Is WWE trying a new approach with Faces and Heels?

[BladeRunner]

MODERATOR COMMENTS (Lord Sidious):

We are having a lot of comments deleted because they are off topic ... going off talking about how to act like a Face and how to act like a Heel. That is not the purpose of this thread and the thread is becoming derailed.

Please address the actual thread topic and the questions asked in the OP, as I am increasing the size of it to make it more visible.

Thank you.

I was thinking. A lot of people nowadays say that they prefer the heels over the faces. A lot of attitude era people nowadays like the heels best, because they're the most similar to the faces of the attitude era.

Now, the WWE probably knows this. I'm sure they do focus groups and study which wrestlers the people prefer. The various votes on the website, etc.

So I was thinking what if they're purposefully making the heels the types adults like. And the faces people the younger crowds like, but the older crowd hate? So both sides have their own "faces" and "heels". It's just they're complete opposites to each other.

Like the faces are the adult's "heels". Because they're too goody goody and not what these types think a face should be.

And the heels are the adult's "faces" because they're crazier, more violent, and more similar to attitude era faces.

While the younger crowd goes by the exact opposite.

It's like when Bret the hitman hart was a face to canada and a heel to america. Or how the great Kali was a face for India but a heel for everywhere else.

Now I'm not saying all adults or children think the same. Or that it's exactly 1 to 1 ratio that underagers think this guy's a face and older people think its a heel. But there's generally agreement that certain age groups expect and want certain things.

A classic example of this is Cena's a face to younger people, but a heel to older people generally. (A heel as in, they hate him, thus getting heel heat)

Or more recently, where CM Punk is technically a face, telling people don't do drugs, but treated like a heel because he's so in your face about it.

Or how people cheer Orton like a face no matter how heelish his actions may be?

What do you guys think?


Do you think that different age groups have different faces and heels? Or is it all just coincidental that these polarities have taken place?

 

[tna_fan_man]

I agree I think there are two separate heels & faces in the wwe. Cena obviously for kids where as Orton might be a "Attitude Era" heel. Like how he waged war on Vince & his family. Similar to Bret getting personal & beyond storyline with Vince.

then are silly heels like Santino & Serious Heels like Jericho. Raw & Bret's return & Smack down for the kids. Undertaker, Rey & the Batista Heel turn. definite differences

 

[ZeroVX]

I think that's definitely a good idea. Like you said, with Bret being a face in Canada but a heel in the US, the potential is there.

In fact, those watching the Rumble right now can see that this idea could definitely work. Seeing Orton VS Sheamus proved that adult fans view the wrestlers in a different way than the younger audience.

 

[Slyfox696]

How can you have a heel if people cheer for him? That violates the very definition of a heel.

Your idea doesn't work at all, for a couple of different reasons, not counting the one I mentioned above. First of all, how do you write into your storylines which guys are good and which ones are heel? In every story, there has to be two compelling characters at odds with each other, and if we're doing heel vs. face, then one guy has to take the immoral side and the other has to take the moral. If you're going to play someone as both heel and face, you can't have them jumping back and forth, and you can't just arbitrarily decide which morals are good and can't be broken.

Second of all, if you're not designating any wrestlers to be the guys supported by your fan base, then you're going to KILL your revenue, both by losses in merchandising and in ticket sales. In merchandising especially, you'll see a drastic reduction in profit, as you will have to make twice the amount of merchandise and come up with twice the number of designs, only to make half the profit upon each product.

Your idea is different, but unfortunately (well, unfortunately for you), impossible.

 

[tna_fan_man]

How can you have a heel if people cheer for him? That violates the very definition of a heel.

Your idea doesn't work at all, for a couple of different reasons, not counting the one I mentioned above. First of all, how do you write into your story lines which guys are good and which ones are heel? In every story, there has to be two compelling characters at odds with each other, and if we're doing heel vs. face, then one guy has to take the immoral side and the other has to take the moral. If you're going to play someone as both heel and face, you can't have them jumping back and forth, and you can't just arbitrarily decide which morals are good and can't be broken.

Second of all, if you're not designating any wrestlers to be the guys supported by your fan base, then you're going to KILL your revenue, both by losses in merchandising and in ticket sales. In merchandising especially, you'll see a drastic reduction in profit, as you will have to make twice the amount of merchandise and come up with twice the number of designs, only to make half the profit upon each product.

Your idea is different, but unfortunately (well, unfortunately for you), impossible.

Well first off I'm not correcting you but Heels CAN be cheered for, HHH, The Rock, Hollywood Hogan in the WWE, Orton. ALL have walked both sides & were cheered for both heel & face.

The Biggest example to me is Bret Face in Canada & Heel in the USA, and as story-lined as it was Hollywood Hogan Vs The Rock. A Heel being cheered for at WM.

the list could go on but if wrestling was as BLACK & WHITE as you say it's suppose to be then wrestling would have died years ago

 

[BladeRunner]

First of all, how do you write into your storylines which guys are good and which ones are heel? In every story, there has to be two compelling characters at odds with each other, and if we're doing heel vs. face, then one guy has to take the immoral side and the other has to take the moral. If you're going to play someone as both heel and face, you can't have them jumping back and forth, and you can't just arbitrarily decide which morals are good and can't be broken.

