In yesterday's "Ask PWTorch Staff" article (the website-exclusive version), I answered a VIP bonus question at the end regarding the current storyline of Triple H's dominant dictatorship of the WWE roster. I attended the Smackdown tapings last night in Minneapolis, and the crowd reactions just furthered by resolve that this storyline with Triple H is helping Triple H and no one else. Today I'm publishing the VIP member question and my detailed response explaining why the current storyline is, shall we say, bad for business… At the end, I'll add some observations from last night's Smackdown taping that I attended that reenforces what I wrote.

PWTorch VIP member Marc from New York asks: Hey Wade, I completely understand your criticism of Daniel Bryan vs. the McMahon/Orton/Shield faction storyline. However, I feel that the angle is getting over better than you are giving it credit for. Here are my sort of devil's advocate reasons as to why this angle is working.

1. Bryan is getting tremendous ovations and crowd reactions. The babyface who stands alone against insurmountable odds is a time-tested angle which draws money. If the babyface gets his heat back too quickly, then his comeback has less importance.

2. Big Show is being stripped of his pride, and I think could turn heel off of it. He does Hunter's bidding and turns on the fans because they don't understand why he is doing the cowardly things that he does.

3. When Cody Rhodes jumps the rail in two weeks to help Bryan, it will mean more for Cody and get him over huge. If eight babyfaces had helped Bryan before, then it takes away the impact. They need the first time a babyface runs in to count.

4. Babyface acts such as Kofi Kingston and the Uso's are worth sacrificing to get over the idea of a totalitarian regime. Plus no money drawing acts like John Cena, C.M. Punk, Undertaker, or Sheamus are made to look bad in this story. Who cares if a couple of lower mid-card babyfaces and a novelty act in his 40s (Big Show) look bad.

I will admit that parts of this angle could be done better, I feel like this angle is like '80s hair metal. Poison, and Winger weren't great bands, and the music wasn't very good, but a lot of people liked it, and those bands made a lot of money. Not everything needs to be technically perfect, or in a wrestling sense, be logical to make money and be successful. However, I defer to a wrestling expert when it comes to these things, and I would appreciate if you went through the points I make above, and tell me why I am wrong. Thanks for reading, and as always keep up the great work.

PWTorch editor Wade Keller answers: When I am critical of this angle, I am also torn for some of the reasons you list above (and others). First, there is a bit of history to the "Triple H Center of the Universe blindspot" that anything Triple H is part of has to get past, and I'm not sure this angle does. This angle so far has made Randy Orton a background player. Yes, he stood over Bryan's fallen body at the end of the show, but overall he is in a subservient role to the mighty Triple H. I think by now Orton would have been more of a focus of this angle. He seems practically like Hunter's bodyguard and surrogate champion for Triple H. Yes, Triple H talks the talk about Orton being the proper Face of the Company, but Orton "feels" like he's subservient to Hunter by a great distance and was simply chosen by Triple H to carry the gold for him and his family, yet Orton is the one headlining PPVs and house shows, not Hunter. I think that's an issue, but a separate one from the points you bring up.

Yes! Bryan is over, but he was over before this angle took place. I don't think the negative side effects from this angle rub off onto him enough to totally kill his momentum. However, there was a problem on Raw on Monday night that is always present in how WWE presents Bryan, and it's pulling Bryan down more than lifting him up. Why was Show, an overweight, over-the-hill non-title-contender booked to be the guy who obviously would defeat a fresh Daniel Bryan in a fair fight? I mean, Bryan just pinned John Cena clean a few weeks ago, but now Bryan is being booked like 1-2-3 Kid against Razor Ramon. That's not "a small detail," that's a big deal.

I'd argue Bryan right now is over despite how he's booked more than because of it. Remember, Bryan got over in the midst of wrestling The Shield every week, before Triple H and Vince McMahon decided to glom onto his popularity and try to tear him down to get heel heat and explain to fans why they shouldn't be popping for him like they do. I just hated how, on Raw on Monday, Show was booked to be the obviously dominantly tougher guy who was going to easily badly hurt Bryan in a fair fight. WWE's mindset is still so big-man-centric that it doesn't even cross their minds that fans don't see Bryan as the "obvious massive underdog" against Big Show, because if that were the case, they wouldn't believe in him as a serious threat in the main event division in general, and that by constantly stressing how small and unlikely a main eventer he is as being "a given," it creates a totally unnecessary and counter-productive headwind to Bryan's momentum.

As for Big Show, yes, if is stripped of his pride and comes back as a heel, he can become Orton and Hunter's enforcer and bodyguard. But the angle on Monday night mostly sent a message that Show was a sympathetic figure you're supposed to feel bad about, with the caveat in the end that he put his job in WWE over standing up for a friend. So they sent very mixed signals. Fans will always see Show as a pathetic guy who lost all his money and didn't do the right thing when faced with a tough choice, and a sobbing crybaby on top of that. If presented as a heel enforcer for Triple H and Orton, that makes him seem like more of a sad sap than a nasty vicious heel. His character is just a mess either way - whether he stays face or goes heel. (The crowd reaction to Big Show last night reenforced my impression coming out of Raw. The fans gave him a tepid response, more clapping than booing, but really more of a confused, conflicted non-response. They sorta feel bad for him, and sorta seem him as a big loser who's been castrated and humiliated.)

As for Cody Rhodes, yes, he could jump the rail and help Bryan, and that will help elevate him. That's a good thing that could come of this since Cody wasn't a hot babyface after his turn by any means. There are many ways to accomplish that, and this is one of them. But wrestlers shouldn't have to get fired before they stand up to the Great Triple H, God of Gods, King of Kings.

