The Roles of Babyface and Heel

[Hard Hit Prince]

Hey guys, I really want to talk about this subject - babyface and heels in the business and get a something something out of your heads about it. It has been clear since day one that professional wrestling is a staged performance storyline driven where generically one hero fights a villain, that is wrestling class 101 it doesn't get any simpler.

However this roles are so different and at the same time so important and they need the other to really work. However we can all discuss and share our point of views in the subject of "who is more important for the company? the babyface or the heel?". Also, what characteristics does a hero and a villain need to have specifically for you to really enjoy it? I'm a sucker for wrestling history, I can lose myself just watching, reading or listening anything related to old-school wrestling and for me the best era where we had the best performers and wrestlers were pretty much between the 1980-1985, specially in NWA and some WWF no doubt and what really makes me glued to my screen is how big the characters feel to me, how real they seem, for instance as much as I find Ric Flair one of the best wrestlers of all time, I can't stop thinking that in that era the guy was hated and really hated and I can see every reason for it, his hair, his smile, his style... everything was just made to make me hate him.

However in order to make some money in wrestling, the company and the fans just really need a babyface to be the marquee guy. The babyface can not work without a proper heel and the other way around is the same. Some people say it's easier to be a heel and in reality it does seem easier, but to be effective you need a proper babyface and in our era, those are really really hard to find. The fact that kayfabe died was a big hit in the importance of the roles we are talking about and nowadays it's normal to see the heel get a bigger pop than the babyface and for me, I can't stop thinking that someone is making a mistake, whether it's the booking team or the wrestlers themselves, someone is doing something wrong.

This is a big subject and I'm going to finish with two guys, my favorite heel and my favorite babyface of all time (this part is subjective as I'm not trying to rate any of the guys, just preference, if you want to skip by all means...). Ted Dibiase Sr. aka "The Million Dollar Man" for me is the best heel wrestling has ever seen, I'm a big big fan of his work and I respect the hell out of the guy but his run in Mid-South (that I've been fortune to follow through DVD's, tapes and articles) and his run in the WWF just speaks for how good the guy was. He was a good wrestler, he could work you up in the mat and at the same time he was this heel that could out-smart you and just let you high and dry out of nowhere. His iconic laugh and the way he delivered his promos was another big proof, it's a shame for me that he has never been the world's champion. A underrated work that people seem to forget is his feud with "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes that resulted in the debut of Dustin, I enjoyed it so much and I felt that people were really into it.

As for babyfaces I really enjoy the badass ones like "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, just because they are not that generic good guy but because they seem to be a more real person than the others. Nobody is 100% pure in heart, not even Jesus himself, so why should a babyface be? If a guy is being honest and defending the crowd and the fans any means necessary, that's the guy I'm gonna root for. Also it gets a time in your career that being a veteran just means that you are respected by your peers and by the audience, and for me, a veteran like Shawn Michaels in his last two to three years run, working as a heel would just seem awkward to me because he's a staple for me he's the guy that put so great performances and created so many memories that it doesn't matter what he does, I'll be cheering for him - another example right now is The Undertaker.

And you, what's your take on all of this?

 

[Slash-LN]

I like obnoxious heels. Guys like Jericho during his WCW and early WWE runs, HBK back in the 90s, Owen Hart. Basically guys that are good on the mic and make you want to see them get beaten up. Usually they play the cowardly role well and are able to play to the crowd. They can have good solid matches as well.

For a face I like a guy that doesn't really have to say much. Guys like Bret Hart, Chris Benoit and Taz. There's nothing incredibly fancy about them. They don't have to go out and yell and scream. If they say they're going to beat you up they actually go out there and do it.

Although that all being said I do like when those roles can be reversed. A guy like Jericho for example who can either be incredibly annoying and obnoxious as a heel who then can turn around and make you laugh as a face when they insult a heel. But I also like heels that can go out and put on a clinic and not really have to say too much about it. They don't have to be hyped up as "The next big thing".

Both heel and face are equally important as each other. The dynamic is pretty much dead now anyway though. People cheer for heels even when they do heelish things which negates the whole point of being a heel. People pretty much just cheer for whoever they want anymore.

 

[L@RISANO]

Hi guys, new to this forum. I was a regular viewer during the attitude era but around 07...due to circumstances I stopped following WWE and so have now got back into it the past couple of months. I have observed quite simply, that while there is talent still in the roster currently, the Star power compared to pre-2005 is sorely lacking. At that time there were at least 15-20 stars who could main event a ppv, some better than others but All of them were quite capable and because of such a glut of talent, they did the Brand Extension thing which worked perfectly.
Now enough of my little 'intro and thoughts'

On topic, what slash said basically.
this generation is not the same overall as past generations and some stories being done are repeats more or less
then with the attitude era having so many top stars at one given time. Those of now have been constantly compared and lose these comparisons regularly.
At present the most 'over' heels are actually the two groups in it(Wyatts and the Shield) and before that it was for a time,the Nexus. Other than that besides the usual Authority/Corporation role... is there any other Top star who gets regular heat since CM Punk became face again. Thus we now have, as Slash correctly said... some heels are being cheered and faces are being booed or getting no reaction since characters of some are stale.
Simply put, from my observation, The Big Show being put as the main face challenger says it all about the current state in WWE. Although, stubborness in pushing talent in a proper way is another problem also...

