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Daniel Bryan on the Cusp of Being the Modern-Day Version of Magnum T.A

Posted: Nov 7th 2015 By: Ryan Dilbert - BleacherReport.com

Daniel Bryan has to hope that the comparisons to Magnum T.A. end at having a fervent fanbase and a penchant for churning out classic matches.

The bearded dynamo with an everyman aura currently spends his time with his hands in soil, tending a garden, unsure when he will ever strap on a pair of wrestling boots again. If concussions end up robbing him of his pro wrestling career, his narrative will share an unfortunate parallel with Magnum's.

The same question will always surround talk of either man: What could have been?

In the mid-80s, Magnum looked to be the NWA's answer to Hulk Hogan. Crowds roared in celebration of his NWA United States Heavyweight Championship win, of him felling a Soviet beast, of each gutsy triumph in the squared circle.

The mustached heartthrob's supply of "it" factor had many predicting world titles and a consistent place on the marquee ahead for him.

A car accident took all that away. The discussion turned from how big of a star could he be to would he ever walk again.

Bryan isn't in that dire of a situation, but if he retires now, he will have missed out on much of his prime. When he outlasted The Authority at WrestleMania XXX, held the the WWE World Heavyweight Championship above his head, confetti sticking to his sweat, it looked as if he was poised for a stay atop the mountain.

The company had found its next megastar, Steve Austin in Dynamite Kid's frame.

But it didn't last. Surgery followed. Then Bryan spent more time in doctors' offices than the mat.

Their stories, of course, aren't identical.

Bryan is dealing with frustration and an ever-expanding waiting period. Magnum instead struggled to gain basic control over his limbs. His recovery dealt him a steady stream of pain. Bryan is lucky not to have go through that, but he has plenty in common with the man from Tidewater, Virginia.

Their parallels begin with the volume of each of their fanbases.

Rock-Star Reception

A warrior with a golden mullet and a leather vest stormed into Mid-South Wrestling in the early '80s.

Magnum dropkicked the promotion's villains onto their backs. Ted DiBiase, Ernie Ladd and Jim Neidhart all tasted the all-American fists of a man that women swooned for and who captivated the males in the audience.

There was a buzz around Magnum beyond the standard fanfare for your everyday babyface.

He was the right combo of movie star and roughneck, showman and athlete. That had him receive booming reactions from the crowd. When he defeated Wahoo McDaniel for the U.S. title in 1985, the Charlotte fans exploded.

It was a common sound for Magnum. And the promoters surely heard it. He rose up the ranks, seemingly assured of being the next big thing.

Barry Darsow told Title Match Wrestling, "He was going to be the Ric Flair, the Ricky Steamboat. He was going to be that guy."

Bryan's trajectory had far more downs than Magnum's. He constructed his fanbase with a much different formula as well. Bryan doesn't leave stars in women's eyes. He does share Magnum's blue-collar essence and a fan club with hoarse voices, though.

"Yes!" chants echo through arenas when he enters.

His absence from the 2014 Royal Rumble led to the audience booing Rey Mysterio and Batista. His early exit from the 2015 Royal Rumble led to a restless, disenchanted crowd rejecting Roman Reigns' victory.

Time and time again, Bryan's in-ring successes have led to some of the more room-shaking responses in recent memory. When he pulled away from The Wyatt Family, took Bray Wyatt to the mat and celebrated atop a steel cage, the fans gave him a Magnum-esque reception.

WWE resisted Bryan's popularity, whereas the NWA embraced Magnum's. And while Magnum's character and charisma are talked about more often than his in-ring production, his ability to tell a great story between the ropes certainly helped his surge in popularity.

Classics Made Commonplace

Bryan and Magnum's styles aren't comparable. The underdog from Aberdeen, Washington, clearly borrows heavily from Chris Benoit and the Dynamite Kid. He intersperses limb-bending holds with dives into the air.

Magnum employed a more traditional, southern-wrestling approach with not nearly as many submissions or high-risk moves as the former WWE champ.

Differing methods aside, Bryan and Magnum achieved the same results?high-drama classic bouts.

Magnum seemed to have strong chemistry with just about every opponent. Whether he was facing The Road Warriors or Mr. Wrestling II, fans could expect a strong performance. Magnum's opuses, though, came against Nikita Koloff and Tully Blanchard.

He and Koloff had a best-of-seven series that thrilled. Chris Schramm of Slam! Sports wrote, "His matches with Koloff were a mix of athleticism, charisma and rivalry. There was nothing like them at that time."

He and Blanchard's memorable feud ended in a near-perfect I Quit match inside a steel cage in 1985. Their bouts brimmed with intensity, and it was hard not to get pulled in as Magnum looked to batter his indignant enemy.

Had Magnum's career gone on longer, he certainly would have kept on delivering top-notch contests like those. He was a skilled storyteller, possessing Hogan-like presence, but with far better mat acumen.

Like Magnum, Bryan clicks in the ring with a variety of foes. He and Sheamus have flourished together. Seth Rollins, Randy Orton and Dolph Ziggler are among those who he had produced memorable outings against.

In these clashes and others, Bryan, like Magnum, managed to have fans invest in his struggles in the squared circle. He was the hero one had to pull for, the lightning bolt one couldn't look away from.

Great matches were a huge part of why Bryan eventually won over a crowd that first saw him as too boring, too technical.

His resume is lengthier than Magnum's, as his career has lasted longer than the Virginia native's. That's primarily because Bryan's abrupt exit from the ring came later into his career than when Magnum had to hang up his boots.

An Abridged Story

In one frightening moment, Magnum went from budding megastar to a man told he would never walk again. In October of 1986, his Porsche hit a wet patch and careened into a pole. He then sat alone in the mangled car with damaged vertebrae waiting for someone to discover him.

Tony Germanotta wrote for the Virginian-Pilot, "Doctors thought he would spend his life in a wheelchair. It took him five months, but he walked out of the rehab center."

While things worked out better than the initial diagnosis, Magnum would never wrestle again. He was just 27.

Fans reflecting back on his battles with Blanchard or the time he floored NWA president Bob Geigel, telling him to "Reprimand this!" inevitably drift toward the topic of what Magnum's career would have looked like had he not skidded off the road that night.

The same conversation is sure to occur should concussions keep Bryan out of wrestling.

In May, Bryan appeared on Raw with the Intercontinental Championship in hand. Secrecy had surrounded why he hadn't been in action. Even then, he didn't reveal what kind of injury he had suffered. He simply said of when he was set to return, "They said maybe weeks, maybe months. They said I may never be able to wrestle again."

Bryan choked up.

This was his second title in two years that he had to vacate due to injury. He dropped the WWE title as he struggled to recover from neck surgery. This time it was his latest concussion that dethroned him.

He's been out since April. He is waiting around to be cleared, something WWE has been hesitant to do.

After two doctors differed on whether Bryan is healthy enough to compete, he hopes a third one will be the deciding vote.

Bryan told IGN's Meghan Sullivan:

If they send me to a third neurologist who's also highly respected in the concussion field and they say literally no...well, then is it really smart to go against two doctors? I get all fired up...and then I'm like, maybe that's not the best thing for me and my family going forward.

If that happens and Bryan steps away for good, he will have had a longer career than Magnum, but still one cut short by factors he couldn't control.

He is not dealing with the kind of daily pain that Magnum is. His mobility isn't limited. But he may not be able to do what he is best at; he may not be able to finish out what promised to be a Hall of Fame career.

Bryan's time in the ring is not yet officially over. More uncertainty looms than he would like, though.

He is forced to wait around, not knowing if his story will be like Magnum's or if he will be able to write additional chapters.