Cayden Daniels, the little sister of Christopher Daniels, is the newest TNA Knockout. Chris and his ex-best friend, AJ Styles, are the only family she has. When her "brothers" find themselves on opposite sides of a war, who will she side with?
This was the premise of the Professional Wrestling Fan Fiction Family Doesn't End With Blood, Freakin' Yoda
(FKA crazy_casey_1167), with SomeoneElse17 (as Instant Classic Superstar Pac) joining midway through as beta reader and co-author. Of course, the answer to that question was only the beginning of the story itself, as it centered around an alternate timeline version of TNA circa 2010, wherein the 2009 iteration of Christopher Daniels and AJ Styles' feud bled into 2010 and led to Daniels joining the Main Event Mafia, the legends-themed Power Stable led by Kurt Angle as the company's Big Bad in the years before Hulk Hogan arrived as an authority figure. (In order for this to work, the MEM's disbandment was retconned as a ruse and Hogan's arrival was pushed back and called into question due to legal issues.)
A sequel to this story was once in the works under the tentative title The Impact of Changing Tides, showing the beginnings of the Hogan and Bischoff era in this new timeline. In addition to this, the two also planned to go back through the early chapters from before 17 became a part of the story and refine them for consistency. However, Yoda and 17's partnership quietly dissolved before either of these could come to fruition.
Currently, 17 is putting together a rework of the existing story, with the Cayden character replaced by a young woman called Serena Mancini, who is said to be the youngest member of The Triad, a backstage band of brothers known to have included Styles and Daniels as well as Samoa Joe and Frankie Kazarian. It becomes clear early on that Serena is unlike Cayden in that she is not an OC, with her name and altered backstory references aggressively hinting as to who she really is. Furthermore, the Mancini name will become a serious plot point, altering the motivations behind critical actions on the part of several characters. The current working title for this version of the story is Family is Covenant.
The original Family Doesn't End With Blood can be read here.
"Family Doesn't End With Tropes":
- Abhorrent Admirer: Scott Steiner towards Cayden, to put it mildly. He's constantly eyeing her up, kissing her hand as if trying to woo her, not reading the signs when she gets uncomfortable or even when others, such as Kevin Nash and The Motor City Machine Guns tell him to back off of her. Once Angle decides she's fair game due to crossing The Mafia one too many times, he goes well past this trope.
- The Ace: Shall forever be AJ Styles.
- Age Lift: This first Author's Note for the story states that it is an AU where Christopher Daniels is 33 years old and AJ Styles is 31, rather than Daniels' 40 or Styles' 33 in Real Life mid-2010. Averted in the rework, which doesn't play with their pre-TNA past in order to establish their bond with Serena.
- The Baby of the Bunch: Cayden, hands down. Pretty much the entire main cast of good guys is incredibly devoted to protecting her because they knew her from before she was under contract, to the point that harming her is treated as the reason they all came back for revenge moreso than anything Angle did to them over the years.
- Big Bad: Kurt Angle's two-year run as the primary antagonist of TNA Wrestling is extended into a three-year run in this story.
- Broad Strokes: With AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels' history before TNA. In real life, Styles and Daniels both worked matches for WCW in its final years and ended up meeting during matches in National Wrestling Alliance territories, becoming best friends behind the scenes and then Fire-Forged Friends on-screen during their time in TNA. In the story, Daniels and Cayden are written as having taken AJ in shortly after he got kicked out of his father's house at fifteen, and Daniels is the one who got Styles into the business. The rework plans to do away with this, having a different idea as to how Serena is linked to the boys which does not require altering their own past to that extent.
- Casanova Wannabe: How Steiner's unwanted advances towards Cayden come off at first, before it seems like anybody's about to cross a line.
- Continuity Snarl: The early chapters had several points that would be retconned over time, clearly marking a difference between the part where Yoda worked the story all on her own and the part where she had 17 working with her:
- Cayden seemed to be introduced as a complete rookie to the wrestling business with no experience beyond Chris's training and backstage visits before the story began. It's not really until the final beats of the story that it's explained she had been working independent dates in the Midwest before coming to TNA.
- She also beats the entire Knockouts division by herself in her debut in the number one contender's battle royal, with nearly all the other knockouts going after her one by one and being eliminated for it, as well as takes out the entire Main Event Mafia with an over-the-top plancha. Later in the story she's portrayed as being vulnerable to attacks, including from other Knockouts, and Taylor Wilde, one of the Knockouts that targeted her in said match, becomes part of Cayden's Girl Posse as well as Chris Sabin's girlfriend.