The side effect of all of this remains that wrestlers in WWE in 2013 aren't outlaws, wrestlers are school children who are told to stand single-file and grovel gratefully for the jobs the Great McMahon Dynasty is so gracious as to provide for them. Pro wrestling works best when the royalty isn't the family ownership of the wrestling company, but the wrestlers whom fans pay to see fight.

The McMahons (including Hunter) are so lost in their rich privileged corporate world that they don't get that the job of wrestling promoters should be portrayed on TV as simply trying to create a stable orderly environment for these tough badass outlaw wrestlers to settle their differences and fight over grudges and the pride of being the best inside a wrestling ring. The idea that pro wrestling has become about the WWE brand and the McMahon Dynasty gifting "athletically inclined sports entertainers" with jobs, without which they'd be pumping gas or unemployed, is a pile of crap that can't be gift wrapped and disguised as anything but a circle jerk for the McMahon Family egos.

They can cite to themselves all the rationalizations they want about how they are the biggest stars with the most history with fans, that they draw the big ratings, that they don't want to be in this spot but nobody else is stepping up, blah blah blah (a variation of the same arguments Jeff Jarrett made in TNA's early years to justify pushing himself instead of creating new stars), but ultimately it's an f'd up distortion of what pro wrestling at its core should be when the goal is to make money in every category of their business.

The primary job of the McMahons, as promoters, is to find a way to get other wrestlers over and protect the image of their wrestlers as badass outlaws who would be successful in other careers, but WWE pays the best and is the most glamorous so they choose WWE, not that the wrestlers are sad saps who are out of options and wake up in fear every day that the McMahon Dynasty will take away their one chance at being worthwhile useful human beings who can own a house and provide for their families.

As for your note about the weakness of the talent standing the stage taking these orders from Triple H, the fact that almost everyone on the stage short of four names (two of whom are injured, one of whom is a part-timer pushing 50) are deemed expendable in this storyline shows where WWE has come up short and where their efforts should be - getting new wrestlers over as something other than pathetic saps who are desperate to keep their jobs and will tow the Corporate Line to avoid rocking the boat rather than centering the show around the McMahon Dynasty working out their insecurities and petty grudges via an on-air central storyline that isn't getting anyone over who wasn't already over.

I don't hate the angle as much as it sounds here. This is just a blunt assessment of why it's the wrong angle to be centering the show around and that where it's rooted is revealing. It is "entertaining" to watch, but so full of holes and unintended negative side effects and born out of a self-centered distortion of how pro wrestling and pro wrestlers should be portrayed that at its core it's a window into what's wrong with how the McMahons look at themselves, wrestlers, fans, their industry, and the right core direction for their product.

UPDATED THOUGHTS SINCE LAST NIGHT'S SMACKDOWN TAPING

-Nothing about the crowd reaction last night conflicted with my views above. Bryan got the biggest pop of the night easily, but not a top top level main event pop. The crowd loved the "Yes! Yes!" chants, but in terms of intensity and sustained crowd heat, it was at the 80 percent level, roughly, of top acts I've seen live over the years. Bryan is over, for sure, and accepted by fans as a main event act worthy of the final slot on a card, but he's probably being more hurt than helped by the current storyline that constantly reminds fans of his shortcomings, something McMahon and Hunter are more preoccupied with than his fans.

-The Big Show, 24 hours after a major angle, was greeted with a tepid, mixed response - mostly cheers, but reserved and hardly enthusiastic. Fans didn't see him as a larger than life hero; they saw him as a sad sap who can't handle his money and puts his job ahead of being a good loyal friend because, well, he's a sad sap who would be pumping gas if not for the McMahon Dynasty's generous willingness to employ a big loser like him.

-Dolph Ziggler is cold relative to where he was right before his turn. He's standing on that same stage, doing nothing to help his friend. Again, what kind of friend - if you were being attacked by a group of thugs - would say, "Sorry, I'm late for work. If I'm late, I'll be fired, so you're on your own." It's an awful, awful aspect of this storyline which is a window into how the McMahon Dynasty in real life perceives the wrestlers, so to them this is hardly a sharp turn in how wrestling should be presented publicly. But to fans, who want their wrestlers to be superheroes and above the every-day worries of average working folks, this entire storyline is chopping any mystique and pride from every wrestler on the roster on (and, frankly, off) that stage the last few weeks.

-Rob Van Dam was over like a legacy star in the mid-card would be over. His "R! V! D!" shoulder pointing bit was over, but beyond that, there wasn't a real emotional conviction to want to see him win. Triple H used RVD as his target for his stand-up comedy routine ("I've been waiting since 2000 to hear you call me 'dude.'"). The opening segment on Friday's Smackdown is further evidence that Triple H in his current role is putting himself first, but not even to necessarily get heel heat. In this case, he's putting himself over with funny clever one-liners at the expense of babyfaces, such as RVD. Triple H played the segment at the start of Smackdown for laughs. He wasn't telling heel jokes, he was telling "look at how clever and funny I can be" jokes. That undercuts his ostensible desire to get heel heat, because fans tend to gravitate toward the more clever person on the stage. He's outwitting the babyfaces on the stage with his various one-liners.

-I had a lot more to say about this in my 35 minute Keller Hotline last night for VIP members going in-depth on the Smackdown taping experience. Bruce Mitchell & I also discussed the significant flaws in the design and execution of this Triple H-centric storyline on the VIP Bruce Mitchell Audio Show. The vast majority of the hour-plus long audio show was dedicated to dissecting what's "bad for business" about this current arc.

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