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When Kurt Angle called into question Paul Heyman‘s assertion that The Bloodline's story was only in its third inning, Roman Reigns' official “Wise Man” fired back, letting the WWE Hall of Famer know on Twitter that “no matter what inning we’re in, at least we’re not looking for exposure thru the next Old Timer’s Day.”
Now some, understandably, thought this surprising feud was over, as Angle had gone almost a week without responding to WWE's premier manager, but in the end, even an “Olympic Hero” isn't above getting into an old-fashioned internet promo battle, so on the latest edition of his eponymous podcast, the “Wrestling Machine” did just that, noting that he feels The Bloodline's story is approaching its final at-bats.
“Whether it’s true or not, at least Paul Heyman has some thick skin,” Kurt Angle said via Fightful. “He wasn’t real serious about that. I don’t think so. I think he was joking back. But what I said about that, whether I’m right or not, put it this way, most storylines that they do, they don’t know the complete end to it anyway. They just keep going and going, and they keep adding to it, then they take away, then they add more to it. You just don’t know when it’s gonna be done. The Bloodline, this storyline has been incredible. It’s been really entertaining, I’m not gonna lie to you. But I think he is in the eighth inning, and he’s wondering, what the h*ll do we do next? But I’m excited to see what happens.”
Dang, nice burn there on Heyman, suggesting he's looking for what the you-know-what to do once his current storyline comes to an end.
Though it's hard to imagine anyone will come out of The Bloodline's story worse off, as whoever beats the “Tribal Cheif” will instantly be vaulted to the top spot in the WWE, and the rest of the faction will certainly have something valuable set up to send them into the future, it is worth wondering if maybe the storyline keeps going, and going, and going not because it's so darn good, as Heyman will tell you, but because they just don't want it to end and are willing to stretch three months of storytelling out to 12 as a result.
Eric Bischoff weighs in on Roman Reigns' third inning.
Speaking of WWE Hall of Famers who now spend their free time podcasting, Eric Bischoff, too, has something to say about Paul Heyman's third inning comments, noting that, if his baseball analogy is true, it's okay that the match between Jay Uso and Roman Reigns wasn't great – as he previously asserted – because no one remembers a fly ball in the third inning.
“To me, there’s nobody more creatively right now than Paul Heyman. But if we’re in the bottom of the third, let’s go from a baseball analogy to a traditional storytelling analogy. If you’re in the middle of act two, which I guess is as close as I can get to equating the bottom of third, if you’re early in the story, as the third inning would represent in a baseball game, you’re still in the early phases of that game, or in this case, story, you’ve got to advance the story. You’ve got to advance it in a way that it’s escalating, it’s building. That’s why they call it an arc. So Paul’s analogy of being in the bottom of the third inning would suggest that he’s just now closing up the first act. If that’s true, oh my gosh, these people should be winning Emmys at some point because they’ve done such a phenomenal job,” Eric Bischoff said via Fightful.
“To suggest that you can’t strike out in the bottom of the third or you can’t hit a pop-up fly in the bottom of the third, or you can’t commit an error in the bottom of the third, and still win the game and win the World Series, let’s not get too confused about where we’re at and concerned about whether or not they can continue. I think the creative team has demonstrated, without question, that they have the ability and the understanding. Perhaps they just committed an error because perhaps they couldn’t really think a finish to this that was more dramatic, or maybe they just put all of their eggs in the Jimmy turn, assuming that that would be the moment, the dramatic moment in the match, which it could have been and arguably should have been. It just wasn’t. It could have been the way it was executed. Perhaps, hindsight 20/20, everybody’s got it. Doesn’t take a half an ounce of experience or talent or creativity to criticize something after the fact.”
Alright, so excluding the fact that the bottom of the third is more the end of Act 1 than the middle of Act 2 – if you want to get really technical, it would be early Act 2, but I digress – Bischoff's assertion is mostly correct; blunders happen throughout an expansive story/baseball game, and few will remember every single one when it's all said and done, especially if they come out on top in the end. Still, in Bischoff's opinion, it's better to put SummerSlam behind The Bloodline and focus on what's ahead, as they have a chance to rebound from a lackluster effort just like they have multiple times over since Reigns was re-introduced as the “Tribal Chief” a few years ago.
“But perhaps as they analyze, and I’m sure they are, and discussing, ‘Okay, that really wasn’t what we hoped it would be, or could be. Perhaps they’re looking at the execution of the turn and going, ‘We could have done that better. We could have done that differently.’ I’m sure they’re going back and they’re analyzing, even while it was happening,” Bischoff noted. “There’s a lot of very, very, very experienced, talented creative people back there watching in gorilla. I would not be surprised if back in gorilla they were watching along with everybody else going, ‘That was kind of flat.’ No big deal. An error in the bottom of the third. Or at the end of the first act, as the case may be. There’s another inning coming up. Let’s get the team together, let’s focus, and let’s move on. Bump in the road? I don’t even know if it was a bump. They ran over an empty can, made a little noise. Let’s move on. I’m still very, very optimistic. But I was let down. I thought that match to me was the least interesting and compelling thing on the entire card. I thought everything else on that card was better than that.”
