Roster Imbalance: Lack of good faces or a mirror into the current society..

[Tors Hall Rule]

Now I can picture being heavily criticized here and being disliked by many because of this thread.. But I would still have to say what I have to say..

Currently, on both RAW and SD there is a dearth of faces.. Apparently the good wrestlers can't talk and those who can talk... aren't there.... Apart from Cena and Orton, the only note-worthy faces that have some good story line are... Big Show's car accident monster face turn, Rey being bumped by ADR, Troof Jimmy and Punk, Kane and Show v/s Henry, and that's it.... Riley's the latest flavor of the month, JoMo expected back soon, Cara is getting a steady push, but nothing that will draw you out of your seat...

On the heel side though you have the newly turned "Not talking to any of you again" Christian, the bereaved Miz, the Destined ADR, the conspired against Troof, the ugly Rhodes, the warrior Sheamus and The honest Punk... On any given day, anyone with a little bit of sense will realize that in terms of talent, performance and creditability, the heels are way ahead of the faces right now in WWE...

This lead me to 2 possible conclusions

1) Well, the first one obviously exists and every one will agree with it.. The lack of faces to an extent is due to the lack of character depth among the roster.. Let's face it people.. This is no WWE of 2000 when on every nook and corner you had a ME Star waiting for his turn... All the people who say that Orton and Cena should not hog the lime light all the time and site examples of Austin and Rock for doing so, just think who were the fall back guys during that time.. Jericho, Taker, Michaels, Triple H, Mankind, Kane, Edge... It was an array of options that WWE could have explored and they did... Attitude Era is the BEST because of the talent and not the profanity, violence and sex... There are no fall back guys in WWE right now that can carry a ME like Orton and Cena do.. I mean sure DBD and Swagger mght be a great match, but would it sell.. NADA!!

2) I mean just to an extent, this is more of a reflection of what the society is today.. Day by day the smarks are increasing in numbers.. Almost all faces are hated these days and are called for a character change or FE cause... And the heels are getting continuous praise which is steadily climbing high as we speak..

So what do you guys think.. Am I reading too much into it.. Or do we have something here??

 

[Constipated Badger Bottom]

I would say there are plenty of WWE talent on the roster who could be better Faces than they are Heels and I think the best example of this is maybe The Miz, if you watch on YouTube the time who was throwing the first ball for the LA Dodgers you could see a "Y2J" in him, he can be loud, funny and probably could get a WWE crowd pumped up

I also think Sheamus has great potential to be a face, eveytime you see him do a promo he usally has a smile on his Face and I think the U.S crowd would love the Irish accent and Irish manorisms

Other potential great Face's are CM Punk even though his original Face run wasn't great I think that he could still be heelish but still get huige pops from the crowd and if you saw his promo at the start of last Monday's Raw, if he was a face that crowd I think would of loved that and I think Justin Gabriel has alot of potential

The thing is, it is easier to get over as a heel when you start out than it is starting off as a face and that's why we see many "Young Cocky Heels" starting out in the WWE and as there chararcters evolve and they start to make a name for themselves and within 2 or 3 years they get given that face turn and then the WWE see's if they can really run with that ball

 

[#hamler]

You make a very solid point. But to be fair, how easy is it to pander to the crowd? How hard is it to get constant heat that falls within the guidelines of a PG rating? Quite hard. It takes someone real talented to get the amount of heat Superstars like the Miz, CM Punk, and Sheamus get on a daily basis. The WWE depending on two major stars like John Cena and Randy Orton can be incredibly dangerous. Say the two get trapped on an island somewhere; the WWE would have to work their ass off building newer stars. I'll go ahead and agree with you, there is a lack of in depth, main event wrestlers in the WWE to fall back on. However, guys like Sheamus, CM Punk all have a solid fan base and they can all play faces in an instant if need be.

 

[WWWYKI777]

I think the biggest issue is faces ammount of promo/mic time , its almost non existant for most. (John Morrisson , Big show) Literally non existant for others (Sin Cara , Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne)

How in the hell are they supposed to get super over or become big draws without ever speaking a word?

You said Bryan Danielson Vs. Swagger would be a great match but wouldn't draw....

I say thats cause they don't WANT to let it be a draw. You could technically put the 2 in a fued and give them both mic time and several matches , a real full blown fued.

Make it better by making it for the WWE or WHC title. Make it even better by having Swagger go back to the gutwrench powerbomb for his finisher (He was more of a draw to me doing that , than doing a boring ankle lock)

They could make just about anything and anyone be a draw if they book it right and give it proper thought care focus and time , but they don't...

 

[whoopin' ass]

I see a couple things. first, there is a real lack of character development. it is far easier to make someone a heel than it is to make them a face. want to get heat? go out and talk trash about the city, their sports teams, etc and you will get booed. instant heel. can't get someone as a face that easily.

another problem is that people want to play the heel role over the face role. look at triple H - got over like crazy when he was a face yet he would rather play heel. problem with that is a lot want to be the kevin nash/scott hall "cool heel" like we saw in wcw rather than an actual heel so you end up with a bunch of cocky guys running around watering down the roster. i am not a huge fan of either but i think r-truth and mark henry have done well becoming heels since they are actual heels and not trying to be the cool guys. look at both of them as a face - rather boring. face has rules and won't do certian things, heels don't have that problem. people seem to think faces are boring. look at kurt angle over the last few months. he is face yet he goes out and kicks ass. it doesn't have to be boring but most wrestlers find it restrictive. i think part of that is the wwe kid-friendly product. it does restrict what you can and can't do and things can come across as boring.

also, this face-heel-face-heel character switching needs to stop. again, it waters down things because you get people like orton, who is supposed to be face, punting his opponents, a heel move. this is not how society works - you don't have people being serial killers for a couple weeks a year and then stopping. I don't think it is a mirror for society, i think it is lazy writing.

