BRM Reviews the 8/16/2012 Impact (a case-study in stupidity)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- GREAT... until Aces & Eights showed up. This segment was going well, hyping up what should be the main themes for this month: The BFG Series is winding to a close, so only the people who are higher up in the standings need to be featured as much, and that Aces & Eights are in the background.
Then Aces & Eights show up, magically taking over the Panda Tron (here's an idea, TNA- unless they actually are using magic to take control of the PandraTron, one of your cameramen is with them. YOU KNOW WHERE THEY ARE! GO ARREST THEM!), and making some threat (that is hard to understand exactly because of the voice-distorting, but I think I got the gist of it) promising to show up and attack someone tonight. This is getting old. There needs to be some new development with them soon. At least have them do something different!

MAGNUS PROMO- GREAT (aside from Magnus claiming that he and Joe were one of the best tag teams in TNA history. That is a ridiculous stretch).

BOUND FOR GLORY SERIES MATCH: Magnus vs. Samoa Joe- 4.75/10
GREAT for such a short match. The aftermath was interesting, too.

MADISON RAYNE PROMO- decent character work

MADISON RAYBE & BROOKE HOGAN SEGMENT, & STING PROMO AFTER THE COMMERCIAL- bad
"Behind every strong woman... stands a great referee!" I laughed my ass off. Apparently someone in TNA has been reading my reviews. Finally someone decides that it's a bad idea for Earl Hebner to be refereeing his girlfriend's matches. Of course, in typical TNA fashion, they overreact and ban Earl from refereeing all Knockouts' matches, rather than just the ones that Madison is in (or might have some interest in, like #1 contendership matches). Then Madison Rayne, the trained wrestler, runs away from Brooke Hogan, the failed reality star and failed singer.

Then Aces & Eights come out and menace Brooke Hogan until they are chased off by just the main eventers (because the defending a company executive who also happens to be a defenseless woman is something that mid-carders would never do, right?). Five months ago, TNA had Bobby Roode spent about ten minutes menacingly standing over Dixie Carter, and then had everyone treat it as if he had mercilessly beaten her. This is the same thing, (minus the ten minutes of wasted time). If they were going to hit Brooke, they had ample time to do it- so why didn't they? You can't ask me to be outraged about something that didn't happen.

Going along with that is the problem of this whole "almost-but-not-really beating women for heat" thing that TNA has going on (Bobby Roode-Dixie, Daniels-Dixie, and now this). The problem with this is that TNA has beaten us over the head SO MANY TIMES with the whole "you can't have male on female violence on SPIKE TV" thing that no one really thought there was a chance in hell that they would hit Brooke. If these guys are mean, horrible people we are supposed to think that they are, you have to let them be mean and horrible.

For a similar situation, look at Abyss' weapon "Janice" from the summer of 2010. That thing looked dangerous... and I mean ridiculously dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, that no one believed that anyone would ever take a bump with it. Because of this belief, after the first few teases, Janice ceased to feel like a meaningful threat... until Abyss (crazy MFer that he is) actually took a shot from it. From then on, Janice felt like a real threat again. TNA needs to have a moment like this. If you want to keep getting heat from things like this, someone actually has to hit a woman at some point. If SPIKE TV won't allow it, do it on a PPV. Then you have footage that you can't show a replay of, so people will have to buy the replay or the DVD to see it, and you have made some money.

Third of all, you are doing this with Brooke Hogan?! As I mentioned above, TNA did this same thing a few months ago with Dixie Carter and no one cared. If it didn't get heat when you do it to someone who at least some segment of the fan base actually gives a damn about and respects, why the hell did you think it would work with Brooke Hogan... and especially RIGHT AFTER MADISON RAYNE FINISHED CUTTING A WORKED SHOOT ON HER!

Now, on to Sting's promo. Sting says that tonight was a defining moment for Aces & Eights. That tonight, they showed their true character. That Sting now knows that they are bad people. ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME? They have spent the past TWO MONTHS running around and ASSAULTING PEOPLE FROM BEHIND, USUALLY WITH ODDS OF AT LEAST 3 OR 4 TO 1! And ONLY NOW that they have intimidated- but not physically touched in any way- a woman (and that is me being nice to Sting, what he actually said was "a woman, Brooke Hogan, and I promised Hulk she'd be protected"- so they had decided to menace SoCal Val instead, that would have been okay because Sting never promised anyone he would protect Val)- has Sting finally realized that these are bad people.
WHAT THE F*CK?! This leaves us with three possibilities:
1. Sting believes it is only morally wrong to attack people that Sting himself has not promised to have protected.
2. Sting believes that it is morally wrong to attack women, but not men
3. Sting believe that it is morally wrong to intimidate someone hurt someone, but it is not morally wrong to actually assault them.

While you are digesting that, let's go back to Sting saying the he promised to make sure that Brooke was protected. You're the authority figure, Sting! For weeks, these guys have been jumping the guardrails and there has been NO RINGSIDE SECURITY ANYWHERE IN SIGHT! If you want to protect Brooke (and, you know, your other employees, too), the flipping obvious thing to do would be HIRE SOME DAMN SECURITY!

Sting then says that next week is Open Fight Night, so he and his guys are challenging Aces & Eights to a fight at 8PM. That's great and all, Stinger, but didn't everyone challenge them to a fight a few weeks ago, and they didn't show up? So what makes you think they'll show up next week? They are not TNA employees, and thus they are not bound by the rules of Open Fight Night (not that the penalty for not accepting a challenge has ever been explained or anything).

And the thing that really annoys me is that, if they absolutely had to do this, there was a much more profitable way to do this. Have Brooke make herself the Special Guest Referee for the Knockouts' Title Match, then have Aces & Eights show up to menace her in the middle of the match. This lets you do the set up for next week the same way, but also lets you reschedule to Knockouts' Title match to either next week (so you can actually hype up your Open Fight Night title defense in advance) or No Surrender (where it will be a hyped for a PPV, where it can actually make you some money)

Also, did anyone else notice that Bully Ray came out to make the save for Brooke, when we got back from commercial he was gone?

AJ, KAZ, & DANIELS BACKSTAGE- STUPID!
AJ finally says "everyone knows I was drugged." It has been at least a month and a half since Claire first showed the pictures of a drugged AJ... so why the hell has AJ been doing nothing whenever someone brings this whole thing up, rather than saying "I was drugged!"
Let us look at this revelation for a second: Claire gave AJ drugs so she could have sex with him against his will. Or, in simpler terms, SHE DATE-RAPED HIM! AJ GOT RAPED, and NO ONE IS CALLING THIS OUT?! WHAT THE F*CK?!