- Taylor and Sarita are simply part of the battle royal at first, then part of the party congratulating Cayden on beating ODB for the Knockouts title at Breakthrough. Come chapter 14, they're acknowledged as the Knockout Tag Team Champions and are friends with Cayden, with later continuity establishing that they actually won said titles at Breakthrough.
- Breakthrough is initially treated as its own brand new pay-per-view concept, but well down the road is acknowledged as that year's version of Victory Road.
- Early chapters make no effort to keep track of anything that's happening on the show aside from whatever Cayden and her loved ones are involved with. Later chapters end up laying out how the shows went in general, with Rebellion-related events getting the full writer's detail treatment.
- The Mafia still being together long enough to recruit Daniels* isn't treated as a notable thing at all at first, but eventually gets explained as misdirection on the part of Angle.
- Samoa Joe seems like just another member of the Main Event Mafia with no personal ties to Cayden in the introductory scene, but his prior friendship to Styles and Daniels and his role in breaking them up as a team is soon factored back in to explain him as being responsible for bringing Chris into The Mafia.
- This one is fully on the part of 17. The family ultimately coins its own name as The Omega Rebellion, being the final available resistance against The Mafia's plans to completely rule TNA when Hulk Hogan comes in and gain his support as a continuation of The New World Order. However, due to 17 inexplicably deciding he didn't want the name to be confused with the Hardy Boyz and their friends from OMEGA, this was retconned in the final chapters to "Saigo's Rebellion", a name that makes far less sense unless you actually know about Saigō Takamori being the real-life version of The Last Samurai. And no, none of this has anything to do with Kenny Omega, who wasn't even a blip on most wrestling fans' radar in 2010.
- Crash-Into Hello: Cayden and Shelley have this.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Scott Steiner calls out Jeff Jarrett at the Final Resolution pre-show to explain that the entire reason he crossed the line with his "interest" in Cayden from a bad admirer to an open harasser and attempted rapist was out of spite because Jarrett never trusted him to protect Cayden from anything Angle might attempt despite Steiner having had Jarrett's back for twenty years and helped him to several world titles and Jarrett clearly being willing to exert his authority against The Mafia for Cayden's favor. Naturally, it comes across as an empty excuse and Jarrett promptly shuts it down by mentioning he easily could've spoken to Jeff personally, even points out that if Tomko, who was on the outs with the family, could step in to protect her of his own will and gain the others' favor back, Steiner should've made the same decision and helped protect her from the attack instead of participating in it. Steiner does make points that create trouble for the family later on, but none of it justifies his actions.
- Fix Fic: This story ultimately became one to the dissolution of the Main Event Mafia and the advent of Hulk Hogan's version of TNA. In contrast to The Mafia simply dissolving after Angle suddenly declared his respect for the young guys because Styles beat him for the title and Matt Morgan decided to feud with him, this version embraces Angle's heel role over the company and plays it to its logical conclusion with a faction of people who've been wronged by Kurt over those two years actually stepping up to destroy his mob rule.
- Hate Sink: Steiner as the insatiably-perverted Jerk Jock and Angle as the Machiavellian mob leader are both tailor made to be this, which the story spares no expense in exploiting.
- Heel–Face Turn: Daniels seems destined for this as soon as the story begins, with AJ and the other good guys caring far more about Cayden's safety than The Mafia aside from him and Joe, provoking Chris' anger towards his supposed stablemates on a routine basis. Naturally, after Angle has The Mafia beat Cayden to within an inch of her life and then proceeds to "fire" both Daniels and Joe after having sent them out of the arena, they waste no time turning back to the good guys.
- He's Back!: Tomko, Sting, and Christian Cage all come back to avenge The Mafia's attack on Cayden and help put an end to Angle's stronghold over TNA.
- I Have You Now, My Pretty: Following Angle's decision that Cayden is fair game, Steiner is able to puts his hands on her several times, ranging from feeling her up while restraining her from helping one of her guys to outright taking her away and going for Attempted Rape. Attempted is the word, as this always seems to land him on the receiving end of a beating from a Motor City Machine Gun or a returning hero.
- Knight Templar Big Brother: AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels are like madmen when it comes to protecting Cayden. Styles is immediately out for blood the moment anybody comes close to her with oppositional intentions, while Daniels instinctively threatens, insults, and scolds The Mafia any time they antagonize her despite being their newest member. This is all before the attack. Afterwards, anyone even looking at her or talking about her the wrong way seems to have a target planted on them, as Desmond Wolfe can attest to.