 

[Ubermensch]

Hogan taught us the best baby faces can make the best heels, simply because they were once baby faces.

Much racier storylines could have been done to make the ultimate heel. You can almost always win points with some kind of anti american angle. Look at Sgt Slaughter he was a huge heel.

 

[Trail_Blazin]

Heels need to be edgy and they need to be cowardly or physically dominating. I actually think Brock Lesnar is an EXCELLENT heel. I actually like heels who have a mouth piece, especially monster heels. Flair was a good heel would could talk. Same with Michaels. But with Brock, he doesn't need to talk because of Heyman. He's just a big bad man who likes to destroy things and he's intimidating as hell to look at.

Faces have changed over the years. Stone Cold was a face (really a tweener, but his role was that of a face) and he was extremely heelish. The Rock as a face was heelish. Hulk Hogan was the ultimate face when he was at the height of his popularity. Literally no one could have been bigger. Today, John Cena has a VERY similar gimmick to Hogan (modernized of course) and he's boo'ed. CM Punk and Daniel Bryan are today's faces. Bryan is more face than tweener, but Punk is your ultimate tweener type. (And I like Punk, but sometimes he seems to "force" being a face. He's such a good heel...)

 

[Ubermensch]

I may be wrong but I think cenas boos are a response to having baby faces like hogan shoved down their throats for so long.

Oddly enough, I think if you look at the top dogs that have been main eventers in the past like HHH, stone cold, the rock...none of them fit that baby face monicker.

I would wager that the last real baby face (besides cena) was Bret hart, and it was apparent back when the fans turned on him for stone cold that they were fed up with baby faces.

 

[Trail_Blazin]

I may be wrong but I think cenas boos are a response to having baby faces like hogan shoved down their throats for so long.

Oddly enough, I think if you look at the top dogs that have been main eventers in the past like HHH, stone cold, the rock...none of them fit that baby face monicker.

I would wager that the last real baby face (besides cena) was Bret hart, and it was apparent back when the fans turned on him for stone cold that they were fed up with baby faces.

I agree with the assertion that baby faces were worn out because of how long Hogan was at the top. Though, I think I'd use a different word to describe his reign, rather than "shoved down our throats". In the 80's/90's, everyone WANTED to see Hogan. It wasn't about shoving him down our throats, it was about him being THE draw. But your overall premise is tough to argue. Hogan had such a long baby face reign that I'm sure fans rejected the baby face notion, especially when Hogan turned heel. It turned out the baby faces aren't as "good" as people thought they were (via storylines, of course).

 

[Mustang Sally]

"who is more important for the company? the babyface or the heel?"

Dealing just with this aspect, I say the babyface is more important. Since it's so much easier to be a heel (just a few evil deeds will cement your rep), it's therefore that much harder to be a good guy. It's much, much harder to give people a reason to cheer for you than to boo.

John Cena, for all the booing, is better at being a babyface than just about anyone else in the modern (post Attitude) era. He's the guy every heel in the locker room wants to work with because getting the audience to cheer for him makes the contrast between himself and the heel that much greater, making their feud that much more exciting to fans. If a bad guy is fighting a face that no one cares about in the first place, neither one of them is going to get anywhere.

Heels need to be good, of course, but they're a dime a dozen since all they need to do is fake an evil personality and perform a few dastardly deeds to get fans to recognize them as bad guys. Taking a good guy and finding ways to get the audience behind him.......that's the hard part.

 

[Blade]

I would say that the babyface is more important on a long-term and financial scale. Anyone that the crowd gets behind is always the most important character in any kind of fiction. They're the primary money makers and the heroes.

With that said, I think heels are always more interesting, especially to adults. A good heel can work with a bad babyface and still get heat. But it's rarer for a good babyface to work with a bad heel and still get the same reaction, because if nobody cares about the heel, people don't want to see him get beaten that much.

It's like the relationship between the Joker and Batman. Most people, especially adults, are more intrigued by Joker doing anything evil, regardless of whether or not Batman is around. But if you give Batman a bad villain, then people don't care as much. Because it's just Batman beating up some guy you don't care about.

So yeah, babyfaces are more important from a company stand point, but I think it's very important that your top heel is a very, very good heel, otherwise the babyface can't do his job properly and the company suffers.

 

[Ubermensch]

Heels need to be good, of course, but they're a dime a dozen since all they need to do is fake an evil personality and perform a few dastardly deeds to get fans to recognize them as bad guys. Taking a good guy and finding ways to get the audience behind him.......that's the hard part.

True. But also remember a heel typically needs a wider range of movesets than the babyface who simply rallies with a few punches and signature moves at the very end of the match. In most matches heels dictate the pace and are on the offensive for the bulk of the match.

One thing that was confusing about Hogan was in ring actions were heel. I remember him throwing powder in otherwise fair matches while as a face. Low blows, biting, eye gauges.