Then they make a deal about the stipulations s of their match tonight: If Daniels wins, AJ says he will "accept that I [AJ] am the father of Claire's baby," but if AJ wins, AJ will get a paternity test. Three major logical flaws here:

1. AJ admits to having slept with Claire (yes, he was raped, but he still slept with her). Therefore, if AJ really is the father (as Claire has been claiming), then the paternity test will show that AJ is the father... WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT DANIELS, KAZ & CLAIRE WANT! So how is this good for AJ?
2. AJ wants to get a paternity test to prove that he is not the father. So why does he have to beat Daniels in a wrestling match in order to take one? Unless the combination Daniels, Kaz, and Claire own every single hospital and health insurance company in the world (which doesn't seem very likely), what is stopping AJ from going and getting one? If Claire refuses to submit to the test, it will make her look awfully suspicious because she has been claiming that AJ is the father but won't agree to a paternity test. So what does AJ have to lose by going to get one anyway?
3. AJ Styles, who is so certain that he is not the father that he is not only willing but actively wants to take a paternity test to prove that he is not the father, is willing to say "yeah, okay, I'm the father"... if he does something as simple as loses a wrestling match?! So AJ & Daniels will have a wrestling match, and if the wrestling gods give Daniels the strength and wisdom to win the match, it will prove that Daniels speaks the truth when he claims that AJ is the father? COME ON!
I have no problem accepting something Yu-Gi-Oh style (although wrestling was doing it first), where they used a mostly unrelated competition to determine who earns a position, (for example,"whoever wins this wrestling match gets to become President of WCW"), but what they are doing here is balancing the truth of a claim about an actual kayfabe fact (that fact is that Claire's baby's father is named X- we don't know who X is, but we know that the baby has a biological father, and nothing can possibly change who the biological father of the child is) on the outcome of a totally unrelated matter! This would be like Vince coming about in the summer of 2007 and saying "Alright everyone, I need to find out who blew up my limo and tried to kill me, so I am ordering a giant round-robin tournament of everyone on the roster, and the person with the worst record at the end of the tournament will obviously be the person who tried to kill me!" What is this? The Dark Ages?


BOUND FOR GLORY SERIES MATCH WITH MORONIC STIPULATIONS: AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels- 8/10
Awesome match with a dumb finish. Kaz let go of the leg RIGHT AFTER THE THREE COUNT. There is no way the referee could have seen him holding the leg down after the count but not during it. The ref made an assumption rather than calling it how he saw it (clearly he was trained at the Garrett Bischoff Academy for Crappy Refereeing). Isn't it convenient how that happens here, but not any other time?
And how did Kaz get under the ring? I would have assumed that the fans would have reacted to seeing him run down the ramp, or that Taz or Tenay would have noticed it and said something about it. Anyway, an awesome match. It's just unfortunate that it was wasted on such a moronic situation.

STING'S PHONE CALL WITH HOGAN- This is the sort of thing that pisses me off. They are using this secret spy camera format to explain why we are able to hear conversations which would normally take place in private. Even if we ignore that fact that this guy is eavesdropping on his boss' private conversations, airing them on LIVE TV (yeah, keep it up, buddy- no one in TNA management will ever catch you if you eavesdrop on them and air their private conversations on their own TV show), if Sting is the only one in the room, why is he talking to Hogan ON HIS SPEAKER PHONE, with the volume set out enough that we can hear it perfectly clearly THROUGH A CLOSED DOOR?!

JAMES STORM & JEFF HARDY BACKSTAGE- not so good. I understand that James Storm is frustrated, but the fact that he doesn't understand why everyone keeps pointing fingers at him is borderline delusional. "Yes, there was a robbery at a local bank two days ago in which 5 million dollars was stolen, but I don't understand why is everyone accusing me of being the robber just because I deposited 5 million dollars in cash into my bank account yesterday?

BOBBY ROODE PROMO- decent words, but I really didn't like him walking off. It didn't feel as heavy as something like this should feel. James Storm earlier this year was an example of doing this right. This one didn't work.

INTRO FOR THE GUT CHECK CANDIDATE- good, but only if they feature this as part of the guy's character when he makes it to the roster (because unless he is absolutely horrific, cutting him will make TNA look quite douchy).

BROOKE ANNOUNCES HER SPECIAL REFEREE- FAIL!!!! Taz and Tenay are saying "OH MY GOSH! It's TARYN TERRELL!" Meanwhile, the only reaction she gets from the live crowd is one moron chanting "ECW!" This is about as much of the opposite of Luger appearing on the first Nitro as you can get. That was surprising because everyone thought Luger was in the WWF, so it would have never crossed anyone's mind that he would show up on Nitro. In this case, it never crossed anyone's mind that Tiffany would show up because Tiffany is so irrelevant that people don't waste brain-space thinking about her as a possibility. This is like being told that you are going to meet one of the New York Yankees, but instead of someone relevant, you get some shmuck who got called up to fill out the forty-man roster. This is such fail that it makes the sadistic part of me happy. And of course, to make sure that there are no mistakes in a title match, Brooke Hogan assigns someone who has never ever been a referee before. Good thinking there, Brooke.

TNA KNOCKOUTS' TITLE MATCH WITH TARYN TERRELL AS SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: Madison Rayne(c) vs. Miss Tessmacher- 3/10
Madison played her role very well, but the booking here really pissed me off. A short, cheap title reign for Madison. All this does is devalue the title. Yes, Tessmacher didn't look weak losing because of bad refereeing, but she doesn't look strong here winning it back because Madison was too focused on the ref.

BOUND FOR GLORY SERIES MATCH: Bully Ray vs. Jeff Hardy- 6.5/10
Why, exactly, didn't the Aces & Eights guys just start beating on Bully Ray like normal? Why did they wait so damn long? The thing we have seen these guys do the most is put the boots to people, and with Bully (and Jeff) in the perfect position for that... they do nothing?
And speaking of doing nothing, why didn't James Storm do anything to stop Aces & Eights? He was at ringside when they showed up!

AFTERMATH- If you want to do a roll-up, fine, but don't have Jeff do his finisher right before it, then have Bully get up right afterwards! Then Storm accidentally Superkicks Hardy. Then Aces & Eights get in the ring, and the crowd makes a lot of noise. James Storm chooses to ignore this noise to instead say something to Jeff Hardy, and Aces & Eihgts attack Storm, too.

This episode of Impact SUCKED. Even the awesome AJ vs. Daniels match had its foundation in stupidity.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Tenay said that he would be "intrigued" to hear what is going through Bobby Roode's head now that he can't get any more shots at the TNA World Heavyweight Title. LESS THAN A MINUTE LATER (Roode has not even begun to speak yet), Taz says that Roode blames everyone but himself, and that he and Tenay had been talking about that earlier today. One of these two is a f*cking idiot (I'm going to assume that it's Taz, as his comment basically spoiled Roode's promo before Roode even got to give it, making it a lot less interesting).

