The Return Of Earl Hebner

[Mitch Henessey]

A while back on Impact, Earl Hebner admitted to accepting money for screwing Kurt Angle out of the TNA world title in a match against AJ Styles. Hulk Hogan suspended Earl indefinitely, and we haven't seen him ever since. Earl was involved in the actual screwjob years ago in Montreal, and it's something that will be with him for the rest of his life.

I'm wondering if TNA will make a big deal when Earl returns? The good side to this is, it could be a pretty controversial storyline, and if it's done the right way, it could be pretty entertaining. The bad side of this is, plenty of people might be turned off by because it's something we've seen before. Either that or people just won't care that much about a storyline involving a referee.

I also think we might start hearing a lot of you screwed Kurt chants at the Impact zone, and Hebner will probably get booed upon his return. This could be chance for him to be a heel referee. He could be the guy who's willing to take money to "fix" a match.

Should TNA make a big deal of Earl Hebner's return?

Does TNA need to take the screwjob storyline further or was Kurt angle and Hulk Hogan shaking hands enough to end this?

What does the future hold for Earl Hebner?

 

[chainsaw steve]

well if you think about it back in 1988 earl was the one to screw hogan out of the title after taking money from the million dollar man. Earl has always been the one to be involved in the controversy. But as for crooked refs, i will take danny davis any day.

 

[scorpioking1026]

There are a couple of ways the Hebner story can go:

The Evil Twin- WWE did this years ago in the famous Hogan vs Andre match when Million Dollar Man bought the title from Andre. Earl's evil twin was the ref during the match. Maybe Flair bought the twin off this time around and Earl is vindicated.

The NWO relived- Remember when the NWO hired the services of the referee Nick ? (sorry I forget his last name right now). Flair's group could do the same thing but the plan isn't totally revealed till Earl is reinstated and ends up screwing Hogan over in favor of Flair and Styles. Maybe during Monday's ME. The ref for the match gets knocked out and here comes Earl running out to make the three count.

A remake of a past TNA storyline Not long ago TNA did a storyline with a referee and a wrestler, uggh i forget their names right now but the wrestler was foreign, maybe muslim type and he kept on having problems witht the same ref, leading up to a match between the two. Earl can keep on screwing over Kurt once he returns, causing more tension between Kurt and Hogan. Earl won't fight though, at least I hope not although I could see TNA doing that, giving Kurt the opportunity that Bret never got.

Some how Earl will be apart of the power struggle in TNA. Will his role be a major one? Prob. not. But there is an opportunity to progress this storyline and TNA would be dumb to just drop it all together.

 

[Tastycles]

Presumably this angle isgoing somewhere, because if he needed to be off TV for an actual reason, they could have pulled him without explanation and nobody would care. However, where they are going with it, I couldn't tell you. I suppose he might come back and be a bit of a rogue, but then Hogan would just send him away, wouldn't he? Very weird. As I write this I'm beginning to think that they ran the angle for no other reason than to try and capitalise on some of the Bret Hart hype. I doubt that worked, and it just seems a bit stupid, but I'm thinking that, actually, this was something quite throwaway.

 

[VintageWWE]

I beleive the NWO referee was Nick Patrick. Anyways I don't want to see Earl play a part in any storyline. I've never been a fan of including refs in storylines. Referees are there to officiate and the wrestlers are the ones that should be entertaining. I for one don't wantto have to pay attention to the refs actions in the ring when I'm suppose to be following the wrestlers. If TNA plans to stop using Hebner as a ref then go ahead and put him in a storyline but if after the storyline ends they're going to let him be a regular ref again then don't.