- Mob War: The Main Event Mafia versus "the family" which eventually becomes The Omega Rebellion.
- "Not So Different" Remark: During ODB and Angelina Love's attack on Cayden and Roxxi at Turning Point, Sting is found pacing back and forth before Kevin Nash walks up and confronts him with this:Nash: What are you going to do Stinger? Go down there and attack two chicks to protect Cayden? You know, that'll make you no better than us.
- Obviously Evil: When Mitchell is introduced as the new authority figure, it's treated as a major shock moment due to the fact that he is a proudly Satanic Card-Carrying Villain, and absolutely no one trusts him not to screw them over at some point.
- Papa Wolf: Jeff Jarrett treats Cayden like the daughter he never had and his protectiveness comes out in direct proportion to her becoming a target. Sting does too.
- Power Stable: The Main Event Mafia.
- Putting the Band Back Together: Christian's Coalition is occasionally referenced in the story, whenever Christian makes a phone call or during Tomko's return. When Christian returns, he wastes little time in reforming The Coalition, with Styles, Tomko, and the Daniels siblings finally becoming official members.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Mick Foley and Jeff Jarrett are briefly seen in this role before James Mitchell shockingly takes the reins of power starting in chapter 22. However, despite his villainous nature, Mitchell plays it entirely straight even moreso than Foley and especially Jarrett, due to his interests being far more fulfilled by controlling TNA's chaos and steering it towards a final conclusion rather than backing either side of the war.
- Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Cayden is described as being a Scots-Irish redhead with hazel eyes...despite being the sister of Christopher Daniels, who had brown hair back when he had hair and possesses unmistakable blue eyes. This was obviously due to Cayden being initially conceived as a Self-Insert for Yoda, and it wasn't thought to factor in as a plot point within the Daniels family backstory until the sequel which didn't come to fruition.
- Slut-Shaming: Cayden Daniels and Angelina Love can barely stand to look at each other without hurling out some manner of "slut" or "whore" as an insult. The Mafia does it too when it comes to Cayden, Steiner and Angle being the most notorious for it.
- The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Replace "daughter" with "sister" and you get the dichotomy between Chris, an oval-shaped bald man with a very shifty-looking face, and Cayden, who is described no later than the second sentence of the story as "one of the hottest girls that many of the guys had seen."
- Violently Protective Girlfriend:
- Much of the story features Alex Shelley being this to Cayden, especially after the Main Event Mafia's attack against her and Scott Steiner's constant harassment. Shelley's default mood towards Big Poppa Pump in particular seems to be set on "bloody murder".
- Angle occasionally disrespects Styles' wife, and gets punched in the face for it. Of course, the same once happened with Tomko in early 2008.
- Would Hit a Girl:
- One of Freakin' Yoda's favorite tropes at the time to elicit sympathy for her character and hatred for the villains, never was it more effective than in Chapter 18, when Kurt Angle, with two words, sanctioned what would've easily been the most heinous man-on-woman attack ever seen on a mainstream wrestling product, on par with some of Angle's Bad Guys' bloody gang assaults on guys such as Styles and Christian in 2008.
Angle: Hurt her.- At Final Resolution, Angelina Love retains the Knockouts title as The Beautiful People defeated Cayden, Taylor, and Sarita, and thus she can legally interfere in the Last Stand match between the two groups. However, if she actually gets in the ring, she can be pinned and cause The Main Event Mafia to be eliminated. Cayden exploits this after she does interfere, invoking the trope by attacking her, throwing her in the ring, and instructing The Rebellion to pin her, successfully scaring Love away from the rest of the match.
Tropes that will apply to the Family is Covenant rework
- Adaptational Heroism: Sting turns out to be pretty heroic after Bound for Glory in the original story, but before that, intentionally delaying returning to TNA or to Cayden's life in order to avoid a careless overreaction after of the attack causes her and the others to be justifiably upset with him. In this version, Sting's inability to be there will only be particularly upsetting to Jarrett and AJ, and even then Sting will reassure Jarrett that he's working to help behind the scenes. When he finally reveals his connection to the Mancini family and how he convinced them to hold off on attacking TNA and instead support him in his return to make things right, Joe and Serena will promptly appoint him as The Triad's personal godfather and even AJ will agree with this, opening the door to expand into a full Covenant.