2. Taz talks about how it was such a big deal that the locker room united earlier tonight to protect Brooke from Aces & Eights. Where were you the last few weeks when those same guys (plus one or two more) united to face down Aces & Eights?

[badnewzxl]

your reviews are getting harder and harder to read, bro.

Who ever said Claire DRUGGED AJ?I heard him say he was DRUNK; he said he was drunk as hell; not DRUGGED. The implication is that AJ was so drunk he didn't remember banging Claire; so she must have just taken the picture after he passed out (as a lot of people do after a night of drinking so much you smash an ugly broad) That's logical isn't it?

And AJ getting the paternity test is NOT what Kaz, Daniels, and Claire want; they just want him to own up to being the pappy without any proof. They just keep insisting that he's the father. The real flaw in this part is the fact that they CAN'T get a paternity test; not until the baby is actually born.....

[cero2k]

MADISON RAYBE & BROOKE HOGAN SEGMENT, & STING PROMO AFTER THE COMMERCIAL- bad
"Behind every strong woman... stands a great referee!" I laughed my a** off. Apparently someone in TNA has been reading my reviews. Finally someone decides that it's a bad idea for Earl Hebner to be refereeing his girlfriend's matches. Of course, in typical TNA fashion, they overreact and ban Earl from refereeing all Knockouts' matches, rather than just the ones that Madison is in (or might have some interest in, like #1 contendership matches). Then Madison Rayne, the trained wrestler, runs away from Brooke Hogan, the failed reality star and failed singer.

The only problem i saw here was that Rayne didn't really get that much help from Hebner at HJ, so this even looked unfair for Madison. if they were really gonna go for this story, they should've done a more obvious dirty pin at HJ. Anyway, it's understandable that Madison would run away. two things, (1) regardless, Brooke is still a Hogan and that name carries weight, Hogans are tough. (2) again, regardless of how much fight could Brooke bring to Rayne, if you're about to defend your title, you do not wanna potentially get banged up in a prior fight.

Then Aces & Eights come out and menace Brooke Hogan until they are chased off by just the main eventers (because the defending a company executive who also happens to be a defenseless woman is something that mid-carders would never do, right?). Five months ago, TNA had Bobby Roode spent about ten minutes menacingly standing over Dixie Carter, and then had everyone treat it as if he had mercilessly beaten her. This is the same thing, (minus the ten minutes of wasted time). If they were going to hit Brooke, they had ample time to do it- so why didn't they? You can't ask me to be outraged about something that didn't happen.

Going along with that is the problem of this whole "almost-but-not-really beating women for heat" thing that TNA has going on (Bobby Roode-Dixie, Daniels-Dixie, and now this). The problem with this is that TNA has beaten us over the head SO MANY TIMES with the whole "you can't have male on female violence on SPIKE TV" thing that no one really thought there was a chance in hell that they would hit Brooke. If these guys are mean, horrible people we are supposed to think that they are, you have to let them be mean and horrible.

Third of all, you are doing this with Brooke Hogan?! As I mentioned above, TNA did this same thing a few months ago with Dixie Carter and no one cared. If it didn't get heat when you do it to someone who at least some segment of the fan base actually gives a damn about and respects, why the hell did you think it would work with Brooke Hogan... and especially RIGHT AFTER MADISON RAYNE FINISHED CUTTING A WORKED SHOOT ON HER!

Now, on to Sting's promo. Sting says that tonight was a defining moment for Aces & Eights. That tonight, they showed their true character. That Sting now knows that they are bad people. ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME? They have spent the past TWO MONTHS running around and ASSAULTING PEOPLE FROM BEHIND, USUALLY WITH ODDS OF AT LEAST 3 OR 4 TO 1! And ONLY NOW that they have intimidated- but not physically touched in any way- a woman (and that is me being nice to Sting, what he actually said was "a woman, Brooke Hogan, and I promised Hulk she'd be protected"- so they had decided to menace SoCal Val instead, that would have been okay because Sting never promised anyone he would protect Val)- has Sting finally realized that these are bad people.
WHAT THE F*CK?! This leaves us with three possibilities:
1. Sting believes it is only morally wrong to attack people that Sting himself has not promised to have protected.
2. Sting believes that it is morally wrong to attack women, but not men
3. Sting believe that it is morally wrong to intimidate someone hurt someone, but it is not morally wrong to actually assault them.

While you are digesting that, let's go back to Sting saying the he promised to make sure that Brooke was protected. You're the authority figure, Sting! For weeks, these guys have been jumping the guardrails and there has been NO RINGSIDE SECURITY ANYWHERE IN SIGHT! If you want to protect Brooke (and, you know, your other employees, too), the flipping obvious thing to do would be HIRE SOME DAMN SECURITY!

Sting then says that next week is Open Fight Night, so he and his guys are challenging Aces & Eights to a fight at 8PM. That's great and all, Stinger, but didn't everyone challenge them to a fight a few weeks ago, and they didn't show up? So what makes you think they'll show up next week? They are not TNA employees, and thus they are not bound by the rules of Open Fight Night (not that the penalty for not accepting a challenge has ever been explained or anything).

dude, you're trying to look too much for logic in a kayfabe world were people solve their problems by organized wrestling.

some things,

you don't really need to ever hit a women to prove anything, that's why wrestling psychology exist. You're comparing Janice to attacking women, those things are completely different, you can't do that much with a weapon unless you start using it. when it comes to hitting women, I have no problem when it happens in kayfabe, but you don't really need it, psychology is all you need, because as much as you may want to defend equality between women and men, all the men in TNA are far larger than any chick there (except ODB). You may think that this doesn't matter because a small person can bring down a larger one, but this is exactly the same convo we had about Nash's comments. It's all about visuals, if a 6 ft 5 guy threatens a 5 ft 6 girl, it will obviously look like the dude is crossing the line, even if it's cheerleader Melissa.

and If i remember correctly, Daniels did indeed push Dixie off her feet that day when her husband knocked out AJ. that is more than enough

your thing about Sting, of course this crosses the line. This is a business of 6+ ft tall muscled up dudes that fight for a living, but this time they're threatening a chick that as you mentioned some lines above, is just a 'failed reality star and failed singer'. Of course this crosses the line, this is not about Sting promising to protect Brooke, this is about A8s targeting defenseless people, because say what you will, Angle, Storm, Aries, Pope, Hogan, Sting, all of them are trained wrestlers that can defend themselves, they're not little princesses or anything that need protecting. if they get their asses kicked, they need to man up. When did Cena ever go crying about needing protection from Nexus?

