Shane McMahon Announces He’s Agreed To Terms With A GM – Will It Be Daniel Bryan?

It was revealed this past Monday night that Shane McMahon would be the commissioner of SmackDown, while Stephanie McMahon will be the commissioner of Monday Night Raw, and that both Shane and Stephanie will name a general manager for their respective shows this coming Monday night.

There have been a few names thrown around in regards to the SmackDown general manager role, and the biggest one that’s been thrown out there has been former WWE World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan, who hasn’t appeared on WWE television since he retired this past February.

The Daniel Bryan rumor began after the WWE app posted an article that was titled, “The YES! Movement takes over SmackDown live!” The article wasn’t on the app for very long, as it was taken down just minutes after it was posted. But it seems pretty clear that WWE is planning on having Shane McMahon name Daniel Bryan as his general manager.

On Tuesday, Shane McMahon tweeted out that he had come to terms with a general manager for SmackDown, and the person he chose will be at Monday’s Raw.

I'm very excited to announce that terms were agreed to today with the new SmackDown GM. The person will be revealed live this Monday on Raw.

— Shane McMahon (@shanemcmahon) July 12, 2016

As previously mentioned, it seems like Daniel Bryan will be named as the new general manager of SmackDown, but if he isn’t, there aren’t a whole lot of other people out there who would be a good fit for the job. Eric Bischoff’s name has been thrown out there, but he’s a natural heel, and it wouldn’t make sense for Shane McMahon to hire a heel general manager.

The idea of the brand split is to increase the audience for SmackDown, which is why WWE is has made the decision to air it live on Tuesday nights. Apparently, the USA Network has been unhappy with SmackDown’s ratings ever since it debuted on the network earlier this year, and they want WWE to bring up the show’s numbers.

It’s been reported that John Cena and AJ Styles will be the top stars on SmackDown, so it’s pretty clear that the show will have the advantage in terms of star power, and if they add Daniel Bryan to the mix as the show’s general manager, then they’d have what it takes to pull in better numbers than Monday Night Raw.

It looks like Stephanie McMahon will name Triple H as Raw’s general manager, so if Daniel Bryan is named as SmackDown’s general manager, WWE will get a chance to recreate the “YES! Movement” vs. “The Authority” storyline that abruptly ended a couple of years ago due to Bryan’s neck injury.

After his retirement, Bryan stayed away from WWE for several months because he was having a hard time coming to grips with his situation, and he didn’t want to be around wrestling until he was able to accept the fact that he would never be able to be an active member of the WWE roster ever again. But he recently stopped by the WWE Performance Center to work with some of the wrestlers who will be in the upcoming Cruiserweight classic, so it looks like he’s finally ready to be around wrestling again.

Names like Paul Heyman and even Kurt Angle have been rumored to be the SmackDown general manager, but neither of those men makes as much sense as Daniel Bryan, especially if Triple H ends up being Raw’s GM.

The goal of the brand split is to make both shows completely different from one another, and, as of right now, it looks like the Raw show will have heel authority figures, while the SmackDown show will have babyface authority figures. So, at least they’re going to be different in that way. But the real question is, will they be different in other ways?

[Image via WWE]