When Heels Fight Heels

[enviousdominous]

It rarely happens for obvious reasons. A heel's time honored role is to give purpose to the faces. If two heels suddenly get in each other's way with no intention of backing down, it's a wickedly captivating form of anarchy that is difficult to ignore.

Recently we were treated with an eruption of rage between The Wyatt Family and The Shield. Sure, they promptly simmered down and focused their rage for each other onto Daniel Bryan and CM Punk. That brief moment was larger than the rest of the entire program.

While it is rare, it has happened in the past. I'll share one example, which is a very fond memory of when I found being a pro-wrestling fan as a not-so petty indulgence.

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At 4:17, you see an American crowd pop for Muta if only to see him use his evil martial arts against the likes of Arn Anderson. This match was as fleeting as the moment we were granted on the 11 November edition of Monday Night Raw, at about 6:15 Sting wrecked his knee after slamming it into the bottom of the steel cage which was worked into the intended main event push for Sting that the match was designed to setup.

*edit: One other thing I feel like I should point out; nobody told Ric that Sting had hurt his knee. He had no idea of how much pain Sting was in when he charged and clobbered him after the match.

 

[Mustang Sally]

Well, heel vs. heel certainly gives us more of a visual jolt than face vs. face. We rarely see good guys tangle; the exception being when one of them (or both) launch some dirty tactics, making you wonder if one of the good guys is making a switch to the dark side. I'll admit, though, after watching years and years of pro wrestling, the sight of two guys shaking hands in the ring thoroughly disgusts me.

Heel vs. heel also makes us wonder if someone will soon be shifting sides, although an unexpected occurrence, such as a Shield vs. Wyatt war spontaneously breaking out makes me think that no one is in danger of turning good.....but rather, it's more like two rival street gangs fighting for their piece of turf. There isn't going to be any science to the confrontation, nor any particular explanation as to why one bad guy is swinging on another.

As you watch them duke it out, you realize that analyzing why it's happening is useless; a more productive consideration is to try and figure what the evil vs evil confrontation might lead to.

 

[JoeyJoeJoe]

Heel vs. Heel matches just never really work for me unless there's a strong storyline that explains why the heels should be fighting. The Horsemen / J-Tex Corporation made sense because they had been fighting for months, and in actuality, the Horsemen just turned heel that evening. Even with that, I didn't think the match worked THAT well.

Another one that I thought was very weak was the Shawn Michaels-Rick Martel match for SummerSlam 1992. The hook was that the two of them were vying for Sensational Sherri. The idea that anyone would want to fight over Sherri was pretty dumb, and led to one of the most boring matches that night. This leads to another reason that Heel Vs. Heel matches typically don't work -- more inconclusive endings. That Michaels/Martel match ended in a double countout. I remember the slew of Horsemen/Doom matches back in the early 90s and the DOA/Boricuas/Nation of Domination matches in the late 90s. All heels, almost always double DQs and double countouts.

 

[boozinjedi]

the 1992 Michaels/Martel match was such a letdown,those two guys could've had a barnburner of a match!!
the match referenced in the clip was also a weird one,the horsemen swerved Sting and hearing crowds pop for the likes of The Great Muta,Mad Dog Buzz Sawyer was utterly amazing and I was cheering all the time from my couch!!

 

[matman8540]

The best heel vs heel actually started in Japan (not sure who was the face or heel there), but when they got to the States, they were definitely heels. WrestleWar 1991 in WCW; Vader vs Hansen. Great match. Period.

 

[shooter_mcgavin]

Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels at Survivor Series 1997 was a heel vs. heel match up and was the highest WWE PPV in terms of buy rate for that year (including Wrestlemania). What is strange though all PPV WWF Championship matches Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels were involved in Face vs. Heel (SS92), Face vs. Face (WM12), and Heel vs Heel (SS97) match ups. That must be an interesting trivia at least.

It was a good rivalry and good build and with the realtivley strong buy rates you would think the WWE would do a heel vs. heel PPV main event just to see how the crowd will react.

Also another forgotten heel vs. heel classic was Benoit vs. Angle at Unforgiven 2002. That was an amazing match and both looked great and the crowd was really into it (that's the important part), with a ton of high impact moves and so on, that probably would be one of my MOTY candidates back in 2002. Scary thing is both would have an even better match a few months later.

 

[enviousdominous]

Here's another one. This one had the crowd pop huge for Yokozuna, if only to see him ram heads with another gargantuan performer.

