KB’s Review: Double Angles

I don’t like doing the same topic in back to back weeks but there’s really no option this time around. Since we’re still a few weeks away from “Summerslam 2017”, it’s a bit too early to start talking about what we’ll be seeing on the show. As luck would have it though, what is likely to be one of the biggest stories of the year went down this week on “Monday Night Raw” and there are several aspects of it we can take a look at as a result. In case you haven’t had your morning fish juice (it’s brain food), we’re talking about Jason Jordan being revealed as Kurt Angle’s son.

Kurt Angle reveals Jason Jordan is his long-lost son: Raw, July 17, 2017

This announcement was made two days ago and WWE has already aired a short interview special featuring Angle and Jordan talking with Renee Young. With the time and extra content to go with the initial segment…..I’m still not sure what I think of it. Last week I guessed that it would be Chad Gable revealed as Angle’s son (not exactly out of the box thinking I know) but we got something fairly close instead. That’s where this makes me scratch my head.

For those of you who have watched Jordan and Gable as American Alpha over the years, you know full well that Gable is the one with all the charisma (not to mention better wrestling abilities). Jordan does have some advantages over Gable (better look/size, perfect dropkick, good fire in the ring) but Gable has the advantages in the areas that matter most (save for genetics apparently).

Now with that being said, those same NXT fans would also be able to tell that being put with someone with some better talking abilities was what brought him out of his shell in the first place. The abilities are there, but the big problem is the threat of Gable being the only one who could pull off the Jordan experiment. Maybe Jordan can bounce off of Angle even better than he did with Gable, which would make sense given how similar Gable and Angle are both in the ring and on the microphone.

Jason Jordan reveals how he learned Kurt Angle was his father (WWE Network Exclusive)

So where do things go from here? Well that’s the big question and it’s really hard to tell where we might wind up. Assuming this gets a lot of time to build, which you have to assume is going to be the case, there’s a good chance this is going to wind up being a major story featured on several episodes of “Monday Night Raw” and perhaps even a big time pay per view match or two. With the split of American Alpha pretty much confirmed, it’s all Jordan and Angle from now on and that’s quite the risk.

One would think that Jordan would get a huge singles push out of this but that brings up the problem of where he is in his career. Jordan has only been a tag team guy for all of the successful parts of his career and given that Angle is probably only going to wrestle one or two matches a year tops, we’re left with Jordan as a singles guy. Angle is a great coach and could be an outstanding mouthpiece for him but that’s not likely to be enough to carry Jordan to the higher levels that the company seems to be hoping he’ll reach.

Another issue, and one we’ll find out in due time, is what exactly the story will be. Jordan is now the son of the boss of one of the shows and that could go multiple places. They could wind up as a solid heel act (Jordan as the chosen one with Angle being all evil and obsessed about giving his son the chances he had and not wanting to see Jordan crash like he did and going bad as a result) or they could just stick with the face run that would seem to be the best possible option at the moment.

That being said, I think they’ll stay as faces for at least a good long time. This certainly seems like the kind of story that has some staying power, especially if Triple H and Stephanie McMahon feel the need to get involved with it for whatever reason. I know the rumored match has long since been Triple H vs. Angle, presumably at “Summerslam 2017”, but this brings up the chance of the younger Angle fighting in his dad’s place instead in quite the surprise.

American Alpha vs. The Colons - Beat the Clock Challenge Match: SmackDown LIVE, April 25, 2017

Now that brings up the big issue: having Triple H fighting someone who isn’t one of the top stars in the company. I absolutely can’t imagine him actually doing that, especially when he too only wrestles a handful of times a year at most. Unless Jordan suddenly becomes the hottest act in the company (a fate which would surprise the heck out of me), I don’t see how this is going to happen.

What I could see happening is McMahon coming in and saying Angle has caused a huge disgrace for the company (she does thrive in hypocrisy of course) and setting up some hot heel to face Jordan on the Authority’s behalf. I won’t even bother setting up the sarcasm before suggesting that it be a freshly turned Gable, who the Authority could recruit solely to oppose Jordan before leaving him by the wayside. Of course it doesn’t have to be Gable but that would give you a fairly easy layup of a built in story.

Speaking of Gable (again), did we REALLY need to split up American Alpha? The tag division is hardly strong at the moment (there are two face teams on “Monday Night Raw”) and the decision is to break up American Alpha (the THIRD team to be split up this year on the main roster alone), who easily could have teamed together on occasion while Jordan was doing his stuff with Angle. Or just have them put the team on hold until one of them moves back to the other roster, which doesn’t seem to be the hardest thing in the world to do anymore (as it shouldn’t be).

Chad Gable reacts to Jason Jordan's shocking news: SmackDown LIVE, July 18, 2017

Finally we have the big question: how far can Jordan take this? That’s the problem: I don’t know how far he really can. Jordan doesn’t have much of a character outside of being athletic and a good tag wrestler. He doesn’t have any singles success and he’s never cut any kind of great promo. I wouldn’t call him average but I’d call him someone who hasn’t shown that he’s outstanding either. That being said, I’ve had made the same statements about Shelton Benjamin and he went from that to looking like the next big thing in the span of a few months on freak athleticism alone.

I could easily see Jordan becoming a midcard champion and getting a solid singles push. That doesn’t mean he has to (or is capable of) being a big featured main eventer and given how crowded “Monday Night Raw” already is, he probably shouldn’t be. At least he has a story though, unlike several current members of the roster who are lucky to get a match, let alone an important storyline.

The Jordan push is certainly an interesting story, but I’m expecting it to be more about Angle than Jordan (again, not exactly the biggest shock). He’s a much more well rounded character and people are going to care about him more, though that could be used to help turn Jordan into something more special. Jordan certainly has the in-ring abilities (though he has a lot of room to improve) and a great rub from someone like Angle could be the ticket. I’m still not sold on this but it’s got people talking and that’s a lot more than so many WWE stories can say these days. We’ll see where things go and hope they go up, which unfortunately is something a lot of WWE stories CAN (and do) say.

 

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