Lack of top heels in the WWE

[Deoxyribonucleic A.C.I.D.]

So, I've been on a posting frenzy the past week, mainly because it's post-exams season and Wrestlemania is also on the horizon. I've been looking at the Wrestlemania card and I realized that the rumored top 3 matches of the card (Taker vs Cena, Lesnar vs Reigns and Nakamura vs Styles) are all babyface vs babyface matches! If I'm not mistaken, this is the first time a PPV has so many babyface vs babyface matches and in addition, they are the top 3 matches of Wrestlemania.

Taking a closer look at the roster I realized that WWE's top heels right now are Owens, Zayn, Miz, Samoa Joe and Bray Wyatt, with the latter being pushed down the card more and more. Joe on the other hand also gets pops and is currently injured. (HHH is obviously a heel but competes once/twice per year).

Which of course brings me to the conclusion that WWE really lacks top main event heels at the moment! And what sucks is that, even though those four I listed are heels, they are struggling to generate heat!
The writers and of course the crowds are to blame for this.

The Roman Reigns curse
I don't know if Roman is doing a terrible job as a babyface, but every heel he starts feuding with, the heel turns into a mega babyface. John Cena used to be a polarizing figure, but the heels Cena faced remained heels after their feud and some of them actually gathered some real heat. Heels like Edge, Orton, Miz in 2011, Punk in 2012, Khali, Umaga, Jericho. Those guys were never cheered against Cena. However, put anybody against Reigns and they become and instant babyface and the crowd then never views them as a heel again.
This also made me conclude that Roman Reigns is a much different case than what Cena was. A much larger percentage of the crowd dislikes Roman in comparison to Cena.

Now this creates problems, because no heel can get over and generate heat. Long gone are the days were heels were getting booed out of the building. When was the last time you heard a heel get heat? I don't quite remember.
And out of all the heels, only HHH, Owens and The Miz are trying really hard to get heat, but the crowd most of the time just doesn't want to boo them anymore.

Now I'm going to turn this thread into a "turn Roman heel" thread, but hear me out. I think this plays a major role. Cena's opponents always managed to get heat on themselves, thus proving that Cena was someone fans could get behind as a babyface and in Cena's feuds, the line between good and evil was there.
However with Roman, nobody can get heat when they're feuding with him. Noone. Fans will cheer anybody that Roman faces. It doesn't even matter if that person kicks babies every morning and shoots dogs. Fans will cheer them.

So, in conclusion, I think Roman Reigns as a babyface hurts the wrestling industry and the art of the wrestling storytelling.
Examples of people that turned face because they feuded with Reigns:
Lesnar
Strowman
Miz has also started getting cheers
Owens was getting cheers
Triple H was getting cheers

And this will just continue. I think turning Roman heel can bring balance back to the face/heel dynamic in the WWE. They guy is a natural heat magnet.
And after this happens, the remaining faces will be faces that the crowd cheers, meaning that their opponents will be able to get real heel heat.

 

[SmattyG]

I always cheer for anyone facing The Miz. He is the epitome of a heel. He does what it says on the tin. Likewise for Sami Zayn. He annoyed me as a face, and now he is a heel, I can't wait for someone to just punch him in the face. Owens, Strowman, Brock get cheers coz they're that damn good. I think Jinder is a good heel. His whole jobber turned champion gimmick should be a bigger part of his character. Ziggler won't be a heel, coz he's got the whole cool outsider thing going on. You may have something with Roman turning heel. But I'm not sure how you'd do it, short of beating up Bayley.

 

[Navi]

The Roman Reigns curse
I don't know if Roman is doing a terrible job as a babyface, but every heel he starts feuding with, the heel turns into a mega babyface. John Cena used to be a polarizing figure, but the heels Cena faced remained heels after their feud and some of them actually gathered some real heat. Heels like Edge, Orton, Miz in 2011, Punk in 2012, Khali, Umaga, Jericho. Those guys were never cheered against Cena. However, put anybody against Reigns and they become and instant babyface and the crowd then never views them as a heel again.

This also made me conclude that Roman Reigns is a much different case than what Cena was. A much larger percentage of the crowd dislikes Roman in comparison to Cena.

And this will just continue. I think turning Roman heel can bring balance back to the face/heel dynamic in the WWE. They guy is a natural heat magnet.
And after this happens, the remaining faces will be faces that the crowd cheers, meaning that their opponents will be able to get real heel heat.

The first time I noticed this was when Brock Lesnar got cheered over Reigns. You'd think that the guy who broke the streak, almost killed the Undertaker in the ring and at one time was hated by almost everyone, was getting cheered over the next big babyface.

