The End of the Devil Storyline?

[Smart Marx]

I feel for all intents and purposes, Tony hit the giant reset button on everything that came out of the devil storyline last night.

If you recall, the angle more or less started between all in and grand slam after Adam Cole lost his championship match with MJF and then, so did Samoa Joe at grand slam. The big reveal at worlds end after the devil helped Joe beat MJF for the title was the grand plan was that Wardlow would take the title off of Joe and hand it to Adam Cole.

Not only did this not happen last night, the Undisputed Kingdom didn’t further any angle with Joe in any way shape or form. Not only did they not help Wardlow defeat Joe they didn’t even interfere in the match nor did they try to beat him down after the match. There was no progression between the two whatsoever and make things even clearer, instead of Undisputed Kingdom, coming out after the match, Swerve comes out and furthers his angle with Joe, which, presumably leads to him beating Joe for the title at Dynasty.

As far as I can tell undisputed kingdom and Joe, no longer will have any forwarding storyline.

The other angle that Tony, more or less severed last night was the bang bang scissor gang. Which I’ve only seen the first episode of so I still need to catch up, so anybody can correct me if I get any details wrong, but the whole idea was that acclaimed had also been jumped by the devil and his henchmen, so they wanted to form a Union with bullet club with the purpose of getting revenge against the undisputed kingdom.

Not only that has never taken place, but we saw bullet club gold turn heel again for the first time since those six men United, but did so by severing their ties with the acclaimed. So that union is no more and they will certainly not be teaming up to battle the undisputed kingdom and apparently any attempts to get revenge on them is done and over with as far as this supergroup goes.

The acclaimed could very well still get revenge on them, but I don’t think so because I think they’re going to now get their revenge on the bullet club instead and nit only that but with the bullet club going heel, they’re certainly not going to have the heel bullet club feud with the heel undisputed kingdom, at least not anytime soon.

Which in a way is a bit disappointing, because I was looking forward to those two groups feuding, but if it leads to those two groups, actually loosely aligning, I’ll be super happy. Those are my two favorite heel factions right now.

All that being said, I think Tony realized just like with his lineal champion stuff that he used to do that he couldn’t wait on these injuries any longer. I’m guessing MJF isn’t cleared to return for dynasty like he had hoped and with Adam Cole also still not able to do anything without sitting, there’s just no point in prolonging the angle. You can always come back to it in six months.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Jacob Fox]

It is possible they might try to delay it until everyone they needs is healthy and then pick it up again, but I am not really sure what I think. Perhaps, at the moment, with the momentum that Swerve has had for a while now, they just feel that is something that they should take advantage of while it is happening.
I don't think they will totally abandon it, but right now they have to go with what is working and what wrestlers can work.

 

[Death By Looch]

You're pretty much right with everything, I'd say. I feel like they originally had more planned with the Undisputed Kingdom, but somehow kept them kinda low-profile all things considered. While they still did some significant things, I feel overall it's been a hell of an underperformance so far. Especially when you compare from what story this group came from.

And yea, I think it didn't help that they immediately dropped the Acclaimed/Bullet Club vs. Undisputed Kingdom angle the moment the Bang Bang Scissor Gang was finally a thing. Also something that I feel, was at some point considered a possible big first story for the UK, so they started it up, but then decided against it in the end, so it immediately fizzled out hard.

 

[Smart Marx]

Just for clarification, I only mean the end of the devil specific related storylines. The undisputed kingdom still have the international championship the Ring of Honor tag team championship and I think OGK are gonna do well in the AEW tag team championship tournament that’s starting up. When Adam Cole returns, I have no doubt that undisputed kingdom will be worked into plans, but I think for the meantime, the specific angles that were supposed to be tied into Adam Cole, MJF and Samoa Joe have all been essentially canceled.

 

[Hidden Blaze]

Yeah, it’s not exactly played out how I’d like, injuries seem to have just messed things up a little bit idk. I’m hoping once Cole is good to go, things pivot back on track.

 

[Jacob Fox]

Currently watching the show from last night. I may have a better opinion after I see the whole thing.

