Welcome to a new website-exclusive PWTorch feature! I am PWTorch founder and editor, Wade Keller. I've been covering pro wrestling since 1987 when I started the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter while still in high school. Over 25 years later, PWTorch reaches more wrestling fans every week than any other independent brand. When we launched PWTorch.com in 1999, one of the features I enjoyed doing the most was "Ask PWTorch." I haven't done it recently on the website, but did revive it in recent years in an audio format for PWTorch VIP members on my Keller Hotline. We reintroduced it to the website audience this month.

If you have a question you'd like me to respond to, send your question to askpwtorch@gmail.com. I, along with the Torch staff, will address you questions.


PWTorch.com reader Jamie from London U.K. asks: I'm not a fan of the Aces and Eights angle. It's always seemed like a cheap attempt to recreate the nWo. I expect more from TNA and this honestly feels like something Russo would write. My biggest issue with the angle is that I can't think of a way out. In your opinion what is the payoff here? How do they conclude the story without burying every heel?

PWTorch editor Wade Keller responds: TNA has often booked around a central group or faction, such as the Main Event Mafia, Fortune, and Aces & Eights (when it wasn't booking around Jeff Jarrett, that is). I'm not against factions in general, but like anything in wrestling, there are good and bad versions of any concept. Aces & Eights is mediocre in execution - in other words, I've seen better and I've seen worse. The ratings, though, would indicate it's not working. Eric Bischoff, who was behind the motorcycle festival WCW events "Hog Wild" and is interested that culture to some degree himself, is obviously behind the Aces & Eights faction becoming the centerpiece of TNA storylines.

I actually kind of like Wes Briscoe as the young, naive, overeager hoodlum. Garett Bischoff has seemed like a bit of hanger-on whose career was accelerated to this place on national wrestling TV because of whom his dad is. Devon being revealed as a leader in the group, though, was a setback because in 2012 viewers just weren't invested in him. He had been around so long, and hardly lit up the shows as TV Champion, that it deflated the entire faction when it seemed that it was created simply to create a usefulness for Devon again, one of the 40+ crew that TNA seems to exist to give a final stretch of employment to. Then when D-Lo was added, it really drove people away, as he was another holdover from the Attitude Era getting TV time at the expense of a possible young future star that TNA desperately needed to spark interest in the promotion.

Also disappointing was that when Knox and D.O.C. were added, they were immediately moved behind Devon in the pecking order. Any chance they had to be seen as the younger, tough, big dominant heels in the group was quickly extinguished. They were there just to stand behind Devon and were booked on TV losing. So we were left with Devon, two young lackeys (who people saw pretty clearly had jobs because of who their fathers are), another Attitude Era mid-carders (D-Lo), and two bigger ex-WWE castoffs whose upside was clearly not of interest to TNA's creative team. Instead, the group was about Devon as the leader and setting up the big reveal that Bully Ray was the actual head of the entire operations.

I think Bully is tremendous at what he does. He's believable as a miserably awful person and bully. He was also believe as a loving, heroic babyface fiancé to Brooke Hogan. In the end, though, when Aces & Eights took full shape, it was a faction led by an Attitude Era tag team that was in their 40s, playing into TNA's track record and reputation for being all-too-focused on finding new life for wrestlers who had good long runs in WWE who were getting one last stretch of paydays in the no. 2 company.

So where does it go from here? With ratings crashing with Bully on top and Aces & Eights as the central heel force, TNA should reevaluate their long-term game plan. Fans aren't flocking to Thursday nights to see the 50+ babyface duo of Hulk Hogan and Sting try to work out their differences and avenge the betrayal of daughter Brooke. TNA has other storylines (Austin Aries & Robert Roode vs. Chavo Guerrero & Hernandez vs. Bad Influence; Kenny King vs. Chris Sabin; the Knockouts). Arguably the second-biggest storyline revolves around A.J. Styles and whether he'll join Aces & Eights. Whatever else is going on during Impact, it usually comes back to a forty-something tag team at the head of an overall weak faction filled out by lackeys and lummox jobbers feuding with fifty-something legacy stars whose best years were 15-20 years ago.

So the question of how this all plays out may be less important than should it play out, or should TNA sharply shift gears and send a message to the remaining viewers that they're moving away from the 40+ and 50+ stars and rolling the dice on younger stars - ready or not - and giving viewers something new.

My hunch is the long-term storyline is for Bully Ray to keep the TNA World Title until Bound for Glory, where he'll defend against A.J. Styles. Styles will likely win, and then TNA will hit the usual annual reset button and move into a new year-long storyline built around a new lead heel set-up which may or may not include Bully Ray or the Aces & Eights concept. The people in power who have years of practice persuading others with even more power will continue to make compelling cases that they know what they're doing, failures to grow the viewership and crowds is due to outside factors, and that the alternative younger wrestlers aren't quite ready yet or won't ever be ready. So the older people taking up the lion's share of TV time will eek out another year of drawing the vast majority of the payroll TNA is dishing out, while younger stars are given token pushes but not a full fledged effort to really give them a chance to rise above anyone who has "paved the way, brother."

