Some might have scoffed at Paul Heyman about two years ago when he said the Bloodline story was only in the bottom of the third inning, implying there’s plenty more of their story to tell.
Well, I think if Heyman could read every negative comment to his own statement, he might snicker and chortle a little bit at us for being so wrong. Yes, chortle. A hearty one.
Heyman made that comment long before G.o.D. arrived in WWE, while Jacob Fatu was still tearing up MLW, well before the notion of The Rock ever stepping back into a WWE ring even entered our minds, and long before Cody Rhodes’ story had any chance of being finished. Now on the precipice of the Bloodline Civil War hitting the War Games stage at Survivor Series we have a storyline that feels like it has near infinite stamina and more than enough legs to continue this marathon arc even as each new layer of the story is peeled back.
While there have been plenty of good stories told within WWE over the last year or so, the reason why the Bloodline story has endured is because of the people behind it — Roman Reigns, Paul Heyman and The Rock — who have been able to keep it fresh by adding all of these new elements and fresh chess pieces to the board. That effort has proved so many people wrong and it has become one of the more interesting wrestling stories told on any wrestling program in recent memory. It’s kept us thinking in terms of acts as opposed to moments and chapters, but most importantly it’s managed to stay fresh at every turn even while injecting a dose of its own nostalgia back into the mix by reforming the OG bloodline of Reigns, Sami Zayn and the Usos.
To say that the Bloodline saga has been expertly crafted and executed would be an understatement. Even without including the other family tree members we know and/or think are coming, although War Games has served as the backdrop for a piece of the saga in the past, the tone of the relevance of the event to the story has been altered because now we aren’t talking about the “us vs. them” mentality of the Bloodline vs. the rest of WWE, now we’re talking about one of the more storied match types of the last 37 years serving as the backdrop for a potentially violent blood feud between the Bloodline members themselves.
The best part though is not knowing what will happen, and I say “knowing” in the sense that a story can be so predictable you can sheepishly guess what’s going to happen fresh out of bed in the morning with crusties in your eyes and before having a semi-decent cup of coffee and still be right. That isn’t what we have here. It’s been a hallmark of the entire story to avoid that predictability, which they have done rather well from the outset even when some of Reigns’ title defences felt stale (not the story beats, but the actual match formula). The success has been realized because of the people telling it have been several moves ahead of fans and haven’t moved toward checkmate yet because we’re still too busy moving pawns one square at a time and looking at what they’re doing in a clear cut, two-dimensional way. And when we think we’ve figured them out, they stop playing regular chess and start playing 3-D chess on a whim because they can. In terms of the storytelling, they’ve been playing a different type of game with different storytelling devices from the start.
War Games has always been the backdrop for factional warfare, and there’s no riper time than now to put all of these pieces together into one match and put on a memorable spectacle that will do justice to the story they have told so far, but also hit the important dynamic of dually moving it forward toward what they have planned in the coming months as we hit WrestleMania season in addition to the company’s debut on Netflix in January.
And now as we sit mere hours before the show, you have to wonder what’s going to happen. What plot point are we on the brink of seeing? Will The Rock return? Will new Bloodline members be introduced, such as Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa’s brother Hikuleo or Lance Anoa’i? Maybe Rikishi returns and stinkfaces CM Punk just because. Jokes aside, although a Punk-face would be kind of needlessly hilarious, that’s what is remarkable about this. There are definite pieces or elements of this story we can guess, but we can never guess the execution and how we get from point A to point C and beyond.
For example, who could have foreseen months ago that we’d be talking about CM Punk being involved in the match on the side of the OG Bloodline, and that we could trace that back to the point that Solo and his crew attacked and beat down the venerable wise man; someone held dear to both Reigns and Punk as a confidant and friend. That creates history to pull from. Then you also need to consider that Punk has history with other members of the family, most notably the Rock who I’d go so far as to predict is the one behind Solo and has been pulling those strings the whole time to build toward that match between himself and Reigns. That added potential further establishes Punk in the story and makes it make sense in the context of what has happened, what can happen, and what could potentially happen in the coming months. Then add a dash of Punk and Heyman’s history together and then suddenly the favour they mentioned during Friday night’s sitdown vignette carries more weight as not only do you have a potential Punk-Rock showdown calling back to their 2012-13 WWE title feud, but you also can flip the coin and do Reigns vs. Punk because they’ve got that shared history going back as far as the Shield debut in addition to all the baggage of history between them. And then the cherry on the sundae is Punk’s line about Heyman being THEIR wise man, which calls Heyman’s loyalty into question.
Together they’ve threaded all of these different possible outcomes or avenues to travel down to create multiple access points to the match even beyond the violent spectacle itself. The details they’ve sprinkled make the match mean more because of the history and stakes involved in addition to the spectre of what could be coming in the near future. That unpredictability makes the match almost invaluable to the bigger picture of the Bloodline story and how it’s executed; the degree their objective is accomplished dictates how much value any combination of matches between the other Bloodline members, Reigns, Punk and Rock all have as we head toward the Netflix debut and WrestleMania.
Prediction
I think there are a few sensible outcomes here. I do think Rock is behind Sikoa’s power grab and is the puppet master — or Final Boss if you will — pulling the strings behind the scenes. It’s the only real way Sikoa’s ascension makes sense. While I do think he and his crew are aligned with good ol’ Dwayne, I don’t feel like the group has anything to gain from beating the OG Bloodline. The Rock appearing makes sense regardless of which group wins: he can show up and cost Reigns’ team, or Reigns’ team can dominate, win and then have Rock show up at the end of the match to beatdown the group alongside his own group and stand tall with the Bloodline lei at the end of the show. Perhaps that scenario is a little overbooked, but this feels like the point to bring Rocky back given the timeframe and relation to the timing of moving to Netflix, Royal Rumble a month later and obviously WrestleMania in the spring. Moreover, if you have Sikoa’s team win you’re actively removing the possibility of a Reigns-Punk match in the immediate future. Considering everything, I think the OGs winning the night alongside Punk will happen, and I would say I’m 70-30 on being confident The Rock returns toward the end of the match to assert his “Final Boss” status. It just feels like the right time to execute that plot point.
Winners: The OG Bloodline+CM Punk, with the high possibility of Rocky returning to set up future scenarios.