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My favorite thing about this match is that both teams employed classic heel tactic of distracting to ref in an effort to get extra hits on their opponent. I can't say enough about how much I loved this match as a young teen so I'll just stop right here.

 

[justtxyank]

There was one when Triple H was in the corporation and he took on The Undertaker to see who would get to challenge for the world title on Raw in 1999.

It was a good match with a good story (the Rise of Triple H.)

This was when Triple H was really coming into his own. Loved the match.

 

[Matty~!]

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This is just a fantastic match, you could make a case for Hansen being a slight face despite very much being a heel at the time

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Bulldog and Owen for me still stands out as one of the best ever Raw matches.

 

[Ubermensch]

Heel vs Heel action always leads to good TV in my opinion. What hasn't been explored in wrestling is heel stable vs heel stable action. The closest to my knowledge that wrestling ever got to it was the Nation of Domination attacking the Hart Foundation.

At the early stages of the attitude era when the NOD, Disciples of Apocalypse, and Los Boricuas were feuding there were some great gang style battles and it made for good TV since each stable was clearly racially driven.

 

[Trail_Blazin]

I am hoping that they capitalize on the Wyatt/Shield heat before the Shield disbands, hopefully that will be a match at Mania.

Heel stable vs. Heel stable, both of which have been making their mark in the WWE and are under 2 years old as a stable in the WWE. It's definitely interesting.

 

[Ubermensch]

They should capitalize on it for sure. Would make great TV seeing the other members catching one of the other stable alone and jumping them in the back, and the other stable retaliating. 3v3 at Wrestlemania would be legit.

 

[FlairFan2003]

Usually these types of feuds only serve to turn one of the participants face. Once that happens, it quickly becomes a more traditional good vs evil dymamic.

As for some of the matches mentioned here, The Horsemen match was unique because it was never promoted as a heel-heel match. The H-men had returned to WCW to help a fan fave Flair & Sting face Mutah & Friends. The H-men literally had just turned heel an hour before the match.

The HBK-Martel feud was played mostly for comedy and was to establish HBK in his more adult, Heartbreak Kid villain persona, moving him away from the teeny bopper tag team character he played in The Rockers. Due to the comedic aspect of the feud niether guy was really allowed to go all out, in the end I think that hurt the match from an interest standpoint.

I think these matches work one of two ways... One, as a one of match on TV, like Randy Savage vs Jake Roberts from SNME. It was interesting to watch just because it was unique and unpredictable. Second, these can work if both heels are allowed to go all out, employing all their beat down, sneak attack, chair weilding, foreign object using, rulebreaker tactics against each other. Fans will split allegiance but everyone will be entertained.

When you book heel vs heel you risk one of the participants overshadowing the other and commanding all the fan support, basically turning them face. This happened in the Doom vs Horsemen, fans gravitated to Flair & Arn Anderson and soon they were faces in the feud. WCW was forced to abandon the feud which had become very entertaining when they chose to use a heel Flair as the nemesis vs Sting in the culmination of his storyline where he was pursued by a mystery stalker.

 

[Ubermensch]

I think they can be very productive. When the Nation of Domination attacked the Hart Foundation over DX's assertion that Bret Hart uses the N word, it was awesome. That feud never came to fruition, but it would have been nice briefly. DX feuded with the Hart Foundation for several months and it made for great TV and still didn't turn the Hart Foundation face.

Fans don't always need someone to cheer on, occasionally they can sit back and watch the fireworks. That's where a good heel vs heel feud can come in.

 

[Best in the World]

It's this kind of concept that I can get behind and actually makes me invested into seeing what could happen. I hear a lot of times people saying that having heel against heel is such a bad thing, because neither guy will draw a reaction, or will get that reaction out side of the usual boos. And this has been the case, I recall a match between Angle and HHH, which those two put on a heel of a showing, but the crowd was dead for it, because at the time they were both heels. The problem was you couldn't get behind either, because they were both doing such heel-ish things at the time that nobody could grasp onto the idea of cheering for either of them.

But of course this isn't always the case, I recall a match up between Test (RIP buddy) and Brock, which surprised me how long that match not only went out, but how much people grasped onto Test at the time despite him being a heel. I mean the atmosphere of it was just so much fun, and when Test connected with a hard boot right to Brock and nearly got the pin, the crowds reaction was just so fun to watch. It's such an odd dynamic, but it works so well.

It'll be interesting to see how people would react with The Wyatt's vs. The Shield.