Shadowmancer
I am The Last Baron
If heels do bad things, and people cheer for them, then what's the point in having heels? And, if there's no point in having heels, there's no point in having faces. And, if there are no heels and faces, what's the point to watching two half-naked oily guys grab each other for 15 minutes in a pretend fight? Especially when that is the exact thing you can see in Olympic wrestling or MMA, only WITH competition.
If you respect a wrestler, and you cheer him when he is trying to get you to boo him, what does that say about you as a fan? He wants you to boo him, and you cheer him instead. How is that being a good fan of the person you respect?
Go watch the 1990 Royal Rumble. Where fans do as they should by booing heels and cheering faces. Tell me that is not fun as hell to see the place rocking for a midcard jobber like Koko B. Ware. That's what makes wrestling fun.
Why should the show that I paid MY hard earned money for be ruined because people don't understand that their "smarkiness" is ruining the show?
Cheering heels ruins the show. Booing faces ruin the show. It's a fact. It happened back in '96 with the nWo and again in 97 with Austin, and it was HUGE. But now, it's become mundane, everyone does it, and it's boring. However, it ALSO ruins face/heel dispositions, ruins storylines, and makes even having a storyline pointless. If people cheer Randy Orton because he punted John Cena's defenseless father, then why even bother having the storyline?
Your world may be all grey but it doesnt necessarily mean its the same for the rest.
I only took part because this is the only part I feel that it is where I should throw my International view of Pro Wrestling in here, Being from New Zealand I get to look at the WWE and other promotions outside of New Zealand from the Outside in. The View I see you going Sly is that there is a bias towards the US style of Pro Wrestling which requires a Face/Heel dynamic at its most fundamental level. This is contrasted with Puroresu from what I see when I watch the matches as both Wrestlers are cheered after good series (sets of Moves, couldn't think of a better word there). This seems to be the direction that the US fans seem to be going in as you are getting the face and the Heel getting cheered.
Now to go onto this thing of the 1990 Royal Rumble, I can say pretty confidently that people watching wrestling have grown cynical over the years, this is with world events not Wrestling, you have the same thing now in terms of not replacing the members but you have the event now, you will have a similar response to what the WWE is currently getting, Im going to make a hypothesis here in saying that the fans that have followed since the Hulkamania years have grown up and seen the world as a place where if you "eat your Vitamins and Say your Prayers" you will come out on top. The World has a funny way of beating idealism out of people, this will probably contribute to the overall negative response Cena gets.
But the "John Cena" effect, really it is the "Rocky Maivia" effect, is the result of an unimaginative creative department. Straight laced with no Flaws is boring, Ill use Rhino as an example here as he makes the most sense right now. Rhino is a Face in TNA yet he has a huge character flaw which is part of him in that he is a recovering Alchoholic, it makes Rhino more believable as a gimmick, as he is a person with a flaw. ive gone into great lengths explaining that in an earlier post. Now John Cena as a representative for the WWE he is good, he has no visible tattoos, while it may not be a bad thing to have tattoos, Tattos give a certain air to the person, To borrow the Phrase from US college sport he is an All-American type person in looks, He has no big problems and has caused no controversy except for that stare down with Ron Killings in an airport. He is clean as far as we know of Steroids or HGH.
I still stand by what I have said in that Cena is a stale character with the belt now, I am fine with him chasing the title, as he has a better approach to how his gimmick works when he is Chasing, that is what made the Edge feud work last year, he was chasing it made it more compelling if you look at it from the casual fans Point of View. While people criticize Triple H's near monopoly on the belt, this was when they were trying to build the credibility of a new belt as something that you want to hold. The WWE title that Cena is holding has a very large lineage which includes Bruno Sammartino(11 years) Bob Bucklund(7 years) Hulk Hogan(whatever it is) and Diesel(1 year) then you have a fairly quick succession of change in the attitude era, then you get a bringing back of stability to the belt in JBLs 11 month reign. And Cena's first reign. The Second title reign has led to an over exposure of Cena, this is a negative, I think you said it yourself that Hogan was only ever shown on PPV or SNME, not whatever the TV show was. Another poster in Mean_gene_roberts or something like that describes the Sammartino era, in hat he came on and promoted the town he was going to be having a match in rather than have a match in whatever place he was that night.
The entire point of the parts I took were just a theme I was taking out of what you posted Sly not the actual argument contained within.