If you missed Sunday’s WWE Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, here’s a spoiler you probably expected to read, especially if you’ve been paying attention the last six months: Daniel Bryan lost.
As per usual, he didn’t just lose, he lost via tons of unnecessarily complex cheating, including a run-in from the Wyatt Family, indirect interference from Kane, DIRECT interference from Kane and two RKOs. No matter what, Randy Orton is still the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, and it feels like every show in recent memory has ended with Bryan incapacitated, screwed out of a victory or totally absent from stories and matches that matter.
The constant feeling of disappointment and cries of “when are we gonna get to the Fireworks Factory” have become a plot point, and WWE drove that point home harder than ever after the Elimination Chamber match. Randy Orton walked away with both title belts held high as Bryan gasped around helplessly in the ring, and the camera cut to a sad person in the crowd. Then another. Then another. They just kept doing it. By the end of the show we’d seen about a dozen individuals with crushed souls, left standing around wondering why they keep giving money to a company that makes them feel like stupid jerks.
Here, painstakingly compiled, is a complete collection of disappointed faces from that moment. Warning: nihilistic sadness is at critical mass.
Wait, does that last one count?