 

[Jacob Fox]

The complete lack of involvement of the Undisputed Kingdom in the Joe/Wardlow match and post match does seem to indicate nothing moving forward with them and Joe. It is definitely odd that they didn't get involved in any way at all so I think it is right to say the angle is stalled at the very least for now.

If they pick it up again, they'll probably have to go with a different story. Wardlow lost definitively so that puts an effective stop to the idea of him taking the belt and handing it off. It would seem awkward if they went with that again.

 

[Smart Marx]

I wouldn’t even say stalled at when it comes to Joe because I don’t think they’re ever going to pick that up again. Joe is gonna drop the belt to swerve 100% of dynasty so I think united kingdom and Joe are never gonna cross paths again unless they do something really quick just a blow off the angle again in like two weeks but other than that they’re not gonna pick it up later.

I do think when Adam Cole is healthy, him and MJF will pick up their storyline again, but it’ll more or less start from a new vantage point. Same thing possibly with Jay White, MJF and Adam Cole. The three of them might re-pick up like a triangle story line.

 

[Cwalker]

I’m assuming when both Cole and MJF are good to go, they’ll return to the angle and the devil nonsense will be mentioned as little as possible.

Tony listens to the internet people and wasn’t that shit just voted Worst Feud or Worst Gimmick or something. Doesn’t make sense to bring that up if you don’t have to. Simply go with Adam Cole betrayed his best friend and go from there.

 

[Jacob Fox]

Oh I have no doubt Joe will not be involved in any way with it.

 

[Smart Marx]

I’m assuming when both Cole and MJF are good to go, they’ll return to the angle and the devil nonsense will be mentioned as little as possible.

Tony listens to the internet people and wasn’t that shit just voted Worst Feud or Worst Gimmick or something. Doesn’t make sense to bring that up if you don’t have to. Simply go with Adam Cole betrayed his best friend and go from there.

That’s what I’m saying. They basically blew off everything that came out of worlds end last night. MJF and Cole will resolve their storyline, but it’ll pick up from a new angle when Cole is healthy they’ll do something new to start up again. And Joe will not be involved.

 

[Jacob Fox]

Tony listens to the internet people and wasn’t that shit just voted Worst Feud or Worst Gimmick or something. Doesn’t make sense to bring that up if you don’t have to. Simply go with Adam Cole betrayed his best friend and go from there.

Yeah, it didn't really do much for me.

 

[Smart Marx]

Also, I think the devil storyline up until the payoff was fine. You had a good mystery. You had good twists and turns throughout, but fans just for some reason, ignored all the obvious foreshadowing it was clearly going to be Adam Cole, and they fantasy booked themselves into a fever dream that it was gonna be XYZ so when it was the person that the story was very clearly meant to be, they decided the entire thing sucked. It didn’t.

Now, I do agree that some of it makes less sense with where they decided to pay it off because again Samoa Joe being slotted in the story made no sense. And now that we’ve seen the basic payoff to the storyline, he never should’ve been part of it. There’s not much you can do when Adam Cole got hurt a week into the storyline and then MJF I guess got hurt at the end so they had to unmasked the devil and take the title off him prematurely because MJF had to leave television. It is what it is.

 

[Cwalker]

That’s what I’m saying. They basically blew off everything that came out of worlds end last night. MJF and Cole will resolve their storyline, but it’ll pick up from a new angle when Cole is healthy they’ll do something new to start up again. And Joe will not be involved.

Yeah Joe won’t be involved at all. He was just a middle man of sorts.

Maybe he has a random TV match MJF when he’s healthy and that’s how MJF gets revenge for Joe betraying him.

But that’s the extent of it. It’s not Joe’s story. He was just a cog.

 

[Roy Mustang]

tbf I think the issues people had with the devil story was how it was done not the pay off and honestly the only other person would have made some sense: Jungle Boy would have gone a stupid amount of hate. People were not in the story post Adam Cole injury and I think the best bet is moving on from it. The UK has not worked as well as planned and BBSG stuff has bombed too (Probs because THEY DID NOT HAVE THE GROUPS FIGHT and weirdly made Strong wait to win the International title). Send UK down the card imo slightly and reset Jay White plus BCG and the Acclaimed.