And the Crowd Goes “Yes!”

***WARNING: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING A WRESTLING NERD DISCUSSION ZONE*** PLEASE KEEP YOUR EYES AND EARS INSIDE OF KAYFABE*** This was the promo of Stephanie and H’s lifetimes. Watching with my wonderfully patient girlfriend and my best friend (both proudly non-fans), not only did they seem like they didn’t totally hate it, but they almost seemed to enjoy it.

This may be insanely anecdotal, but it highlights a very specific and important part of this entire “The Authority”/”Best for Business Bureau” storytelling: it’s resonating with non-fans. That’s largely a function of the work they’ve — meaning Triple H and Stephanie — done with the ridiculous amount of exposition required while maintaining their basic emotions. It’s also a function of how complicated and “meta” the permeable layer between kayfabe/real life is in this storyline, but how simple the actual storyline in-and-of-itself is on its face– Stephanie/Triple H have taken over control of the future of the company (both on screen and in real-life) and used their power and influence to put people they want in positions of power (both on screen and in real-life), that’s pretty much it.

This layering works in much the same way a good comedy show does, using the entire WWE Universe to everyone that needs to get over (Big Show, the Rhodes, Daniel Bryan, the Shield and Randy Orton) to get over, but in a way that appeals to “smart” fans and people who not either don’t know or don’t care about what’s really going on and only take in everything on the surface. Like a really good episode of 30 Rock, this manages to tell two engaging storylines while serving two masters without making one feel like it cares about the other more. ***WARNING: YOU ARE NOW EXITING A WRESTLING NERD DISCUSSION ZONE*** PLEASE ENJOY YOUR COMPLIMENTARY SONIC MILKSHAKE ON THE WAY OUT***

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