Well sometimes which wrestler you identify with is according to your perspective. Some people are more aggressive than others, some more passive. Some more thoughtful, some more rash. This might affect how they would approach a situation morally. There's a lot of ways you can go about it. It happens in reality all the time. There's a lot of grey areas in everyone's lives.

Second of all, if you're not designating any wrestlers to be the guys supported by your fan base, then you're going to KILL your revenue, both by losses in merchandising and in ticket sales. In merchandising especially, you'll see a drastic reduction in profit, as you will have to make twice the amount of merchandise and come up with twice the number of designs, only to make half the profit upon each product.

Your idea is different, but unfortunately (well, unfortunately for you), impossible.

Well this is designating every wrestler to be supported by your fan base, by making different wrestlers appeal to different sets of the populace. I don't see how that would affect profit negatively necessarily. The more wrestlers people like, the more they'll want to watch your product. Also, I think they're already doing some of these things I've listed.

 

[Slyfox696]

Well first off I'm not correcting you but Heels CAN be cheered for, HHH, The Rock, Hollywood Hogan in the WWE, Orton. ALL have walked both sides & were cheered for both heel & face.

You're not correcting you, you're just going to try and correct me.

I agree that heels have been and can be cheered for, but it completely ruins the show, as evidenced by the incredible funk wrestling is currently in. You have "smarks" who think that cheering heels makes them cool, due to their misguided understanding of what makes a good wrestler (since they are incapable of understanding that if you're only cheering for heels, then there is obviously something wrong with their understanding of wrestling), and it renders the faces unimportant.

You don't WANT heels being cheered. Faces are the ones that draw the money, but if your heels are being cheered, then how can faces draw money? They can't, so you want to avoid situations that see your heels getting cheered.

The reasons for this I explained in my previous post.

The Biggest example to me is Bret Face in Canada & Heel in the USA

It was one storyline...one storyline is doable, on the rarest of occasions. But what the OP is proposing is that all or most of the wrestlers do this, and the simple fact of the matter is that there just aren't enough storylines to go around.

Oh, and as far as the Bret Hart thing goes...do you really want Stone Cold Steve Austin, the second biggest draw in American wrestling history, to be booed in Canada in 1998 and 1999, when you're on pace to do the biggest business ever? Of course not. So while people keep talking about Bret Hart, they forget that Austin was the other part of that equation, and if Austin is getting booed, then it would SEVERELY hurt his drawing power, at a time the WWE was doing great business.

Again, it would be bad business to follow that model of heel and face.

and as story-lined as it was Hollywood Hogan Vs The Rock. A Heel being cheered for at WM.

Yes, right before he turned face at the end of the match.

the list could go on but if wrestling was as BLACK & WHITE as you say it's suppose to be then wrestling would have died years ago

False. Not only would wrestling have not died, it would be flourishing today. The nWo and the Attitude Era is the reason wrestling struggles so mightily today, for reasons I outlined above.

 

[bringbackwrestling]

I think this falls into what i call the imark (internet fan base who are smart to the business but miss the point) category of discussion.

As a business you dont want all yor guys over you want 3/4 guys at the top with a main babyface. This is so that you can sell merchandise and make a profit. By investing in 3/4 guys rather than the 60 on your roster you cut down the overheads of merch production and wasted none sellable merchandise. The quality of the wrestling doesn't matter, nor does promo work or story telling its will people by their shit. This is also the reason we are going down a family friendly route as kids bring parents, parents bring money.
Even back in the attitude era people clearly knew who was heels and who was face it was just that the face's had a few heelish qualities every know and then.

 

[Tastycles]

You can rest assured that the WWE are not trying to create polar opposites in their booking of individuals. Slyfox has pretty much nailed his reasons, and I won't bother going into them, but there are some other pretty glaring issues with it too. In the first instance, you have the problem that not everyone follows crowds. It's never a case that all smarks like the same guy, so once you start catering for some, you'll have more problems. If everyone counters each other's reactions to the guy coming out, then you're just going to have net indifference to every match unless you have a particularly vocal crowd, something that the WWE does not at present.

Bret Hart was an entirely different kettle of fish because you had an entire arena cheering for him or booing him. If you had an arena half filled with Canadians and half with Americans, you would have exactly the same problem. The inconsistency in the booking that this would lead to would be catastrophic to say the least, even if it could be implemented. So no, I don't think the WWE is going down that alley, nor should they.

 

[NYSandman]

I think a lot of it has to do with the mentality of the fans nowadays.

Years ago, even though some people knew wrestling was fake, the companies never highlighted that fact.

It's a lot easier to generate big heat if most fans think you really are the bastard you are portraying.

Now, almost everyone knows its a work, so if you're an adult, it's a lot harder to really hate someone when you know for a fact they're acting.

I, personally, have always liked the heels.

Another factor is respect. There are some guys you just can't turn heel anymore. Take HHH. Sure, you could turn him. But, he's accomplished so much and is so well respected by the fans, that he'll never be able to generate huge heat anymore. Same thing goes for Shawn.

When he briefly turned heel to take on Hogan, he still wasn't generating the kind of hate he used to in the old days.