Opinion: Daniel Bryan is the heel we never knew we needed 

When Daniel Bryan turned heel on the SmackDown before Survivor Series, the collective sound of the WWE Universe's jaw hitting the floor echoed around the world.

For a long time, Bryan had been our hero. He had overcome adversity throughout his career and climbed to the top of the mountain to plant his flag as the symbol of all things, good and virtuous. He was the everyday guy who had achieved the impossible, the ultimate underdog.

When he hit AJ Styles with a low-blow, fans didn't know what was going to happen next. How could Bryan, a man who had made his name as our hero, ever succeed in playing the villain? Well, quite easily, as it turns out.

Bryan's transition from everyday hero to smug, preachy eco-warrior has been effortless. The old adage that the best wrestlers are the ones playing exaggerated versions of themselves has never been as apt than it is now. Like CM Punk did with his Straight Edge Savior gimmick, Bryan has taken a well-known element of his private life, in this case, his veganism, and to paraphrase Spinal Tap, 'turned it up to eleven.'

Bryan's latest move was to bin the WWE World Heavyweight Championship belt and replace it with a hemp version. Unlike when previous champions have modified the belt to suit their gimmick though, this one feels, for want of a better word, organic. Bryan's ascent to becoming the smuggest and most unlikeable heel on the WWE roster has felt nothing but natural and this is just the next logical phase. After all, how could a man who preaches about the environment and animal welfare walk around with a leather belt and not be labeled a hypocrite?

Bryan is here to remind us of how bad we are, and we hate him for it

The biggest reason for Bryan's success as a heel though is that he is, in pretty much everything he says, 100% correct. The most despicable villains, in any sort of medium, are the ones who can hold up a horrible mirror to the rest of the world and show us how wrong we are, and in doing so, how much better they are.

The reason The Joker is such a success in the Dark Knight is that he kind of has a point. He shows Gotham just how corrupt and mean-spirited the world is, and making a villain of Batman is perhaps his biggest victory.

Bryan has done exactly the same here. He tells us all how we mistreat the environment, how we constantly indulge in fast food and how we worship big corporations that are ethically immoral, and well, he's right. We hate Daniel Bryan because he's right. No one wants to be told how terrible their actions are, instead we like to let the world pass us by, pretending that we are not a part of the problem. The genius of Daniel Bryan is that he is there to remind us that we are, and we hate him for it.

Bryan has embodied that voice in your head; the one that makes you feel guilty when you splash out on the latest iPhone, or the one that reminds you that you probably shouldn't have made your order at McDonald's an extra large. He has become the feeling you get when you scroll through Instagram and see how perfect everyone else's life is while you sit in your bedroom endlessly binge-watching wrestling. He is the perfect villain for our times.

Daniel Bryan's promo work during the Royal Rumble was some of the finest heel work in recent memory. Suggesting that the arena donates profits from their Royal Rumble burger to a children's charity was inspired, while his vilification of AJ Styles (which the WWE should really lean on more) was arrogance at its finest.

The best moves in wrestling are the ones we often never saw coming, and if I'd have been told one year ago that Daniel Bryan would be rivaling Tommaso Ciampa as the finest heel in the wrestling business, I'd have publicly mocked them, but, here we are.

In what has been a difficult time for the WWE in recent months, with ratings dropping and talent queuing up at the exit door, Bryan may not be the heel the WWE Universe wanted, but he's exactly what we need right now.