There's no need for security. one, A8s could easily kick their asses; two, this is a business of fighters, don't get all wussy if you can't defend yourselves. I wasn't joking when i said that Sam Shaw should have failed his gut check for not even trying to defend himself. the only thing TNA could really do here is just have wrestlers come out to the matches like Storm did on this show.

Open Fight Night Rules apply to anyone in TNA, don't look into kayfabe logic too much, Parks had no problem coming out and getting his ass kicked, why then would A8s be outside the rule. I know it may not make sense, like who's gonna do something about it if they don't show up. irrelevant, the point is they're getting called out and they need to respond cuz they're all tough grown up men that fight for a living.

And the thing that really annoys me is that, if they absolutely had to do this, there was a much more profitable way to do this. Have Brooke make herself the Special Guest Referee for the Knockouts' Title Match, then have Aces & Eights show up to menace her in the middle of the match. This lets you do the set up for next week the same way, but also lets you reschedule to Knockouts' Title match to either next week (so you can actually hype up your Open Fight Night title defense in advance) or No Surrender (where it will be a hyped for a PPV, where it can actually make you some money)

why is it necessary to reschedule the match? promoting it won't bring more people, we all know that.

Also, did anyone else notice that Bully Ray came out to make the save for Brooke, when we got back from commercial he was gone?

I did, i really marked out at him being the first out there. but yeah, i noticed he was gone come promo time.

And how did Kaz get under the ring? I would have assumed that the fans would have reacted to seeing him run down the ramp, or that Taz or Tenany would have noticed it and said something about it. Anyway, an awesome match. It's just unfortunate that it was wasted on such a moronic situation.

he did run down and get to the floor as soon as he got to the ring

STING'S PHONE CALL WITH HOGAN- This is the sort of thing that pisses me off. They are using this secret spy camera format to explain why we are able to hear conversations which would normally take place in private. Even if we ignore that fact that this guy is eavesdropping on his boss' private conversations, airing them on LIVE TV (yeah, keep it up, buddy- no one in TNA management will ever catch you if you eavesdrop on them and air their private conversations on their own TV show), If Sting is the only one in the room, why is he talking to Hogan ON HIS SPEAKER PHONE, with the volume set out enough that we can hear it perfectly clearly THROUGH A CLOSED DOOR?!

it's wrestling suspension of disbelief. plus people talk on speaker phone all the time, and sting is old, he may require the high volume.

And speaking of doing nothing, why didn't James Storm do anything to stop Aces & Eights? He was at ringside when they showed up!

i remember he had just been taken out with Hardy and Ray were flying outside the ring.

[Big Red Machine]

your reviews are getting harder and harder to read, bro.

Who ever said Claire DRUGGED AJ?I heard him say he was DRUNK; he said he was drunk as hell; not DRUGGED. The implication is that AJ was so drunk he didn't remember banging Claire; so she must have just taken the picture after he passed out (as a lot of people do after a night of drinking so much you smash an ugly broad) That's logical isn't it?

I heard AJ say "drugged."

[Verdun]

I also heard "drugged."

[Big Red Machine]

MADISON RAYBE & BROOKE HOGAN SEGMENT, & STING PROMO AFTER THE COMMERCIAL- bad
"Behind every strong woman... stands a great referee!" I laughed my a** off. Apparently someone in TNA has been reading my reviews. Finally someone decides that it's a bad idea for Earl Hebner to be refereeing his girlfriend's matches. Of course, in typical TNA fashion, they overreact and ban Earl from refereeing all Knockouts' matches, rather than just the ones that Madison is in (or might have some interest in, like #1 contendership matches). Then Madison Rayne, the trained wrestler, runs away from Brooke Hogan, the failed reality star and failed singer.

The only problem i saw here was that Rayne didn't really get that much help from Hebner at HJ, so this even looked unfair for Madison. if they were really gonna go for this story, they should've done a more obvious dirty pin at HJ. Anyway, it's understandable that Madison would run away. two things, (1) regardless, Brooke is still a Hogan and that name carries weight, Hogans are tough. (2) again, regardless of how much fight could Brooke bring to Rayne, if you're about to defend your title, you do not wanna potentially get banged up in a prior fight.

Got to disagree with you about Hebner not helping Madison enough at Hardcore Justice. If they have super-crooked finish, it raises the question of why Hebner would even be allowed to ref matches at all. By keeping it questionable, it allows them to keep Hebner on, refereeing other matches.

You have a fair point about Madison not wanting to possibly get banged up before a title match, but just because her last name is Hogan does not automatically make her a threat. Madison Rayne is a trained wrestler. Brooke Hogan is not.

Then Aces & Eights come out and menace Brooke Hogan until they are chased off by just the main eventers (because the defending a company executive who also happens to be a defenseless woman is something that mid-carders would never do, right?). Five months ago, TNA had Bobby Roode spent about ten minutes menacingly standing over Dixie Carter, and then had everyone treat it as if he had mercilessly beaten her. This is the same thing, (minus the ten minutes of wasted time). If they were going to hit Brooke, they had ample time to do it- so why didn't they? You can't ask me to be outraged about something that didn't happen.

Going along with that is the problem of this whole "almost-but-not-really beating women for heat" thing that TNA has going on (Bobby Roode-Dixie, Daniels-Dixie, and now this). The problem with this is that TNA has beaten us over the head SO MANY TIMES with the whole "you can't have male on female violence on SPIKE TV" thing that no one really thought there was a chance in hell that they would hit Brooke. If these guys are mean, horrible people we are supposed to think that they are, you have to let them be mean and horrible.

Third of all, you are doing this with Brooke Hogan?! As I mentioned above, TNA did this same thing a few months ago with Dixie Carter and no one cared. If it didn't get heat when you do it to someone who at least some segment of the fan base actually gives a damn about and respects, why the hell did you think it would work with Brooke Hogan... and especially RIGHT AFTER MADISON RAYNE FINISHED CUTTING A WORKED SHOOT ON HER!

Now, on to Sting's promo. Sting says that tonight was a defining moment for Aces & Eights. That tonight, they showed their true character. That Sting now knows that they are bad people. ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME? They have spent the past TWO MONTHS running around and ASSAULTING PEOPLE FROM BEHIND, USUALLY WITH ODDS OF AT LEAST 3 OR 4 TO 1! And ONLY NOW that they have intimidated- but not physically touched in any way- a woman (and that is me being nice to Sting, what he actually said was "a woman, Brooke Hogan, and I promised Hulk she'd be protected"- so they had decided to menace SoCal Val instead, that would have been okay because Sting never promised anyone he would protect Val)- has Sting finally realized that these are bad people.
WHAT THE F*CK?! This leaves us with three possibilities:
1. Sting believes it is only morally wrong to attack people that Sting himself has not promised to have protected.
2. Sting believes that it is morally wrong to attack women, but not men
3. Sting believe that it is morally wrong to intimidate someone hurt someone, but it is not morally wrong to actually assault them.