Fans don't cheer Lesnar, Owens and Miz because they are horrible heels, they dislike Roman Reigns more. Actually Reigns only gets cheered when the Shield is in the ring together nowadays. with Ambrose out for quite some time, the cheers will have to be put on hold.

I have no idea what to tell you about Reigns. The WWE has tried for the last over three years now to get this guy as a fan favourite. It seems the harder they tried the more fans pushed back. If the WWE had just let it happen naturally fans would have come around, but they didn't so it is what it is.

 

[Macho Mans Beard]

I think it is tough no for heels to generate true heat. I think The Miz is probably the only one who comes to mind when it comes to the perfection of getting true heat. But at the same time there are fans who support The Miz and will cheer him because they like what he brings to the table. Plus with fans nowadays, we are smart and we see the bigger picture outside in other companies.

So when WWE brings in talent like Owens, Zayn, Bryan, Joe, Styles, ETC from other companies. It is tough to make them 'True Heels' because they have a solid fan base that will cheer them no matter what they do. So the true art of been a heel is somewhat lost with them. Cause the fans will never really see them as heel. Case in point: AJ Styles very brief heel run. Nobody bought that at all.

Also WWE has a problem with heels getting over and ultimately being stuck in a face/heel predicament. Huge example: Rusev (Why they dont make him more powerful is beyond me)

Now there are some heels that are starting to gain some good heat. I really like Elias in that aspect. He is my favorite heel right now. Jinder is great at generating easy heat (Example: America sucks, Hail India)

Also why WWE insist on making Randy Orton face is lost on me. Orton is the true definition of heel and his character is much better in the heel aspect.

 

[Vintage Punk]

Easy fix if they would just book it right. WWE claims they listen to the fans but apparently they have earplugs during the shows. If they did listen, then they would easily turn Roman heel, make Rusev a babyface, turn Orton back to his natural heel persona, and to be honest, I'd work on turning Elias a face. All he has to do is be jumped by Miz or another heel and Elias could use his songs against his opponent instead of against the crowd. Kind of like sing alongs with the Rock. You have faces already in Matt Hardy, Jeff Hardy, Strowman, Rollins, and Cena. I'd also make The Bar faces in the same light as the APA were. I'd have Ambrose return and turn heel on Rollins and I'd like to see Balor Club be heel but more so NWO/DX esque heel where they are sort of the cool heel faction similar to how Undisputed Era is now in NXT.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

One of the main problem they have right now outside of serving too many different demographic is that they pretty much want to make money with every performer they have. So they go and make merchandise for every top guys on the roster regardless of if he'S a heel or a face, which make it harder for the Heel to be True heel since they want the fans to hate them but at the same time not hate them too much so that they can sale merchandise at the end.

The thing is, the fourth wall as been broken for 20 years now. Everybody knows that the guys and girls are playing characters and don't really hate each other and with social media is even harder to blur the line between what's real and what isn't. So because of that everybody is pretty much a shade of grey and it all depends on how loud the reaction is for every performer.

Reigns is the perfect example of that, the guy receive different type of reaction depending on where the show is and if it's a live event or television event. Some time he gets more cheered then hate and something is the opposite, but the one thing that always sure is that he's always the guy that gets the biggest reaction no matter if it's a positive or a negative one. On the other end, Rusev is kinda of a mystery right now. Sometimes, the guy is super over and sometimes you can hear crickets because the crowds he's in front off doesn'T care about the Rusev day stuff. So you can't really do anything big with him at this time since you don't know if it's worth switching him or not.

So with that said, how can you make a top heel in this day and age? Owens and Zayn are kinda the closest thing to real big time heel in the modern era because they know every old school trick in the book to turn the fans against them plus the Fact that OWens wasn't in the NXT system for a long time and Zayn is riding his co tail is helping them both. So if i was them, go back to basic, learn from how owens and zayn because it seem to work, if you want to call some of the heel up to the main rosters, make them disappear from NXT for a while before calling them up, it will be easier for them to get they're character over as heel. Finally, i know they won'T do this but i feel this would help them create top heel but stop making merchandise for you upper mid card and main event heel. If, fans can't buy merchandise for theses characters, i will be easier for the characters to be hated.

In this day and age of wrestling, is harder and harder to have true babyface and Heel because fans don't care about the business as much, they just want to be entertain and will cheer for whoever they want, so that'S why you're getting so many tweeners characters in the end and that's why i think that we won't see a true top heel or babyface ever again in WWE.