PWTorch reader Chris in Las Vegas, Nev. asks: I just heard a Hulk Hogan interview from a local sports radio broadcast from when Hogan was here in Las Vegas to promote impact wrestling coming to town and he said that Christopher Daniels, with the right backing, is a future main eventer and is a real pro. Also that Daniels had heat with the creative team and the locker room and that he is difficult to work with, but hogan said he is anything but and is an all-star. What do you make of this?

PWTorch editor Wade Keller answers: This is more Hogan platitudes. He sounds like he's sort of complimenting Daniels while also noting the excuses why they just can't rely on him or give more of a push to him. So Hogan loves him because's a future main eventer and an all-star, so Daniels should know that Hogan has his back, but Hogan can only do so much because the creative team isn't sold on him and Daniels has a bad rep backstage. It's the same old, same old. What's even scarier is that to Hogan, the 40 year old Daniels is a "future main event star." I just formatted a back issue of the PWTorch Newsletter from 20 years ago for VIP members that features Christopher Daniels in a house show match for Windy City Wrestling this month in 1993. Daniels's work, like Bully Ray's, has been stellar in the past year. He's doing the best work of his career on the mic and is the most interesting as a character, by far, he's ever been including his good work in ROH as "Fallen Angel." That said, he should be used at this point to help mentor and build younger future stars that TNA thinks have a chance to grow into bigger stars. The idea that Hogan is talking circles around whether or not a 40 year old 20+ year vet has a chance to be a future main eventer says a lot about the tactics and mindset that ultimately is dooming TNA to a lower ceiling of success than it should have.

PWTorch.com reader Paul D. asks: Why does everybody think the Miz is terrible as a face? He's just treating his opponents the same way Stone Cold, the Rock, and Mr. Kennedy did as faces. In fact, if memory serves, when Stone Cold and the Miz had an in-ring segment on the All-Star episode of Raw, Stone Cold called the crowd sons of bitches and they all cheered. The Miz is just being himself, but towards the heels and people still give him a hard time. To quote Gregory Helms: What's up with that?

PWTorch columnist Sean Radican answers: I think Miz's personality as a heel doesn't work because he's annoying and obnoxious as a face and his act comes off awkwardly compared to Rock and Steve Austin. I don't think Miz is really being himself as a face because to many people, myself included, his face turn feels forced. His smarmy personality doesn't translate as well as a face as it did as a heel and it's not something people want to get behind. His pairing with Ric Flair has also come off as awkward, so I think Miz needs to work with creative to tweak his face character in order for it to get over. Perhaps giving him a more serious edge as a babyface would work, but doing the same things he did as a smarmy heel doesn't have the same impact as Rock and Austin, who were completely different.

PWTorch columnist Greg Parks answers: Quite simply, Miz's babyface act just isn't catching on with the crowd. The difference between Miz and some of the guys you mentioned is they weren't given awful jokes and scripted in a terrible way as Miz has been. And if Miz is coming up with some of this stuff himself, then shame on him. He was awesome as a heel because he was a jerk, someone you wanted to see get his face punched in. As a babyface, he still comes off as smug and the biggest fan of his own jokes. Those are not appealing babyface characteristics. Miz is NOT Steve Austin or The Rock, and is not nearly as effective in his role as those two. If Miz is really just "being himself," then he needs to change things up to get over as a babyface, or hope WWE turns him back heel.


SPECIAL NOTE We have launched a new FREE PWTorch Email Alert service today where you can receive BREAKING NEWS ALERTS on occasion plus TOP FIVE STORIES OF THE DAY reports. To sign up (you can easily unsubscribe anytime), click here.)

NOTE: You can ask PWTorch staff questions live on the PWTorch Livecast (www.PWTorchLivecast.com) Monday through Friday. Mondays the show airs at 6 p.m. ET / 3 p.m. PT in the hour before Raw and Tuesday through Friday at 5:30 ET / 2:30 PT. The show airs five days a week and you can talk to PWTorch staff members Bruce Mitchell, Travis Bryant, Pat McNeill, James Caldwell, Greg Parks, Sean Radican, and me on other days during the week.

READ PREVIOUS "ASK PWTORCH" FEATURES BY CLICKING HERE.

(Send your question for PWTorch editor Wade Keller and the PWTorch staff exclusively to pwtorch@gmail.com for consideration! You can hear expanded conversation on the above topics from Wade Keller by becoming a VIP member and gaining access to the daily Wade Keller Hotline, posted every day for VIP members for over 1,000 days straight. Sign up at www.PWTorch.com/govip)

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