Over the summer of 2012, TNA launched what would become a year-and-a-half long angle centered around a heel faction. TNA had done this before with groups including The Main Event Mafia and Immortal, but Aces & Eights wound up encompassing different dimensions from these earlier incarnations. There are number of reasons why fans have balked at this group, but with the benefit of nearly a decade’s hindsight, it’s possible to look at them from a different angle. While this main event faction certainly wasn’t the greatest of all time, with The Dudley Boyz at the heart of the group, they wound up being far better than their critics gave them credit for.
The Mystery Man Angle Was Well Built Over Time
It can be difficult to pull off a “mystery man” angle in wrestling, in which there’s a surprise opponent for someone or a masked wrestler waiting to be revealed. Despite some successes, the limitations of this approach include it often being obvious who is in the mask (or not obvious because of inconsistencies in who is working under the hood). Moreover, WWE’s own Retribution angle underscored the difficulty of getting fans invested in anonymous wrestlers who didn’t necessarily have a clear purpose.
Aces & Eights was far more than successful than Retribution in no small part because it built over time. Despite picking a fight with legends like Hulk Hogan and Sting, the group was largely positioned in the upper mid-card for its first months, leading up to a featured tag team match at Bound For Glory. This gradual build didn’t allow Aces & Eights to overwhelm the show, but rather feel like slowly building force. Moreover, the gradual reveal of the group’s members offered the group extended intrigue. More and more faces, carried varying degrees of surprise and star power, before the biggest twist of all—that one of the faction’s key rivals, Bully Ray, was actually their leader.
Devon Was A Better First Man To Be Unmasked Than He Gets Credit For
One of the knocks against Aces & Eights is that the first time a group member got unmasked, it was Devon, best known as one of half of The Dudley Boyz tag team. While Devon was a respected veteran and Team 3-D is widely agreed to have been among the greatest tag teams in wrestling history, the uncomfortable reality was that Devon wasn’t really a main event guy, or even all that established at all as a singles wrestler.
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In hindsight, TNA knew what it was doing more than fans gave them credit for. They were making the most of their talent with name recognition as Devon first, and later D’Lo Brown, DOC, Mr. Anderson and others represented talents who did have some name recognition, while also having the potential to make bigger names for themselves with the group. On top of that, Devon’s relationship with Bully Ray added intrigue as the brothers were first established as rivals, and that first reveal later turned out to be offer even more profound foreshadowing, when fans learned Bully Ray had been calling the shots for the group the whole time.
Bully Ray Got The Spotlight He Deserved
In ECW, Bully Ray became a star, ushering his tag team with Devon toward the top via scathing promos and over the top heel shenanigans. He went on to do strong work in WWE and TNA, but never really got a main evnet push until the Aces & Eights angle.
Opposite Aces & Eights, Bully Ray garnered arguably his biggest babyface push of his career, including an alliance with Hulk Hogan and kayfabe relationship with his daughter Brooke. Bully Ray was really off to the races with a heel turn, though, when he turned out to be the Aces & Eights president. This run landed him as TNA World Heavyweight Champion and as a bona fide headliner. He was never going to have that chance in WWE, and in era before AEW, this was about as high as Bully Ray ever could have climbed in the wrestling world, spending over a year at or around the top of TNA.
While Aces & Eights couldn’t compare with a group like the New World Order, which it inevitably drew comparisons to, it nonetheless did capitalize on the resources TNA had its disposal. With a motley crew of talent, a mystery-driven premise, and a massive push that made the most of Bully Ray’s potential, the group has its place in wrestling history, and deserves far more credit than its critics have ever given it.