- Adaptational Name Change: As spoiled by the title, The Rebellion's name will be changed to "The Front Line Covenant" in order to signify the rebirth of the TNA Front Line with a heavy emphasis on Christianity and family.*
- Adaptational Nice Guy: If by "nice" we mean "a little more reasonable and less gratuitously heinous but still pretty vile," Angle, Steiner, and Nash definitely fit this trope.
- Steiner's early creepy tendencies with Serena will be explained as him watching over a prospect, and his later overt perversion while restraining her will be toned down, never going towards Attempted Rape levels like it does with Cayden. In addition, the point that Jarrett could've talked Steiner into stopping Angle from crossing the line will be a factor in his mindset as soon as the attack has set in in his mind, rather than being tacked on at the last minute, because Steiner will call him out on stacking the deck against his old friend as soon as it happens. Shelley and others will still want to kill him for even touching her, but the pathological obsession he has with Cayden won't be there with Serena given the fact that he's been a legitimate Kavorka Man in and out of kayfabe over the years.
- Nash will have more frequent moments of sensing trouble from Kurt's actions, and although he won't try to stop the attack and he'll still tag her back with MEM afterwards, he'll never physically harm Serena with a strike or a wrestling move. He'll also inherit Steiner's excuse for supporting Angle's cruelty against her, this time against Samoa Joe but with far more of a salient point: by trusting Angle with the information before ever taking it to Nash, he will have removed the decision surrounding her from Nash's hands entirely.
- Angle will also lead The Mafia to confront Jarrett directly after he exerts his power against them, and the part that The King of the Mountain's defiance plays in driving them to cross the line is directly shown in-story. Furthermore, the troubled family past that Angle knows about Serena won't just be something he can throw in her face like it is with Cayden, but instead represents something that The Godfather could reasonably conceive (or even just spin) as a potential threat to TNA that he would feels the need to excise.
- Chekhov's Gun: Remember back in 2006 when AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels needed an equalizer for Gail Kim during their feud with America's Most Wanted over the NWA World Tag Team Championship, leading to the brief appearance of Brawn Hilda Sirelda? During their time scouring the indies for said neutralizer, AJ received a tip about Serena from a mutual friend who went on to become a multiple time women's champion, and while he and Daniels decided to go with the larger Sirelda in the moment, they could tell Serena would be special long term and decided to build a relationship with her to get her into TNA when she was more seasoned amd ready. Joe and Kazarian were let in on this and also met her not too long after, and within months she was the baby of The Triad.
- Foreshadowing: Serena calling herself "The Regulator Princess", not to mention referring to Kurt Angle's group as anything and everything other than Mafia because she point blank refuses to acknowledge them as one, will heavily suggest what her backstory is even before Angle mentions her real name.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Samoa Joe's actions in convincing Christopher Daniels to join with The Main Event Mafia will include the detail that Joe told Kurt Angle about the Mancini Crime Family in the hopes of not only talking Angle into allowing Daniels, but also enticing him towards the idea of Serena joining once she becomes part of TNA. This will backfire because Serena's morals and Angle's desire for control will absolutely not allow them to join forces, culminating in the attack being as vicious as it is because Angle will reason that if he's going to get rid of the Mancini princess he has no choice but to go all out with it, conventional standards be damned.
- Mysterious Past: Much like Cayden, Serena Mancini will be implied to have had a tumultuous past involving her family. Unlike Cayden, Kurt Angle will explicitly foreshadow where this is going by mentioning her birth name of Serena Deeb when he forbids Daniels from talking to her after her disrespect. Sure enough, upon Angle's attack and revelation, her backstory will fully incorporate her Insurgency heel turn at the end of her OVW run, her Mafia Princess gimmick from FCW, and even nod towards Serena's real-life WWE role in CM Punk's Straight Edge Society by explaining that she chose to quit and join her Triad brothers in TNA instead of going to Punk when her family ordered it.
- Unrelated in the Adaptation: Serena won't be Christopher Daniels' blood sister, despite actually having the proper hair color to match. Instead she'll be Like Brother and Sister to The Triad, the backstage crew formed by AJ, Daniels, Joe, Kazarian, and Kaz's wife Traci Brooks, with an explanation consistent with past TNA storylines for how she would've met and befriended them.
Tropes that apply to the aborted sequel
- Power Stable: Fortune would've taken root in this story, under a different name as "The Maverick Riders" and with AJ rejecting the group in favor of his Rebellion ties.
