After the Randy Orton and Daniel Bryan feud lasted three pay-per-views through matches at Night of Champions, Battleground and Hell in a Cell, it has been tossed aside as Orton has entered Triple H's storyline with The Big Show, and will take on the big man at WWE Survivor Series, but backstage news has revealed why Bryan has been pushed out of the WWE title picture.
Despite the fact that Bryan has a great following and can get the entire crowd to chant "YES!" with him, the WWE thought it was time to move on from Bryan as a No.1 contender for the WWE Championship because the company brass believes he is too small in stature and it was time to push larger athletes--such as the Big Show--because the company has perceived that it's what the fans want to see.
Wrestlingheadlines.com reports that the WWE's pay-per-view buy rates have been down starting with August's SummerSlam pay-per-view which featured Daniel Bryan and John Cena in the main event for the title, and the company seems to be blaming Bryan for the lack of PPV buys. The site reports that upper management believes Bryan isn't a larger-than-life wrestler and that's what the fans want.
WWE chairman Vince McMahon has always been a proponent of pushing bigger athletes, and the fact that the pay-per-view buys have been down has given him enough of a reason to push Bryan down on the card and elevate Big Show.
While Bryan being in the main event is the perceived excuse for low buy rates, the WWE has also scrunched a bunch of pay-per-views together as they had Night of Champions on Sept. 15 before producing two pay-per-views in October as Battleground took place just three weeks later on Oct. 6 and Hell in a Cell took place just three weeks after that on Oct. 27.
It will be interesting to see if the Survivor Series, which takes place on Nov. 24, just three weeks after Hell in a Cell, will have a spike in the buy rate with Big Show in the main event instead of Bryan. The WWE has launched four pay-per-views over the last three months in a span of just 10 weeks, which could also contribute to why the buy rates have been so low.
With Bryan out of the title picture, he will most likely be teaming with CM Punk in the midcard to take on Erick Rowan and Luke Harper in a standard tag match at Survivor Series. Wrestlingheadlines.com reported that there have been rumors of a new member joining Rowan, Harper and Bray Wyatt in the Wyatt family but McMahon has yet to sign off on it.
It was rumored that The Wyatt family and a fourth member might take on Punk, Bryan and two other superstars in a traditional Survivor Series elimination tag match, but recent reports have slated that it will just be a standard tag match and that there may not be any traditional matches this year.
The WWE will shift the focus onto bigger athletes, which is why Big Show has become the No.1 contender for the WWE title, while Harper and The Great Khali will begin to be more prominently featured on WWE programming.
WWE Survivor Series takes place on Nov. 24 from the TD Garden in Boston.
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