For the past several weeks, the mystery surrounding Kurt Angle’s big secret has been a focal point of Raw. On Monday night, Angle came to the ring and brought the alleged scandal to a close by announcing that former NXT and SmackDown Tag Team Champion Jason Jordan is his son.
Angle explained that he dated a girl in college for short time and got her pregnant, but didn’t know about it. The woman put the child up for a closed adoption, and Jordan wanted to know who his biological parents and hired a private investigator, which ultimately led to the reveal.
WWE has a lengthy track record of starting off promising storylines very well, only to crash and burn before any sort of climax is reached. While the announcement of Angle’s progeny wasn’t bad, it fell flat for a variety of reasons.
Week after week, Angle was frightened by unsolicited text messages from an unknown source containing information that could ruin him, his family, and cost him his job as the General Manager of Raw. The excitement was high for the announcement of this deep, dark secret.
The salacious nature of what many fans expected to receive was quelled when Angle stated before the reveal that he has the full support of his friends, his family, and WWE. A secret is not very juicy when the audience is told ahead of time that there will be no Jerry Springer drama because everyone is cool with it.
As for Jason Jordan, well, he was the Robin to Chad Gable’s Batman in a tag team, on SmackDown, that never got over. Since Jordan was practically an invisible cog in the blue brand’s wheel, it’s fair to say that a lot of people either forgot who Jason Jordan is, and the ones who do remember probably don’t care based on the reaction he got.
WWE has put themselves in a position where they have no choice but to give Jordan an elevated push that justifies his new Olympic parentage. In other words, the son of Kurt Angle can’t be no scrub. That’s an uphill battle considering Raw is often a three-hour bore fest that will now feature a new act that has shown no signs of charisma.
This storyline has some potential to work because Jason Jordan is a really good wrestler that diehard fans want to see succeed. While his lack of charisma could be a concern, it’s entirely possible that it simply hasn’t come through yet, which could be chalked up to how poorly American Alpha was booked as a tag team.
Speaking of American Alpha, ‘Papa Angle’ also confirms the tag team’s demise. Jordan and Gable were the modern day version of the Steiner Brothers and their work in NXT was a great indicator of a sure-fire hit when they were called up to the main roster in last summer’s draft. While hopes were high for the duo, it was clear early on that WWE didn’t really know what to do with them.
In recent weeks, Chad Gable has been great as a singles wrestler in matches with Kevin Owens and AJ Styles. Gable was getting accolades with no Jason Jordan in sight until last night on Raw. There have been reports citing that Vince McMahon is very high on Jordan. So high in fact that he almost called up Jordan only to the main roster and not the more well-rounded but shorter Gable in the draft.
The great Kurt Angle mystery of summer 2017 is now in the books. As usual, WWE put on a great opening act that culminated with an uninspiring conclusion. Jason Jordan’s inclusion presents some interesting possibilities though. Besides his upside as a wrestler, it was surprising and refreshing to see this play out as an interracial storyline.
As far as payoffs go, I hope that Jason Jordan is a quarterly payout as opposed to a much more lucrative year-end bonus. Remember, Angle was originally being blackmailed with the information. I hope that comes into play instead of being swept under the rug.
Ringside Logic 