 

[THEpapachamp]

The heels are suppose to be the biggest talents. How are earth do faces turn to SUPER faces with a SUPER heel first.

Michaels made Austin SUPER..
JBL made Cena SUPER..
Miz is currently making Riley SUPER..

Is the faces were all the best talents, we would be complaining there were a million super cenas everywhere

 

[CelticCorey]

For the record I would like to say that I would love to pay to see a Daniel Bryan vs. Jack Swagger match. People always talk about how mic skills get your farther in the wrestling business, which is true. But I know I as a consumer would take ring skills over mic skills anyday and here's why:

John Cena and the Miz are two incredible stick workers but as we saw at Wrestlemania 27, the main event wasn't all that. Would I really pay $50 or $60 to watch Cena vs. The Miz if it's not a worthwhile main event and not a good match? No I wouldn't. The only good things out of that match was Miz kicking out of Cena's finisher and the Rock helping Miz win. I paid all that money for that? No way. If I'm going to pay for a wrestling show, I want my money's worth and I'd rather watch two great in ring wrestlers than two great stick workers- as much as I love The Miz.


Morrison and Sin Cara would ABSOLUTELY draw me out of my seat. I know I would love a mask and I would buy a ticket to see either one of these two in the main event. I'm slowly warming up to Riley but I'm not a mark.

And the fact that there is not a good supporting cast can all be blamed on Vince. Sure Cena has gone over everyone and is so established but the billionaire businessman made, IMO, the DUMBEST business decision by putting EVERYTHING on Cena. Now granted, there is a talented supporting cast but the only new stars who have any credibility are Miz and to a lesser extent, Sheamus.

I don't know what makes somebody a smark. IMO it's all subjective. WWE's heels are more appealing to me than the faces are but yet TNA's faces are usually more appealing to me than their heels are. Why this is I don't know. If you give me a reason to like you- I will. Miz, Sheamus, Del Rio, Christian (when he was a face, now a heel) Brodus Clay, Swagger, Truth, Ziggler and Rhodes have given me reasons to like them. Barrett I am on the fence on.

I also like faces like Morrison, Sin Cara, Bryan, Kingston and I'm starting to like Riley. I have said this many times and I will say it again: If you give me a reason to cheer for you, I will cheer for you. Face or heel. I'm not necessarily a guy who wants Cena to turn heel (though I would be curious to see it) as much as I'd rather see a tweaking of his character. I LOVED 2004 John Cena. 2005-2007 was not as good but I was still cool with him. Now though, meh.

I am hoping that Cena DOES take time off due to injury. Let it be a lesson learned to the WWE that they have no one but themselves to blame. There was a thread I made in the TNA forum on how I would sort out all of the divisions and that the main eventers would be the current draws and that the upper mid card division would be the main eventers in the waiting while neither division has much running into one another. WWE hasn't done that. A lot of the heels are entertaining though so it's good to cheer for them. Let's just hope this is all sorted out.

 

[Almost-Over]

There's a lot of factors to take in here but 2 that are obvious to me are the following:

-Lack of unique talent. In this day and age, the guys who only have OVW as their base of knowledge do not have enough style and/or character to connect with the audience in the times that they are allotted on TV. Equally, even if they are capable of displaying the style/character they are not given enough freedom in their match/promo time to express it.

-Lack of heel credibility. To create a GREAT face, you need a GREAT heel. And to me, a great heel must have some match-winning credibility. While WWE does have good top heel characters at the moment, none of these characters are given enough competitive credibility in their matches to be considered dominant enough that when an up-and-coming face defeats them, it allows them to get truly over. Obviously, heels should cheat but there is room for them to do so without being consistently made to look like clowns by the top faces as they are now.

Sure, Alex Riley is getting a boost by beating the WWE's top heel on PPV but that did little to improve my opinion of him when the man he beat lost after what was essentially a 90 second competitive period on the previous PPV. I wasn't surprised in the slightest as the perception the WWE is giving me is that The Miz is not a difficult person to beat. Even as champion he was barely given a clean win, even when facing lower card opposition.

Would Triple H have lost to any headliner in such a weak fashion during his heel run of 2002-2006?
Compare the mentor/student fued between The Miz and Riley to the one between Triple H and Batista. Do you really believe Riley will be popular enough to be promoted to a brand headlining position at the end of it? Say what you want about Batista's questionable ring talent and mic skills but a well-told story and a credible heel opponant gave him true main event popularity with the fans at that time.

In my opinion, the last time WWE booked a heel competantly was Randy Orton in 2009. Orton cheated but was also ruthless, violent and tough to beat. And sure enough, after spending the whole of that year in 2-way competitive fueds with others at his level the first mid-card face to look competitive against him in Kofi Kingston, instantly had enough support to launch a main event run if WWE had chosen to pull the trigger on it.

I find it very sad that WWE stopped making new stars for so long that now that it has to, it has forgotten how to do it properly.