TNA's WORST Storyline? A Look Back at Claire Lynch 

This needs to be a series called Storylines. Where Brian reviews the best, worst, corniest, most interesting storylines across wrestling from the last 30 years. I would love to see a set series on just storylines and Brian giving us the history, rundowns and his opinions.

Lets not forget the best thing to come out of this storyline. Christopher Daniels showing the world Kazarian has a personality

You know how you can have one really bad meal at a restaurant and you swear you'll never eat there again? That was me with this storyline. I was definitely in the boat of "Impact is way better than WWE" around this time and for a good while it was. Then this storyline happened. I was never more embarrassed to be a fan of wrestling, I stopped watching it probably 3 or 4 weeks into this storyline and never tuned in ever again. I even gave a lot of my wrestling shirts to Goodwill because I was done as a fan. It actually took me a while to watch WWE, RoH or NJPW again because this storyline had me THAT embarrassed to ever watch wrestling again. In fact if it weren't for Prince Devitt starting Bullet Club I may have never watched wrestling ever again.

Julia looks really pretty when she’s not playing a crack addict

The fact that the scripts had Dixie called a beautiful and wealthy woman , while the younger more attractive actress was described as a foot shows what an utter mark she was for herself.

Sooo Julia was my roommate when I worked at Disney. She rented me out a room in her house and I had NOOO idea she was involved with wrestling until like a year after I moved out. Lol. Very sweet lady.

That was Katie Vick sister same mother different fathers

All of a sudden, I don't think Shinsuke's ballbusting AJ enough. Honestly, he should go the way of Cassie Cage's X-Ray in MKX.

This has Russo written all over it. All that was missing was Claire winning the world title in a pregnancy test on a pole match win over AJ, Angle, and Hernandez.

Oh god. I actually remember this storyline. I try my hardest to forget this. To add to this, I didn't know the actress quit because of the horrible threats she received. She didn't deserve that.

Fans ruining a person's career due to sheer entitlement? Why am i not surprised. The horrible storyline certainly did not help, but its a storyline... its fiction

That baby is more real than the one in American Sniper.

the eddie vs rey (dominick) feud is by far my favorite bad story line ever. the angle was SOOO bad but the matches were insanely good.

The only way that’s crowd could have been more dead would be if they started playing Rob Conway’s entrance theme.

"Poorest idea ever conceived." Nice pun :)

If...if Claire was never pregnant, how did they have a paternity test for there to be results for them to spoil by Claire saying she was never pregnant?

The biggest blessings of this angle was... 1) The creation of Bad Influence 2) AJ Styles 13' Lone Wolf Storyline But Impact couldn't even afford these guys when they needed them most. Darn it.

Hearing about the abuse the actress got from this makes me sad. If you don't like a storyline, criticise the company and writers all you like and when in doubt, blame Vince Russo. But you shouldn't threaten and abuse the performers. At the end of the day, they're just people trying to make a living (and in this case, since it was TNA, she probably wasn't making much of a living from it anyway).

Hope the angle and subsequent trolling didn't affect Julia's career in the long run. And she's a beautiful lady.

OMG This video has revealed to me that the woman who did my orientation as a new Universal Orlando employee back in 2016 was none other than Claire Lynch omg.

*Vince Russo: 'Claire Lynch was AJ's best angle EVA BRO'*

*sigh* As an actor, I feel really bad for Julia. The fact that she had to quit because of crazy fans is too terrible for any actor to go through, and I've been hearing a lot of stories related to actors being harassed over stuff they had no control of. Example: Josh Keaton, and also his wife I believe, being harassed by Voltron shippers. As a wrestling fan, it's these types of people that makes fans like me ashamed to be one. I understand, this story sucked, but that doesn't mean that you have to go crazy on someone who is just there to perform and make money. It's not her fault that she was in a bad story! Who knows? She could've had a good time acting there. I hope nothing but the best for Julia.

Chris Daniels, the most underrated worker of all time. Damn, I love that guy.

Wait. So in 2012, TNA won Best Weekly Program...and was voted Worst Promotion for, at the time, the SIXTH year straight! How does that work?!

You have to do the whole Kane, Matt Hardy, and Lita storyline.

I was watching every week around this time, this was terrible.

At least, It’s not about a wrestler kidnapped his boss daughter and married her kayface.

The only Lynch in wrestling I care about is named Becky.

so this storyline is part of the reason the internet wrestling community thinks they have all the power in the world....

