WWE Paternity Storyline Will Be Memorable No Matter What Happens

WWE fans love a well-executed storyline almost as much as they love a total garbage idea.

“Stone Cold” Steve Austin quoted the bible and made fun of a man’s alcoholism. Damien Sandow got over by impersonating a wrestler that most fans hate. Scott Hall was a WWE mid-card talent for most of his career until asking Vince McMahon “have you ever seen the movie Scarface?”

Wrestlers become stars in the business in a myriad of ways.

Jason Jordan’s mom had a one night stand with Kurt Angle. Good for her. Better for Jordan. He’s now one of the hottest names in professional wrestling, or at the very least, the most Googled over the last forty-eight hours.

Few wrestling fans will admit it, but we all secretly love the bad angles, the screw-ups, the “what could have been” and the “what the hell was Vince and creative smoking?!?”.

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We love when the WWE pisses us off with their half-baked ideas. The wounds heal quickly, usually after an amazing show or the presentation of a stupider angle. Masochist is a suitable description. That’s why we all tune in, week after week, year after year, to see it all. The good, the bad and the Gobbledy Gooker.

Years after the blow off match, the completed angle and Chuck and Billy going their separate ways, fans reminisce about the odd stories with a fondness — even though every segment was painful to watch. Fans will name-drop the awful angles WAY more than the well-executed and creative ideas. In fact, there are entire websites dedicated to the very worst ideas in pro wrestling storytelling.

Ideas like:

Al Snow being force fed his dog.
Katie Vick.
Rey and Eddie’s custody battle.
Natalya the fart monster.
Katie Vick.

Those hurt just to type, let alone, thinking about for longer than a few seconds.

Perhaps the most confusing part of the reveal was the choice of Jordan. To be fair, Jordan was making a name for himself in the tag team division. American Alpha was successful in NXT and had a solid run on the main roster. Looking at the pair, it was tough to pick which would emerge and receive the big singles push and who would end up the Jannetty. But few fans expected Jordan to be thrust into the spotlight so quickly. Few except, well, me but I accidentally stumbled onto this inside information and forgot all about it until Monday night.

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I was eating lunch at the San Jose airport the day after WrestleMania 31 in 2015. I covered the event for a different publication and attended most of the festivities that weekend. The previous Friday evening, I was lucky enough to be in the crowd for one of the greatest professional wrestling shows I’ve ever seen in person. NXT sold out at San Jose State University. Enzo and Big Cass got the loudest pop of the evening. Hideo Itami defeated Tyler Breeze in the curtain jerker and the match was so spectacular I thought it might be not only the match of the night but better than anything I would see during WrestleMania. Then in the main event, Finn Balor and Neville tore the house down.

Somewhere in the middle of the card, Jordan defeated Bull Dempsey. Dempsey controlled most of the match and Jordan looked lost at times. He managed to get the win over Dempsey and the crowd responded with an “ehhhh.” In fairness, the match followed the Itami and Breeze clinic.

I’m waiting in this cafeteria-like joint eating a wrap filled with meat advertised as chicken salad. Three women park at a table over. I could tell these women were affiliated with the WWE but not quite sure how. They dined from plastic tubs of prepared food and conversed about the events of the weekend by dropping first-hand knowledge of everything that happened backstage at most of the shows.

The women discussed the NXT sell out and how management was incredibly high on Jason Jordan.

Wait, who?

I honestly didn’t remember his match and looked back at my notes from the weekend. I’d forgotten about that conversation until the reveal on Monday night. I’d forgotten the damage the chicken wrap did to my gastrointestinal region.

There was nothing indelible about Jordan that night in San Jose. He was a good looking dude with a chiseled physique who showed glimpses of one day being a serviceable worker in the ring. Make no mistake about it, wrestling fans will always remember his name after this past Monday. Time will tell if the tale of the WWE’s newest father and son duo was worth telling.

The good news for the WWE is that Raw ratings were up this week. According to the Wrestling Observer, Raw received its highest numbers since April. The show averaged 3.15 million viewers. The slightly off-putting news is that the actual reveal of the Jordan and Angle relationship reveal took place in the show’s lowest rated hour. But even though it didn’t deliver in the ratings, it sure as hell lit up social media for over 24 hours.

This could the beginning of a huge storyline that includes an up-and-coming WWE star, a WWE Hall of Famer and potentially the return of Stephanie McMahon and husband Triple H all jockeying for power over Raw.

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On the other hand, this storyline could prove to be an Olympic-sized pile of crap. The kind that comes after eating a bad chicken salad wrap.

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