Daniel Bryan may be one of the most over wrestlers on the entire WWE roster right now but he was still put in the unenviable position of having to follow CM Punk's return match against Chris Jericho, which he won, and go on just before the main event 3 Stages of Hell WWE championship match between John Cena and Ryback at tonight's (Sun., June 16, 2013) Payback pay-per-view (PPV) at the Allstate Arena in Chicago, Illinois.
Not only that, Bryan and his tag partner, Randy Orton, were given less time than they likely would have otherwise had for their match against The Shield (Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns) with the tag team titles on the line.
It didn't matter, though, because they went out and had a damn good match anyway, one that saw Bryan once again accidentally end up hitting his partner, Orton, this time with a suicide dive. Orton returned the favor by pushing Bryan in front of a spear before hitting Reigns with an RKO before Rollins pushed him out of the ring and hit Bryan with his finisher, an insanely awesome head stomp.
So Bryan took the pinfall loss, The Shield retained the titles, and Orton continued being frustrated at the entire situation.
Sounds about right.
For complete WWE Payback results and coverage of every match on the card click here.