While you are digesting that, let's go back to Sting saying the he promised to make sure that Brooke was protected. You're the authority figure, Sting! For weeks, these guys have been jumping the guardrails and there has been NO RINGSIDE SECURITY ANYWHERE IN SIGHT! If you want to protect Brooke (and, you know, your other employees, too), the flipping obvious thing to do would be HIRE SOME DAMN SECURITY!

Sting then says that next week is Open Fight Night, so he and his guys are challenging Aces & Eights to a fight at 8PM. That's great and all, Stinger, but didn't everyone challenge them to a fight a few weeks ago, and they didn't show up? So what makes you think they'll show up next week? They are not TNA employees, and thus they are not bound by the rules of Open Fight Night (not that the penalty for not accepting a challenge has ever been explained or anything).

dude, you're trying to look too much for logic in a kayfabe world were people solve their problems by organized wrestling.

some things,

you don't really need to ever hit a women to prove anything, that's why wrestling psychology exist. You're comparing Janice to attacking women, those things are completely different, you can't do that much with a weapon unless you start using it. when it comes to hitting women, I have no problem when it happens in kayfabe, but you don't really need it, psychology is all you need, because as much as you may want to defend equality between women and men, all the men in TNA are far larger than any chick there (except ODB). You may think that this doesn't matter because a small person can bring down a larger one, but this is exactly the same convo we had about Nash's comments. It's all about visuals, if a 6 ft 5 guy threatens a 5 ft 6 girl, it will obviously look like the dude is crossing the line, even if it's cheerleader Melissa.

and If i remember correctly, Daniels did indeed push Dixie off her feet that day when her husband knocked out AJ. that is more than enough

your thing about Sting, of course this crosses the line. This is a business of 6+ ft tall muscled up dudes that fight for a living, but this time they're threatening a chick that as you mentioned some lines above, is just a 'failed reality star and failed singer'. Of course this crosses the line, this is not about Sting promising to protect Brooke, this is about A8s targeting defenseless people, because say what you will, Angle, Storm, Aries, Pope, Hogan, Sting, all of them are trained wrestlers that can defend themselves, they're not little princesses or anything that need protecting. if they get their asses kicked, they need to man up. When did Cena ever go crying about needing protection from Nexus?

There's no need for security. one, A8s could easily kick their asses; two, this is a business of fighters, don't get all wussy if you can't defend yourselves. I wasn't joking when i said that Sam Shaw should have failed his gut check for not even trying to defend himself. the only thing TNA could really do here is just have wrestlers come out to the matches like Storm did on this show.

Open Fight Night Rules apply to anyone in TNA, don't look into kayfabe logic too much, Parks had no problem coming out and getting his a** kicked, why then would A8s be outside the rule. I know it may not make sense, like who's gonna do something about it if they don't show up. irrelevant, the point is they're getting called out and they need to respond cuz they're all tough grown up men that fight for a living.

Under normal circumstances, you would be right about just the tease being enough, but not here. As I said, TNA has beaten us over the head with the fact that SPIKE TV won't allow man-on-woman violence that it ceases to be a credible tease anymore, and even if it weren't for that, the segment with Bobby Roode and Dixie Carter killed it. If, in ten minutes on PPV, Bobby Roode, the top heel in the company, didn't hit Dixie Carter, I really can't believe that they will have these two random guys hit Brooke Hogan on a TV show that I have been repeatedly told is not allowed to have them hit her.

As for it being the same conversation as the the one about Nash's comments, I have to strongly disagree. What Nash was saying was that having a small guy as champion doesn't work because people see a picture of him and say "I could take that guy. He doesn't look so tough." This is not just a picture. This is a segment. Those guys had ample time to hit Brooke. If they were going to hit Brooke, why didn't they? Yes, beating up Brooke Hogan would have been crossing a line (because she isn't a trained wrestler and because it is two-on-one and because she is much smaller than them- not sole because she is a woman)... but they didn't. They didn't cross that line. If they wanted to, they easily could have, but they didn't. If the babyfaces had gotten out there faster it would have been one thing, but they didn't. You can't tell me that these guys were going to cross a line and expect me to believe you when they clearly could have crossed that line but didn't.

I agree that threatening Brooke crossed a line, but not for the reasons that Sting said it did. Aces & Eights really didn't do anything new tonight. I fail to see how being menacing to Brooke Hogan is worse than physically assaulting Pope. If they had started hitting Brooke, that would have been crossing the line you described... but they didn't, even though they had more than enough time to do so if they wanted. As I said way back when everyone was getting so kayfabe angry about the Bobby Roode-Dixie Carter thing, you can't ask me to be outraged about something that didn't happen.

Just because the wrestlers don't go crying when they get assaulted means you shouldn't protect them? That's ridiculous! Just watch Hardcore Justice again. Pope sure looked like he needed some protecting when he was being assaulted six-on-one and injured so badly that he missed his match.

As for not needing security, from a kayfabe point of view, that is utterly ridiculous. Every major sporting event has ringside/fieldside/courtside security (including boxing and MMA). Why? To prevent someone from jumping the guardrail and interfering with the match or attacking one of the competitors (you know... EXACTLY WHAT ACES & EIGHTS HAS BEEN DOING!) Could the wrestlers defend themselves? Yeah, in a fair fight, rather than 8-on-2, but even so, not everyone in TNA is a wrestler. What if these guys went after one of the camera guys, or Mike Tenay, or SoCal Val? Or Brooke Hogan? Also from a kayfabe point of view, just because security would probably get beaten up by Aces & Eights doesn't mean that TNA isn't obligated to try to defend it's employees from these vicious attacks.

From a non-kayfabe point of view, having ringside security would be a wonderful thing! Aces & Eights would look a lot tougher if we saw them easily fight their way through ten or fifteen security guards on their way to the ring. Also, having security guards would give Aces & Eights someone that they would need beat up first before they could hit Brooke Hogan, and the time it would take them to beat up the security guard would be just enough time for the babyfaces to be able to see what is happening and get out there to make the save for Brooke (rather than having them just stand over her menacingly and not do the exact thing that we are supposed to be angry that them for almost doing).

