Heel Vs Face

[HBK-aholic]

This thread isn’t about certain wrestlers you prefer as either a face or a heel although I accept that will come into it at some point. This thread is asking which type of character do you think it’s easiest for a wrestler to play?

On one hand you have the faces. Loved by everyone (in theory). They are the force we rally behind, in order to stop the heels. Although on certain internet sites faces seem to be hated by many, do not let this affect your opinion. Think about the reactions stars get, rather than a couple of people disagreeing. Even with all the hate Cena had, for every hater he had 1,000,000 more fans.

Then there are the heels. Do everything in their power to make us hate them. Beating our faces by cheating, having seemingly no morals, and insulting fans. Although many fans have heels as personal favourites, when they’re in character you can’t help but hate them.

With that being said, which is the easiest role? Is it a universal answer, or is it personal to the wrestler?

I’d say face was harder to play. It’s a lot easier to get someone to hate you than it is to love you. Besides, there is always the option of wrestlers gaining heat easily by insulting fans or attacking a face. The same could be said backwards, saying a face could just attack a heel. But faces don’t generally go around attacking people regardless.

 

[Monkey_Mania]

It's ten times harder to be a face. and be good at it. For one you have to be good at getting face heat, which is different from getting the sympathy heat that most wrestlers get nowadays. You have to be a role model, something that Cena does very well. Shawn Michaels is a good face, but not a good rolemodel (faking injuries) but he has the good moral part down for the most part. A connection with the fans is always key to. To have them believe you is very hard. Something that very few people can accomplish. So yes, being a face is harder.

But thats not to say being a heel isnt hard as well. Anyone can make them hate you. I could tell Becca that HBK is a horrible wrestler and cant talk on a mic to save his life, will she hate me? Yes. Will she believe me? Hardly. Will she pay to see me get my ass kicked? Definitely not. Just as you have to get fans to believe you as a face, you have to get them to believe you and want to see you get your ass kicked so much that they will pay to see it happen. Hulk Hogan is a great example, Vince McMahon believe it or not is another. If you dont get the desired reaction of them paying to see you get beat, but instead just wanting you to go away. Then its bad heat.

Hopefully I have made some sense...

 

[Dragonslayer]

Well, I do believe it is a tad easier to work as a heel. Of course you need charisma to work a crowd really well, but you need that in any case as a wrestler... Any wrestler who lacks that just has twice and three times the work to do that a charismatic guy needs... I mean, Shelton Benjamin has to work his ass off inside the ring and put on basically a 4 star match everytime he gets in so people can relate to him, because he is not that good on the mic... where on the other hand, The Rock only needed to raise an eyebrow in the right moment to make a crowd go nuts. Of course that didn't happen from one day to the next, but it happened really fast with Rock.

I also tend to believe the most superstars are better as heels, even if I like them better as faces. Hulk Hogan is probably the prime example. Of course, being born in the 80ies and growing up with "Hulkamania" as the biggest force in wrestling and what not, I still to this day love watching a match, be it from the 80ies or be it Summerslamm 05 or 06, where "Real American" hits the speakers and out comes Hogan in red and yellow. BUT the nWo "Hollywood" Hogan heelturn was the best in history, and Hogan did the job so well, I literally hated him for that. And when he once again became the "good" Hulk Hogan, it was all that much sweeter, and he was even more loved than before, if that is possible.

And of course there are other examples... I like seeing Rock as the face, but as a heel, he just can do that much more. Jericho is another good example - he is always good on the mic, and has developed a solid following over the years... but his current heel role will be the one that elevates him. I believe that any good heel run can establish a guy as a legit superstars if pulled off right, and if you do the ensuing face turn well too, you can also make him into a loved face (see Cena or Batista, who both were basically doing heel - Cena as the rapper, Batista as the enforcer of Evolution - before they turned and became mega-faces). I am truly interested to see what happens once they give Orton a face turn. He has ALWAYS been an arrogant heel now for his entire run (even when he was kicked out of Evolution), but he has been able to establish himself as a legit Main Event contender over the course of that... and I believe once he gets a good storyline to go with it to become a face, people will go nuts just to see him roll down on the mat, getting ready for the RKO, or pulling it off out of nowhere. If he can develop enough and is given the right story, the RKO could easily become the next Sweet Chin Music, in terms of excitement value of the move alone.

Edge though, I think I can only believe as a heel right now. It is this "craziness" that makes him so dangerous and believable as champion; and as a face, he would have to lose that to a certain degree, and just right now, I'm not sure I would still buy Edge as a credible main eventer in that case - even after his stellar matches with Taker this year. But who knows, everything can be pulled off if done right I guess.

Ultimately, I think that if you build up a guy as a face straight away, always being the good guy, always doing "what is right", people nowadays grow tired of it and will not buy it. It might've worked with Hulkamania in the 80ies, but those times are long gone. But if you have a guy being so good a heel to the point that everyone literally hates him; if you then turn that guy face, it can work, and can work huge.