The One Problem EVERYONE Gets Wrong About WWE's Bloodline Saga

Wrestling is a hard game to get right. The Elite, invulnerable to this logic flaw in AEW canon, played it in God mode in collaboration with Tony Khan (and away from the contrived Being The Elite series).

It can be done.

It was done as industry standard before the late 1990s. The WWF itself told a story that could have been watched back by the characters as it unfolded with no resolution: the incredible Mega Powers Explode storyline. That tale - still the best WWE has ever told from beginning to definitive end - was informed not by "ambiguous" motivations clearly detected by the broadcast but by touching, platonic moments shared between Hulk Hogan and Miss Elizabeth that Randy Savage's paranoia interpreted as something more sinister. A character flaw, not a logic flaw, drove the plot forward. In the big heat angle, there was a reason for the camera to be situated backstage. It wasn't just there for no logical reason beyond facilitating the story. Similarly, the Owen Hart Vs. Bret Hart saga was more elegant than the Bloodline saga. The motivations of both characters were completely justified and were not made definitively clear via re-watch.

It should be done elsewhere.

On the last edition of SmackDown, Sami Zayn met up with Jey Uso in a secret backstage meeting, during which Sami acknowledged him.

Since all backstage meetings are filmed, "secret backstage meeting" is already an oxymoron. This was far worse than WWE's usual fare because, with an enormous camera set-up a few feet away from his face, Jey Uso, worried about prying eyes, craned his neck back and forth to make sure that nobody was watching. Paranoid, Jey said "Sami, you better get out of here with that, man," as if to say "Somebody might see us".

2,468,000 people watched the show on Fox - SmackDown is also broadcast in multiple countries - and one of those people was Roman Reigns, to which Paul Heyman alluded.

Even if you can accept the woeful contrivance that is the invisible camera, that was rendered impossible last week.

The already illogical device developed into something even dumber. WWE wrote themselves into a corner. It has now been established that the camera is not invisible (in this storyline, anyway). Jey Uso himself, by creating a video package as evidence of Sami's innocence during the trial, knows now that somebody could in fact see him.

So why did he pretend it wasn't there?

CONT'D...(4 of 5)