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| The reveal that shocked a fandom Photo Credit: ImpactWrestling.com |
Kudos to the people who were perceptive enough to laud it from when it happened, though, because all I needed was a little refresher course on the happenings of the angle. And who better to deliver that than the club's President himself, Bully Ray. As he went all reverse Bond villain (i.e. explaining his plan AFTER it succeeded), it illuminated the entire story and gave it new meaning and renewed sense. In a way, it was The Sixth Sense of wrestling angles, except that Bully Ray and his crew weren't dead the whole time, and Hulk Hogan is a far less handsome version of Bruce Willis (Brooke Hogan and Haley Joel Osment are the same levels of irritating, though). So, everything's okay, right? It might follow to say that the ends justified the means, and that everything is okay in TNA land.
I admit, after watching last night's Impact, I would say yes, but I'm also a very forgiving critic. I can reconcile nearly everything that happened because Bully made sense rehashing it. Even the parts where the group backed off from situations where they had clear numbers made sense because it was part of the confidence game. They had to make Hogan and Sting feel like they had big swinging dicks for Bully to gain their trust even more.
That sets up an almost dangerous precedent, well, as dangerous as watching a wrestling show can be, pardon my hyperbole. Do we now have to forgive awful-seeming builds from TNA because they may have a great payoff waiting for us months down the road? Well, the answer almost has to be yes, even with the small sample size of one swerve. Remember, while Impact has been good at doing long term stories lately, this is the first swerve they've hit on. Robert Roode vs. James Storm was about as old school and classic a feud as they come, and it feels like the endgame to the Joseph Park angle is the return of Abyss. It's predictable, but that doesn't mean it's not satisfying.
And it's not like the angle itself was perfectly executed going into Lockdown anyway. There's no reason why everyone associated with the stable had to lose by means other than disqualification. I mean, invading stables need to win matches in order to seem like a threat or else who the fuck cares? Also, I know it was almost a necessity to have Brooke Hogan involved because duh, she's Hulk's daughter, but man, did she drag the story down with her relatively calm disposition (and she still does).
Still, no angle is perfect. I'm sure we could go back to any really well done story in any wrestling promotion and find only a handful out of the thousands that hit every note from beginning to end. It's not everything for the story to be perfect; it just has to be memorable in a good way. Right now, Bully Ray's long con stands as one of the best stories in the last two years in TNA or in any wrestling promotion. It has my attention going forward, and the company itself has gained an exceeding amount of in-story goodwill (key word, in-story, because as a labor slum lord, Dixie Carter can go to hell and take Hogan, Eric Bischoff, and the rest of her support staff with her). It just goes to show that one seminal moment in a wrestling angle can forgive, enhance, or just plain erase bad feelings from a mediocre long term build. Besides, wrestling itself is an industry based on moments, right?