Where Have All the Good Heels Gone?
I’ve been a wrestling fan since I was a kid. I remember being introduced to it almost by accident. Some coffee manufacturer (Folgers or some other beverage company, I can’t recall specifically) put these little “holographic” trading cards in their products as a promotion with the WWF Survivor Series. This was in like 1992-93ish, so the big stars on the cards were of course Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, and Yokozuna.
However, there were 2 cards specifically that caught my attention as a 7 year old. One had the picture of what looked like a walking dead man in gray gloves; the other was a man wearing a LOT of jewelry and smirking like he was the best thing goin’. They both got me into wrestling…and they both were heels.
Razor Ramon (Scott Hall), and The Undertaker (Mark Callaway, who didn’t remain heel too much longer after I started watching) are the 2 guys that sparked my initial interest in professional wrestling. They were, “the bad guys,” as Hall would have said. It was because of their ability to be such great villains that I was sold out on wrestling as a whole. Let’s face it, what 7 year old boy doesn’t love a great “good” vs “evil” scenario?
I grew up in a house FULL of comic books, superheros, and cartoons. I watched “X-Men” and “Batman: The Animated Series” every day without fail. I loved the battle between good and evil, especially when the evil characters were SO good at being bad. If you’ve ever seen the film, “The Dark Knight,” I would bet that it wasn’t Batman that kept you hanging by the seat of your “manties.” It was Heath Ledger as the Joker that brought so much intensity to the story, making you almost nervous to see how far he was going to go to bring Batman down to his level. Heels MAKE or BREAK good storylines. Period. Without the villain, there’s no need for the hero. This thought BEGS me to ask the question…where have all the good heels gone?
In the WWE today, I can only look at a few stars and say, “they have great heel potential.” I believe that’s one of the reasons the product is suffering a good bit. Sure, CM Punk is, well, was a fantastic heel. He knows how to be a jerk to the fans to get the cheap heat. The only problem is, he isn’t a full heel anymore. He’s a “tweener,” someone who still gets a positive response as well as the negative. He’s too over with the fans to get EVERYONE to hate him again, and he’s considered the company’s BIGGEST heel! So who’s left?
Mark Henry. He’s a monster. He had an amazing heel run back in ’11 as World Heavyweight Champion and has come back this year looking to capture the same heat. Only this time, it’s not working AS well. Everyone has cheered Henry at LEAST once each time he’s appeared on television since his return. Why? Because he’s destroying everyone…and the fans LOVE when stars (even heels) own their talent and their character. A great heel has confidence, presence, and doesn’t just talk the talk, but he walks the walk. Henry is “doin’ what he do”, and therefore he’s getting over in good ol’ “tweener” fashion.
After Henry, the list of “great heel” competitors in the WWE just goes downhill fast. The Big Show is just too out of touch and whiny to be a monster, even though his feud with Del Rio was ok. Dolph Ziggler is too over. Cody Rhodes just can’t connect with the fans enough for people to really hate him or love him. Kane is too comedic, and so is Daniel Bryan at the moment. Randy Orton is just floating in this space where I don’t really know how to take him. He’s a face…and should be main event status…but he’s not, and I don’t think he will be again unless he turns heel one more time. There was a glimmer of hope with Swagger’s new angle with Dutch Mantel, but that will be pretty much ruined thanks to his arrest. He’ll just be a joke now. Cesaro? Barrett? Langston? 3MB? Otunga? No one is going to buy ANY of them as a great heel.
The Shield is the biggest example of the WWE dropping the ball on great heels. They’re already over as “tweeners.” Just getting paired with CM Punk and Paul Heyman in storylines gave them too much of a push. Now they’ve won every match they’ve competed in and enter/exit through the fans. They’re too cool and too good at what they do for people not to cheer them. They didn’t start off EVIL enough to be considered “real” heels. Every smart fan cheered FOR the Shield against Team Supermen last Sunday night. They aren’t heels. They’re “tweeners.”
This leads me to this question: Are the fans not buying the heels that are good because they’re just that…too good? Without great heels, we won’t get any great faces to stand behind and cheer for either. Why would you get behind someone like The Miz when he’s facing someone like Antonio Cesaro. NO one cares about Cesaro’s heel persona. Vice versa for the Shield and Ryback. People are marking out over the Shield continually punishing Ryback, and HE’S supposed to be the superhero. Ryback hasn’t gotten to run through any great story lines with an excellent heel to make him a back-able face. Why? Cause there aren’t any great heels for him, and he’s been pushed to hard with no one to feud with besides Punk and the Shield, who the fans still cheer for.
I have hopes for one man though: Damien Sandow. He has this “Ted Dibiase-esc” quality to him that just makes you wanna hate him. That’s a good thing. He’s a bastard on the mic, he’s great in the ring, and he cuts a cartwheel win he is victorious. “You’re welcome.” He makes me believe that he truly might be better than me, and I don’t like it (secretly I love it, cause I love heels, but I digress). I hope that WWE Creative can continue to grow his character into someone the people just absolutely DESPISE, then his feuds will help build up new babyfaces, and someday he’ll be a superstar.
Great heels will create superstar faces. Some of the biggest names in the business were launched into superstardom after fantastic heel runs. The Rock, Shawn Michaels, HHH, John Cena, Edge, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin are just a few from the last 20 years.
Here’s to hoping that WWE Creative can truly unleash some fantastic heels in the upcoming year, or else the product is just going to evolve further into a sloppy mess of spot-monkey, “henchmen with no name-tag,” types of wrestlers. I wanna care about the story again. I wanna hate someone’s character so much that it literally makes me mad to see them win a match. Where’s Rick Rude when you need him?
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