Of course you need to look for logic in these things. Wrestling, genre-wise, is a drama. Therefore there must be logic. Wrestling, at its base, is storytelling. A lack of logic in your plot is poor storytelling.

Do Aces & Eights fight for a living? We don't know that. We don't know anything about them. And as I pointed out, they were called out a few weeks ago and didn't show up, so why do we think they will show up this time?

And the thing that really annoys me is that, if they absolutely had to do this, there was a much more profitable way to do this. Have Brooke make herself the Special Guest Referee for the Knockouts' Title Match, then have Aces & Eights show up to menace her in the middle of the match. This lets you do the set up for next week the same way, but also lets you reschedule to Knockouts' Title match to either next week (so you can actually hype up your Open Fight Night title defense in advance) or No Surrender (where it will be a hyped for a PPV, where it can actually make you some money)

why is it necessary to reschedule the match? promoting it won't bring more people, we all know that.

Of course promoting bring more people. The more of a chance you give people to find out about the match, the more of a chance that someone who finds out about it will say "you know what? I think I want to watch that. I will be sure to watch that when it happens. That is what promoting is.

And how did Kaz get under the ring? I would have assumed that the fans would have reacted to seeing him run down the ramp, or that Taz or Tenany would have noticed it and said something about it. Anyway, an awesome match. It's just unfortunate that it was wasted on such a moronic situation.

he did run down and get to the floor as soon as he got to the ring

Oh, okay, I must have missed it.

STING'S PHONE CALL WITH HOGAN- This is the sort of thing that pisses me off. They are using this secret spy camera format to explain why we are able to hear conversations which would normally take place in private. Even if we ignore that fact that this guy is eavesdropping on his boss' private conversations, airing them on LIVE TV (yeah, keep it up, buddy- no one in TNA management will ever catch you if you eavesdrop on them and air their private conversations on their own TV show), If Sting is the only one in the room, why is he talking to Hogan ON HIS SPEAKER PHONE, with the volume set out enough that we can hear it perfectly clearly THROUGH A CLOSED DOOR?!

it's wrestling suspension of disbelief. plus people talk on speaker phone all the time, and sting is old, he may require the high volume.

The secret spy-cam style is to allow for a reason for us to see things, rather than WWE's "the camera isn't really there, just like any other TV show" style. The secret spy-cam's purpose is to eliminate the need for the suspension of disbelief. It just bugs me because they consider one part of something, but not a semi-obvious follow up. Would it have really been so hard or inconceivable that someone else (Dixie? Aries? Bully Ray?) was in the office with Sting, requiring them to use the speakerphone?

And speaking of doing nothing, why didn't James Storm do anything to stop Aces & Eights? He was at ringside when they showed up!

i remember he had just been taken out with Hardy and Ray were flying outside the ring.

Ah. Okay, this makes some sense, then.



3. With the whole teasing

[Big Red Machine]

And AJ getting the paternity test is NOT what Kaz, Daniels, and Claire want; they just want him to own up to being the pappy without any proof. They just keep insisting that he's the father. The real flaw in this part is the fact that they CAN'T get a paternity test; not until the baby is actually born.....

If they are reasonably certain that AJ is the father anyway, why would they not want him to take the test? Not wanting him to take the test seems like a great way to cast suspicion on their claims.

The baby not being born yet doesn't bother me because Claire was visibly pregnant when she first showed up on TV, and that was almost four months ago. Baby's got three months at the most. They can get it done when the baby is born.

[badnewzxl]

And AJ getting the paternity test is NOT what Kaz, Daniels, and Claire want; they just want him to own up to being the pappy without any proof. They just keep insisting that he's the father. The real flaw in this part is the fact that they CAN'T get a paternity test; not until the baby is actually born.....

If they are reasonably certain that AJ is the father anyway, why would they not want him to take the test? Not wanting him to take the test seems like a great way to cast suspicion on their claims.

The baby not being born yet doesn't bother me because Claire was visibly pregnant when she first showed up on TV, and that was almost four months ago. Baby's got three months at the most. They can get it done when the baby is born.

She doesn't look that pregnant to me, but I can't say I have an eye for that kinda thing. But the down side to having to wait is that we'll have to continue to endure this angle.

Them not wanting to get the paternity def casts some doubt on them; I think that's was the point of the segment. I got the impression that Kaz and Daniels didn't want anyone to know who the father of Claire's baby really is; they've just been trying to pawn it off on AJ......

[cero2k]

Got to disagree with you about Hebner not helping Madison enough at Hardcore Justice. If they have super-crooked finish, it raises the question of why Hebner would even be allowed to ref matches at all. By keeping it questionable, it allows them to keep Hebner on, refereeing other matches.

my problem was that now that the title changed, the whole Brooke thing kinda made it seem like he had indeed cheated to help Madison, but the pin at hand, made it seem like he didn't even notice the rope break.

Under normal circumstances, you would be right about just the tease being enough, but not here. As I said, TNA has beaten us over the head with the fact that SPIKE TV won't allow man-on-woman violence that it ceases to be a credible tease anymore, and even if it weren't for that, the segment with Bobby Roode and Dixie Carter killed it. If, in ten minutes on PPV, Bobby Roode, the top heel in the company, didn't hit Dixie Carter, I really can't believe that they will have these two random guys hit Brooke Hogan on a TV show that I have been repeatedly told is not allowed to have them hit her.

As for it being the same conversation as the the one about Nash's comments, I have to strongly disagree. What Nash was saying was that having a small guy as champion doesn't work because people see a picture of him and say "I could take that guy. He doesn't look so tough." This is not just a picture. This is a segment. Those guys had ample time to hit Brooke. If they were going to hit Brooke, why didn't they? Yes, beating up Brooke Hogan would have been crossing a line (because she isn't a trained wrestler and because it is two-on-one and because she is much smaller than them- not sole because she is a woman)... but they didn't. They didn't cross that line. If they wanted to, they easily could have, but they didn't. If the babyfaces had gotten out there faster it would have been one thing, but they didn't. You can't tell me that these guys were going to cross a line and expect me to believe you when they clearly could have crossed that line but didn't.

I agree that threatening Brooke crossed a line, but not for the reasons that Sting said it did. Aces & Eights really didn't do anything new tonight. I fail to see how being menacing to Brooke Hogan is worse than physically assaulting Pope. If they had started hitting Brooke, that would have been crossing the line you described... but they didn't, even though they had more than enough time to do so if they wanted. As I said way back when everyone was getting so kayfabe angry about the Bobby Roode-Dixie Carter thing, you can't ask me to be outraged about something that didn't happen.

Just because the wrestlers don't go crying when they get assaulted means you shouldn't protect them? That's ridiculous! Just watch Hardcore Justice again. Pope sure looked like he needed some protecting when he was being assaulted six-on-one and injured so badly that he missed his match.

