Twilling's Blog: Daniel Bryan gone from WWE? Dixie Carter has big plans for TNA

By Rich Twilling

Saturday, JUNE 12 - 5:38 P.M. (CT)

-Both WWE and TNA have wrestling fans buzzing over the past couple of days. First of all, Daniel Bryan has been released by WWE. Most everyone thought it was a work tied in with the current NXT angle. However, as of now, it looks like he might actually be gone.

Since Bryan's release was covered in the News section of WWE.com, it seemed to be the real thing. Some doubts were arisen when Bryan changed the name on his Twitter page to Bryan Danielson. I noticed on the WWE.com posting that it said both names. "Daniel Bryan (Bryan Danielson)..." is how it read.

I received emails from very observant fans who noticed Bryan's choking of ring announcer Justin Roberts was cut out of the footage of the attack. Word going around is that WWE felt that image was too violent and since the Chris Benoit murder-suicide, they want to keep choking images off of their television shows.

Personally, this is going way too far. WWE pushed the envelope as far as they have in a very long time and audiences loved the angle. It's hard to believe that WWE would single out this one image when the entire attack was beyond PG. It was violent, merciless, unforgiving, and fantastic.

Moving on from here, are WWE wrestlers going to be afraid of losing their jobs every single time they do something? It's hypocritical to tell them to go out there and do what they did, then punish one of them for "going too far."

Bryan and Justin Gabriel really stood out during the attack, but it was the entire group that looked strong during and after the angle. This made perfect sense. Bryan has the most experience of any of the NXT guys by far, so him taking charge and running the show during the attack was perfectly acceptable. Gabriel hit the big move at the end.

If Bryan really is gone from WWE, this angle will take a serious hit. Sure, Monday's attack was a great way to kick this thing off, but eventually, they need to wrestle matches, and that is where Bryan is more valuable than anyone in the angle. Him being gone will make this thing suffer.

Where do I stand? I think it's legit, and I think that sucks. I did receive an email from a Dot Net reader who suggested it could be a work because of the phrase "the winds of change." Wade Barrett used it twice in promos, and Bryan used the same phrase on his Twitter page. It could be reading too much into it, or it could be dead on. I hope it's a work.

-Dixie Carter made waves when she said she had a nice surprise for the Slammiversary pay-per-view. Then she mentioned there would be something that would change TNA from top to bottom. These were two separate things. The surprise and the big change are two different items.

The Slammiversary surprise doesn't have to be anything groundbreaking, but the other announcement better be. They are hyping the hell out of this and it really needs to live up to that hype. Paul Heyman rumors are out there. I'd love to see him in TNA and if that is the big change, that would be something that lives up to the hype.

Let's hope TNA and Dixie Carter get a huge boost from this announcement. At the present time, WWE is in a class by itself and TNA is a distinct but distant second. TNA shouldn't worry about trying to compete with WWE. That will only happen if and when they make their product the best it can be. I'm intrigued by what Dixie plans to reveal and I hope the hype is surpassed.