By the way, Chavo and Hernandez won that match. Also, WWE was pretty damn good in 2012: CM Punk as WWE Champion throughout the year, the impetus of the Yes Movement, Team Hell No, great matches for the World Heavyweight Championship (especially at Over the Limit), Punk Vs. Bryan, Brock Lesnar's return, A PERFECT STORM, a short but great run from Y2J, the debut of The Shield, WrestleMania XXVIII, Iron-Clad Contract Big Show, and a lot more. Although, that was the year when John Cena was all over the place, with main events against Kane, Big Show and John Laurinaitis.

WrestleCrap's 2012 Gooker Award winner, everyone!

I was a major TNA diehard at the time, & I unfortunately do remember this god awful storyline. Had no idea about all the behind the scenes drama, involving the actress who played Claire Lynch, though. I still believe that this was the turning point that made AJ decide to leave TNA. I, myself, quit watching very shortly afterwards.

I will say Julia Reilly (Claire Lynch) is a good actress. She has a RU-vid channel (ru-vid.com) and I checked out her work. I must say it's miles better than her performance in TNA. Internet haters, SHAME ON YOU!!! Yes, the storyline is awful but don't attack Julia because of her acting, attack Dixie for creating such an awful character!!!!!!

Only good to come from this was AJ's eventual character transformation

Isn’t the Claire Lynch storyline basically South Park’s “W.T.F.” episode?

Not even Vince Russo could write something this cringeworthy.... Hey, don't look at me, he wasn't booking at the time!

No wonder AJ got the hell out of that company. I'm surprised he stayed as long as he did. This storyline made no sense at all and it was so unbelievable. First they wanted the fans to believe that AJ was sleeping with Dixie Carter. Then all of a sudden he got some random woman pregnant and she is a crackhead. 🤦‍♀️

LOVE THE NEW INTRO!

The one thing that annoyed me was when they went on about how attractive she was, as if that had any bearings on the storyline! They were trying to portray AJ as having cheated on his wife, so to make him NOT look like the bad guy, the other woman had to be an ugly, drug addicted rapist. It's insulting to those with drug addictions and it was pathetic.

Don't get me wrong this angle was horrendous but it did have some benefits. Not so much TNA but the people involved. Daniels and Kazarian made a fantastic tag team and are still tag partners today. And while I assume it was mainly because of money issues, I'm sure that angle is what made AJ realize that he is much better than what the company has been giving him. This man bent over backwards for TNA and they treated him like he was just an average joe. So he decided to leave and went to do bigger and better things and look at where he is now.

When Brian was saying how a wrestler shows how professional he is by going on with a terrible angle, I couldn't help but think of everything they've done to Kane. Bravo to Glen Jacobs for putting up with it all

Julia is a wonderful person. She didn't deserve the hate.

Sounds like a play on the name "Blair Witch"

Looking back: TNA really treated AJ Styles like shit with storylines like these. He was one of their most loyal & over original stars. When they made him Ric Flair's protege by having 2 random valets under his arm, that was another thing that wasn't believable. That might be a good thing to have beautiful women in your corner, but AJ as far as I know loves his wife & is a family man. He is the polar opposite of Ric Flair. Overall he seems like a good guy. As bad as WWE is, at least they don't do shit like this to him.

I think that was a Jerry Springer chant as opposed to the King?

I don’t think that Claire Lynch killed TNA, but she definitely danced on its grave. This storyline was TNA’s Katie Vick.

Let the cringing begin🍿🍿 Update: I paused and cringed at least 30 times

Vince McMahon tried to do a story line where he had an incestuous relationship with Stephanie... just throwing it out there.

"Dumbest angle TNA ever conceived..." (Un)intentional pun?

How bad were Raw, SD, and ROH TV for Impact to be called the best show of 2012?

Battle for the worst angle: Katie Vick vs Claire Lynch storylines, no holds barred. The winner (if you can call it that) gets Brian Zane's belt. The only problem is, we all lose.

You know what's funny? That segment with the baby doll was the first episode I had seen in TNA Impact. 😐

Reilly wasn't ugly by any stretch and its a shame she had to quit and leave the Internet over such a dumpster fire storyline, but what can you do...

Who created this angle? Vince Russo? What a shitty storyline for the best wrestler on the planet.

"She looks like The Lizard." Daniels with that hot comic reference

There is a lot more to this story though, it wasn’t supposed to be some random girl. She was meant to be a member of the Carter Family. But Dixie’s father vetoed it because he was afraid they would look bad.

Wow, I had NO EARTHLY IDEA that about Claire Lynch and who she really was. I had the compulsion to watch this video because I was familiar with the angle and wanted to have a good laugh, but honestly, now I only find myself feeling bad for her. Way to do your research, man. I’ve been subscribed to you for a little while now and I’ve been loving what I see, even the old stuff. I haven’t been this interested in wrestling videos outside of top ten countdowns since I stopped regularly watching the actual programs themselves.

This is the angle that made me give up on TNA.

