity, Daniel Bryan is meant to be the bad guy, the guy we're meant to boo.
His diminutive size means he has normally been cast as a scrappy underdog, but late last year he 'snapped', started kicking his opponents in the nuts - and bringing in his real-life politics, heckling the fans for their over-consumption and disrespect for the environment.
And the good guy in the current storyline? That's AJ Styles. He's rumoured to be a Flat-Earther. He's used gay slurs in the past. And just week, he appeared on "conservative comedian" Steven Crowder's web talkshow, where his interview was preceded by an commercial for a shirt that said "Socailism is for f*gs".
But it is important to remember, that in modern wrestling - especially WWE - the lines between good guys and bad guys are far more blurred than they used to be. John Cena, and later Roman Reigns, were both pushed heavily as clean-cut heroes, and routinely booed out of building across America. And someone like current favourite Becky Lynch only grew more fan support when the company tried to position her as a heel.
Also, here is Daniel Bryan saying he hopes his daughter kicks thousands of men in the nuts.
https://twitter.com/BossMoz/status/1070151028467630081Explore more on these topics:
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