As for not needing security, from a kayfabe point of view, that is utterly ridiculous. Every major sporting event has ringside/fieldside/courtside security (including boxing and MMA). Why? To prevent someone from jumping the guardrail and interfering with the match or attacking one of the competitors (you know... EXACTLY WHAT ACES & EIGHTS HAS BEEN DOING!) Could the wrestlers defend themselves? Yeah, in a fair fight, rather than 8-on-2, but even so, not everyone in TNA is a wrestler. What if these guys went after one of the camera guys, or Mike Tenay, or SoCal Val? Or Brooke Hogan? Also from a kayfabe point of view, just because security would probably get beaten up by Aces & Eights doesn't mean that TNA isn't obligated to try to defend it's employees from these vicious attacks.

From a non-kayfabe point of view, having ringside security would be a wonderful thing! Aces & Eights would look a lot tougher if we saw them easily fight their way through ten or fifteen security guards on their way to the ring. Also, having security guards would give Aces & Eights someone that they would need beat up first before they could hit Brooke Hogan, and the time it would take them to beat up the security guard would be just enough time for the babyfaces to be able to see what is happening and get out there to make the save for Brooke (rather than having them just stand over her menacingly and not do the exact thing that we are supposed to be angry that them for almost doing).

Have they ever said that Spike condemns man on women violence during Impact? cuz if it happens outside of kayfabe, then it doesn't really exist, and so we can't be sure if it'll happen or not. that is our curse for looking into how backstage works. It's one of those things that we need to overlook.

The reason i say it is like the Nash convo is because visuals can sell the segment here (just the reference about visuals), the image of these two guys cornering Brooke sold it better than taking out Angle or Pope in a back alley where the cameraman doesn't even fit. You say that they had enough time to hit Brooke, and that if they were there to do it, why didn't they just do it, the problem here is that we don't know they wanted to. This is the biggest flaw in this story so far, after two months, we still don't have a single idea why they're attacking everyone. TNA is dragging it so much that things they do will start to seem weird or with not much sense. The way i see it, they were out there to show Sting that no one is safe, even if he had vowed to protect them, and that pretty much happened, they had easy access to Brooke and cornering her showed everyone that they still had the upped hand. It's true, they could have done the same thing to Borash or So Cal, but going after Brooke, not only shows Sting's weakness, it is a straight challenge to Hogan, and it worked, Hogan is coming out for a fight even if he's still injured.

I agree that security could add a lot of spice to the angle. But I still think they being there is irrelevant, Nexus didn't provoke WWE to get security. EV2.0 didn't either. Wrestlers can always take care of it, why would this be different? I'm not saying they shouldn't, but i'm willing to see beyond that because of how little development it brings to the story.

Do Aces & Eights fight for a living? We don't know that. We don't know anything about them. And as I pointed out, they were called out a few weeks ago and didn't show up, so why do we think they will show up this time?

Of course you need to look for logic in these things. Wrestling, genre-wise, is a drama. Therefore there must be logic. Wrestling, at its base, is storytelling. A lack of logic in your plot is poor storytelling.

Exactly why we need to be open to logic holes, we are to believe that all these men in wrestling solve their problems with wrestling each other, and even when they hate each other to the point of getting hardcore, they will go for the pin in a match, because a pin in a match solves problems for some reason. So why are we to believe that A8s will solve their problem with wrestling when the time comes? It's true, storytelling needs to have some logic in it, but there also needs to be space for over the top senseless situations.

The secret spy-cam style is to allow for a reason for us to see things, rather than WWE's "the camera isn't really there, just like any other TV show" style. The secret spy-cam's purpose is to eliminate the need for the suspension of disbelief. It just bugs me because they consider one part of something, but not a semi-obvious follow up. Would it have really been so hard or inconceivable that someone else (Dixie? Aries? Bully Ray?) was in the office with Sting, requiring them to use the speakerphone?

again, it could have been made with more sense, but it's not like we're hearing Sting talk on a cell phone, or his inner thoughts.

[Big Red Machine]

Under normal circumstances, you would be right about just the tease being enough, but not here. As I said, TNA has beaten us over the head with the fact that SPIKE TV won't allow man-on-woman violence that it ceases to be a credible tease anymore, and even if it weren't for that, the segment with Bobby Roode and Dixie Carter killed it. If, in ten minutes on PPV, Bobby Roode, the top heel in the company, didn't hit Dixie Carter, I really can't believe that they will have these two random guys hit Brooke Hogan on a TV show that I have been repeatedly told is not allowed to have them hit her.

As for it being the same conversation as the the one about Nash's comments, I have to strongly disagree. What Nash was saying was that having a small guy as champion doesn't work because people see a picture of him and say "I could take that guy. He doesn't look so tough." This is not just a picture. This is a segment. Those guys had ample time to hit Brooke. If they were going to hit Brooke, why didn't they? Yes, beating up Brooke Hogan would have been crossing a line (because she isn't a trained wrestler and because it is two-on-one and because she is much smaller than them- not sole because she is a woman)... but they didn't. They didn't cross that line. If they wanted to, they easily could have, but they didn't. If the babyfaces had gotten out there faster it would have been one thing, but they didn't. You can't tell me that these guys were going to cross a line and expect me to believe you when they clearly could have crossed that line but didn't.

I agree that threatening Brooke crossed a line, but not for the reasons that Sting said it did. Aces & Eights really didn't do anything new tonight. I fail to see how being menacing to Brooke Hogan is worse than physically assaulting Pope. If they had started hitting Brooke, that would have been crossing the line you described... but they didn't, even though they had more than enough time to do so if they wanted. As I said way back when everyone was getting so kayfabe angry about the Bobby Roode-Dixie Carter thing, you can't ask me to be outraged about something that didn't happen.

Just because the wrestlers don't go crying when they get assaulted means you shouldn't protect them? That's ridiculous! Just watch Hardcore Justice again. Pope sure looked like he needed some protecting when he was being assaulted six-on-one and injured so badly that he missed his match.

As for not needing security, from a kayfabe point of view, that is utterly ridiculous. Every major sporting event has ringside/fieldside/courtside security (including boxing and MMA). Why? To prevent someone from jumping the guardrail and interfering with the match or attacking one of the competitors (you know... EXACTLY WHAT ACES & EIGHTS HAS BEEN DOING!) Could the wrestlers defend themselves? Yeah, in a fair fight, rather than 8-on-2, but even so, not everyone in TNA is a wrestler. What if these guys went after one of the camera guys, or Mike Tenay, or SoCal Val? Or Brooke Hogan? Also from a kayfabe point of view, just because security would probably get beaten up by Aces & Eights doesn't mean that TNA isn't obligated to try to defend it's employees from these vicious attacks.

