Bryan/Gulak! On Pay-Per-View!

Daniel Bryan v Drew Gulak (Elimination Chamber, 3/8/20)

What a cool little match. When I heard these two were getting a run out together on PPV I was hoping for something a bit outside the box, and for a WWE PPV this was very much outside the box. It was rough and niggly and uncooperative and nothing like anything else on the card, which I actually ended up watching almost in its entirety. At this point everything the company does feels rehearsed and hardly anything comes off as being properly organic. Liv Morgan about got her head whipped through Plexiglas on this show and it seemed less brutal than a few of these elbows. Right from the start it felt like two guys actually fighting over holds and jockeying for positions and none of it looked like they'd planned it out to the letter beforehand. Those kicks when they were fighting over the kneebar ruled, the way they laid them all in and continued to lay everything in from there. Gulak was awesome in this and in a just world it'd lead to an actual series of matches between them with logical progression and they'd maybe get twenty minutes at 'Mania to stretch the life out each other. His neck work on Bryan was so great, the mini-piledriver to start it, the nasty cravates, the hangman's neckbreaker where he spun around like he was trying to pop Bryan's head off, all of it. Obviously Bryan sold it all great and I like that was clearly taken aback by how Gulak was dishing out so much abuse. I don't know if he intended to take the German suplex the way he did or undershot a flip, but I wouldn't be surprised given his track record and holy christ did he go full Kobashi with that. Maybe the teased countout was too perfect for it to have been an ad lib. Bryan rolling out some big bombs of his own was cool too. I barely watch any WWE these days, but it feels like it's been ages since he hit a dragon suplex and that was one of the meanest Yes Locks I've seen. Give these two the Benoit/Angle Workrate spot and let them do whatever the hell they want. Or maybe not WHATEVER they want in case Bryan ends up shelved for another four years, but at least let them push the boat out. Or just let them do this again, I guess. I'd be more than happy.