A reader writes:

I’m sure you’re getting a GIANT deluge of secret wrestling fan e-mails sparked by this post , because there are literally millions of us. It’s a brilliant art form when done right, and Daniel Bryan of the Beard is, in my mind, the best artist it has ever produced. What’s interesting about him is that he is also completely subversive – short, bearded, disheveled, a vegan, and a television star who doesn’t actually own a TV. That he’s as popular as he is right now (poised to dethrone the biggest star in the business) is a reflection of society in a way that pro wrestling has always been. Here’s a nice article that recognizes that.

Muscle, beards, half-naked men and high camp? I think I might. Bonus Bryan beard, at Comic Con, after the jump:

Update from a reader:

I love that you’re covering the WWE. I’ve been reading the Dish for years, and my boyfriend got me into professional wrestling last year. My favorite was immediately Daniel Bryan. So much so, I went to meet him at a Comic Con in Philly last month. He is just as awesome in person. Keep up the wrestling coverage!

Another grants her wish:

Well, at first I was going to write regarding the Daniel Bryan “face of the day” but lost my motivation, but I have found it again with the latest wrestling post. I wanted to make a correction of the original Face of the Day post. “Respect the Beard” is the slogan on Bryan’s (his actual name is Bryan Danielson) newest t-shirt. His catch phrase, however, as you can see in the video you posted, is a simple “Yes!”

While Bryan is currently a face (good guy), this phrase originated while he was working as a heel (bad guy). After winning the World Heavyweight Championship (the #2 title in the promotion behind the WWE Championship), over the weeks that followed his victory (over an already incapacitated opponent, The Big Show) Bryan transitioned from face to egotistical heel. This is when he started pointing and shouting “Yes!” as he made his way to the ring. This caught on to a certain degree, and there were consistent smatterings of “Yes!” chants in the crowd.

Then, at Wrestlemania XXVIII in Florida, he was scheduled to wrestle Sheamus, a big Irishman that WWE was in the middle of pushing as a dominant face character. Smarks (this is essentially the term for wrestling fans who follow it online and discuss the “backstage” news) were looking forward to this match: the two had been scheduled to wrestle over the United States Championship (one of two “mid-card” titles) at Wrestlemania XXVII, but the match was cut from the card to save time.

Bryan versus Sheamus was the first match on the card for Wrestlemania XXVIII. WWE usually tries to have a “hot opener” – a match that is relatively short (10, maybe 15 minutes), but is face-paced and gets the crowd into the show. This is what the crowd was expecting, but not what the crowd got. In an effort to make Sheamus look dominant, WWE had Sheamus defeat Bryan in 18 seconds (this is known as a Squash). The crowd booed this lustily, having been denied a match between two excellent wrestlers. The next night on Raw the crowd, feeling that Bryan had been treated badly by the WWE, went nuts for the guy. Chanting “Yes!” loudly and repeatedly not only for Bryan, but during much of the entire show. This even spilled over into a Miami Heat basketball game the next night.

Being a heel, Bryan folded this into his character, and he eventually decided crowds were “mocking him” with the Yes! chants, which basically led to his character going off his rocker (leading to the non-stop beard growing) and Bryan repeatedly shouting No! as the crowds still chanted Yes! He was then paired up with a wrestler named Kane in an “odd couple” pairing, leading to some incredibly bad and campy, yet simultaneously hilarious, skits involving “Dr. Shelby” and such hilarious lines as “I am the Tag Team Champions! This eventually led to Bryan turning face again, because the team simply got so popular. After the team split up, Bryan’s “Yes!” chants from the crowd kept getting louder, and louder, and louder, and he now consistently gets the biggest cheers from the live crowds – they simply go nuts for the guy. And now he’s getting his chance to wrestle at the very top of the card, facing John Cena for the WWE title at Summerslam (listen to those cheers at the end).

And there is a very brief history of Yes!