1:33 - 1:42 i feel your pain

I can imagine the fans did harass the actress who played Claire Lynch, especially when you have people like AJ Styles saying in interviews that if she were attractive that the angle could have worked. That was a dick move. He basically called her ugly, so no wonder fans attacked her.

This angle was like a combination of Eddie and reys 2005 angle and the undertaker trixy angle from 2003

You forgot one important detail here though, Brian. This was all Aj's idea. P.S Thanks for getting rid of that bloated Sami Zayn--- that guy sucked.

At least We got the best tag team in Wrestling out of this.

It could have been worse. Julia Reilly could have been put through a table by Bully Ray.

Blues Saraceno man. Right choice!

Thanks to this, we got the 'Lone Wolf' AJ Styles angle.

"You know I was drugged. I have to be to sleep with a foot like that" might be the single greatest quote of all time!!

The biggest complex thing to me is feuding to team to feuding to teaming back to feuding with Kurt angle

Apparently AJ still claims her looks are the reason the storyline failed

It's weird that this was the start of AJ's dark turn. After this, he lost the Bound for Glory series, lost a match against James Storm and Bobby Roode that meant he couldn't challenge for the main belt for almost a year, and lost a "Final match" against Daniels with Daniels using the Styles clash.

So that's why AJ has the soccer mom hairdo he does now

Do every big show face/heel turn

Bill Apter: Owner of the world's most optimistic comb-over.

AJ Styles listens rap, thinks Earth is flat, plays on his Xbox, gets involved in the shitty storylines... but how he is still so damn awesome?

i remember this storyline it was definitely a wrestling storyline though i'll admit daniels and kazarian were funny and tried their best to make this dumpster fire halfway watchable.

Don’t know what the hell was going on at this team in TNA/Impact but man, Kazarian was such a good wrestler

Hey! It's AJ before he developed the Billy Ray Cyrus look!

Claire isn't really ugly at all, but AJ calling her a foot is one of the funniest insults I've ever heard in my life.

Oh so that's why Nakamura keeps hitting Styles in his jewels

13:34 Damnit WWE quit making big show cry he doesn't look like a monster when ya make him cry all the time because.... It's FUCKIN horrible you should have stay a heel and use the chokeslam instead of the k.o punch or at least a powerbomb not the spear where it looks like he's just bumping into someone on accident make him get so pissed off that he attacks the guy

Could you do Aces and Eights?

The lawyer was played by Chrlene Watkins who has a lot of bit part credits in sit coms to her name. I don't think she and Dixie are related, in fact IMDB gives her birthplace as of all places Hartford, Connecticut.

This was a worse Idea than Channel Awesome's Response!

You should cover Heel Dixie from the winter 2013 whereabouts with the Dixieland gimmick match

Do the right thing Brian Zane...give this epic storyline the proper respect!!!!

"You were drunk off your ass so how can you not remember?!"

Thank you for covering this clisterfuck of storyline, Years being a wrestling fan but couldn't see why this storyline was son infamous. Keep it the good work, Brian.

I wanna know more about that unique all you can eat dinning experience tbh

My brother has put it best. Wrestling fans can be the worst human beings. Poor Julia

This stroyline ranks up there with the Aces & Eights as some my of favorites for the level of being wacky. I love Kaz and C Daniels yet it was AJ getting a push in this one. Other tag teams I dig from this era is Beer Money!

I thought 2012 was a great year for TNA but this was it's low point

During one episode, a cameraman caught Claire pulling up to the arena and stopped her for questions. She was smoking a cigarette... No one on the show EVER brought it up. Just a poor mistake that made T.V. and shattered any “giveadamn” I may have had remaining.

Damn, she was really hot in that Goodwill commercial.

I think the original plan was for the character to be Dixies niece who AJ had been helping with her drug problem, but Dixies parents didnt want a Carter (even a fictional one) to be seen as a drug addict on National TV. That kind of explains the original involvement from Dixie.

Julia, looks wise, looked better in those infomercials than in TNA. Proof TNA can ruin anything...

"Maury" chant was more appropriate than "Jerry" chant. Jerry Springer only ever did one DNA test.

I fell off watching TNA at a good time because it saved me from experiencing this storyline. How you go from we're helping her get clean to your the father of my baby in a span of a week. Made no sense. I lost it at the part when you said Dixie peaced out because no one was fighting over her anymore lmaoooo. Great video breaking this down. Excited for the new season of WWW. That opening intro grew on me in an instant.

This shit was great. "Do the right thing AJ!" Fucking comedy gold.

An affair between AJ and Dixie could have been a good storyline

Loved how you put "Evil Ways" in the end song. It was an awesome theme... Until wwe sent they're cease and desist