From a non-kayfabe point of view, having ringside security would be a wonderful thing! Aces & Eights would look a lot tougher if we saw them easily fight their way through ten or fifteen security guards on their way to the ring. Also, having security guards would give Aces & Eights someone that they would need beat up first before they could hit Brooke Hogan, and the time it would take them to beat up the security guard would be just enough time for the babyfaces to be able to see what is happening and get out there to make the save for Brooke (rather than having them just stand over her menacingly and not do the exact thing that we are supposed to be angry that them for almost doing).

Have they ever said that Spike condemns man on women violence during Impact? cuz if it happens outside of kayfabe, then it doesn't really exist, and so we can't be sure if it'll happen or not. that is our curse for looking into how backstage works. It's one of those things that we need to overlook.

Yes, they have. Many times.

The reason i say it is like the Nash convo is because visuals can sell the segment here (just the reference about visuals), the image of these two guys cornering Brooke sold it better than taking out Angle or Pope in a back alley where the cameraman doesn't even fit. You say that they had enough time to hit Brooke, and that if they were there to do it, why didn't they just do it, the problem here is that we don't know they wanted to. This is the biggest flaw in this story so far, after two months, we still don't have a single idea why they're attacking everyone. TNA is dragging it so much that things they do will start to seem weird or with not much sense. The way i see it, they were out there to show Sting that no one is safe, even if he had vowed to protect them, and that pretty much happened, they had easy access to Brooke and cornering her showed everyone that they still had the upped hand. It's true, they could have done the same thing to Borash or So Cal, but going after Brooke, not only shows Sting's weakness, it is a straight challenge to Hogan, and it worked, Hogan is coming out for a fight even if he's still injured.

I agree that security could add a lot of spice to the angle. But I still think they being there is irrelevant, Nexus didn't provoke WWE to get security. EV2.0 didn't either. Wrestlers can always take care of it, why would this be different? I'm not saying they shouldn't, but i'm willing to see beyond that because of how little development it brings to the story.

Visuals can sell an angle, yes, but not if the visuals does not match up with the rest of what happened. Showing a picture of them standing menacingly over Brooke would sell the angle... if they hadn't been standing there with ample time to hit her, and just didn't hit her instead. The actual action (or lack thereof) that Aces & Eights took in this instance contradicts what that visual is trying to sell. To sell the angle on that visual would be the equivalent of taking a politician's quote out of context to misrepresent his/her positions.

You are correct that we do not actually know what their goals are, and thus, for all we know, they didn't want to hit Brooke, but that still doesn't give us a real reason to be super-angry about this. Whether this was just a major flaw of execution in the segment, or if they not hitting Brooke had some kayfabe reason behind it, the fact remains that they had ample time to hit her, but did not. Because of this, it is silly to tell us that they were totally going to hurt Brooke and expect us to believe it if our visual evidence contradicts that.

(As an aside, I am actually reasonably sure that I do know who is behind this and why they would go after Brooke, but there haven't been any real kayfabe clues planted for it- it is just me constructing a theory based off of who was attacked, and knowing how TNA usually thinks).

As for the visual of them standing over Brooke selling the angle better than the others, I strongly disagree. The angle (at the moment) is them jumping guys from behind and beating them up in gang attacks. I think that the visual of this group of seven or eight guys standing over the body of a Kurt Angle or an Austin Aries or (especially if my theory is correct) Sting sells this angle a lot better.

If their goal was to show Sting that someone is vulnerable even if he vowed to protect them, or to get Hulk to come fight even if he is injured, then actually hurting Brooke would have done an even better job of this. The reason brought up the others was to show why TNA kayfabe needs ringside security. They have no idea what Aces & Eights' goals are. Before this week they had shown no interest in Brooke at all. It was almost as likely that they would have gone after SoCal Val or Mike Tenay or someone like that.

Nexus didn't provoke WWE to get security because WWE already had security, like any sensible company would, both in the world of kayfabe and in the real world. I don't think it would bring development to the story as much as it would just make TNA and the people who run it not look like kayfabe idiots for not doing the most obvious and logical thing in the world (it would added a bit to Aces & Eights' as threats, though).

Do Aces & Eights fight for a living? We don't know that. We don't know anything about them. And as I pointed out, they were called out a few weeks ago and didn't show up, so why do we think they will show up this time?

Of course you need to look for logic in these things. Wrestling, genre-wise, is a drama. Therefore there must be logic. Wrestling, at its base, is storytelling. A lack of logic in your plot is poor storytelling.

Exactly why we need to be open to logic holes, we are to believe that all these men in wrestling solve their problems with wrestling each other, and even when they hate each other to the point of getting hardcore, they will go for the pin in a match, because a pin in a match solves problems for some reason. So why are we to believe that A8s will solve their problem with wrestling when the time comes? It's true, storytelling needs to have some logic in it, but there also needs to be space for over the top senseless situations.

I have gotten into this before, and I think there is a difference with an angle like this. For me, reasonable... I don't want to call it suspension of disbelief, because that's not exactly what it is... I guess I would call it principles of pro wrestling plots... little rules I have developed based on observations during my experience watching pro wrestling that allow me to explain various behaviors without relying on suspension of disbelief (because, after all, the greatest plots [in addition to having great intrigue/action/comedy/romance/whatever you are looking for] are the ones that require the least suspension of disbelief in order to explain the motivations of the characters).

For example, (and I will admit that this one in particular borders on, if not fully crosses over into the realm of suspension of disbelief) I am willing to overlook what seems to be an inflated importance of pro wrestling within the wider kayfabe world. For example, does it really make sense that Double J would think that the best way to market his country music CDs would be to gain fame as a pro wrestler, or that Jimmy Jacobs would think that the best medium by which to preach his social revolution is pro wrestling? Not really (there is some merit to the concept, but not much)- unless, in the world of kayfabe, pro wrestling is a lot more important/focused on in mainstream society than it is in the real world.

Another one of these observations is that there seems to be a code among the wrestlers that says anything that happens in the building (we get into a fight backstage, etc.) we solve in the ring. If you jump me backstage, I'm not going to call the cops. I am going to challenge you to a wrestling match and get my revenge by beating you (or maybe just hurting you) within the confines of the match (that is why only heels bring cops into things). The thing is, this rule seems to apply only to people in the business. Someone not in the business (and as far as anyone kayfabe knows, Aces & Eights aren't) does not get to operate by these rules.
Yes, there needs to be room for " over the top senseless situations," but not in a serious angle. A serious angle should be as grounded in reality as possible.