WWE has heroes and anti-heroes.... but where are the heels?

[STFU Donnie]

First a mini-rant: This anti-hero argument, which I've heard from Heyman to Russo to Nash, that somehow the 90's represent some historical and unique cultural shift that created anti-heroes is poppycock. Anti-heroes or tragic-heroes go all the way back to Shakespeare and in terms of modern pop culture, just look at movies like The original Scarface, Cool Hand Luke, Dog Day Afternoon. It's such a pet peeve of mine when people make up a narrative to explain something far more simple. The 90's boom was demographics, pure and simple. The kids who fueled the 80's boom were teenagers and young adults in the 90's, so a more mature product drew those fans back. It's the same idea behind going PG. Sure it has the added benefit of being more attractive to sponsors, but the idea behind the change is a recognition of the demographic shift that the kids of the 80's, who became teenagers and young adults in the 90's, are now married with kids. So WWE wants to be family friendly so those dads introduce their kids to wrestling and theoretically WWE will keep today's kids and then their kids, etc.

So let's put character roles on a line. You have the pure hero, the anti-hero, and the villain. Now heroes can be pure and virtuous or troubled smart-asses (being "cool" doesn't really make them an anti-hero). The pure anti-hero is a villain...but because he is battling a pure villain, the audience finds qualities to relate to or the cause will allow the ends to justify the means. Villains, however, have either have no redeeming qualities or what they do drowns out any vestige of humanity. I can't think of a single compelling story about conflict without a truly powerful villain. The hero can have any number of qualities the audience might like or not like, but without the compelling villain, the story falls flat. The Joker makes Batman, Hanz Gruber makes John McClain, the sheriff makes Rambo.

The problem with WWE today is there are no villains. Instead the babyfaces are heroes and the heels are anti-heroes. Now I believe WWE would be smart to position characters in all three categories: Let a John Cena be the pure and virtuous babyface to appeal to the 6-12 year old demo, Let a CM Punk be the anti-hero for the 13-35 demo, and then create a crew of villains and incentivize those guys to get heat and forget merchandise, instead cut them in on the heroes and anti-heroes they work with. In essence, you have half the roster be irredeemable heels and then you cut up the babyface side between hero and anti-hero, but you do not intermingle those two sides, rather you tease tension.

I'm a big Walking Dead fan (I hope you are as well so this makes sense) and I think WWE could watch and learn how you craft characters and create conflict.

Take Season 1: John Cena is Rick, the pure and virtuous hero...who sometimes seems naive and weak. CM Punk is Shane, the anti-hero who is an absolute realist and will use any means necessary to survive. In season 1, Rick and Shane are the babyfaces at odds, fighting the heels, the walkers.

Take Season 3: John Cena faces the crisis of confidence that his good ways actually were making him weak...but the introduction of a true and absolute villain in The Governor gives him focus and reminds him in the end that weakness is good. WWE has no Governors or walkers and that is the single biggest missing ingredient. The Walking Dead is popular as hell and Rick is John Cena. He's kind, does the right thing, and really is kind of annoying at times...but having a Governor and walkers that are impossible to root for ensures the audience is with Rick.

Take Season 2: The tension between the hero Rick and the anti-hero Shane comes to a head and Shane does a heel turn. As a fan, I related more to Shane in season 1. Rick was John Cena for me. But then in Season 2, Shane's realism turned to ruthless cruelty. So while it didn't make me a fan of Rick, Shane's turn created a compelling story where I wanted Rick to win...even if I wasn't nuts about him. And at the start of season 3, I had my other anti-hero in Daryl as my favorite.

The issue I see with WWE is that nobody is truly a heel. Punk, Ziggler, The Shield, etc are all anti-heroes. They all use the old school tricks to make sure there are aspects of their work that appeals to the audience because they need to sell those shirts to make the big money because nobody is really a draw right now and the spots on the card are determined by merchandise sales...and I think the reason WWE doesn't have any draws is they don't have any villains to make the heroes and anti-heroes compelling.

So the question is: Where have all the good heels gone?

 

[The Butcher]

Mark Henry wants to strangle you for leaving his name out of this. I'm sure Brock Lesnar is none too pleased that you forgot about him so quickly either. Ryback doesn't seem to be trying to be a cool heel or anti-hero. Neither does the newly minted Curtis Axel. Damien Sandow shows nothing but contempt for the fans and his opponents. Big Show hasn't been trying to win anybody over recently. While Jack Swagger and Jeb Colter's xenophobia may appeal to some, I can't see anything heroic in their words or actions. Wade Barrett's sneers don't exactly say "buy my t-shirt" either.

I'm probably missing one or two, but it seems like you missed them all.

 

[MizMark11]

I'm not going to repeat the heels that the above poster mentioned, but I will add some.

- The Shield: They have a t-shirt on WWE.com, but they never wear them. They're certainly not trying to sell anything when they do whatever they can to gain an advantage over a helpless opponent. I definitely don't see them as ant-heroes at all.

- Bray Wyatt is coming up. While he may not be established yet, he's definitely not trying to be cool or some kind of rebel.

 

[STFU Donnie]

Mark Henry wants to strangle you for leaving his name out of this. I'm sure Brock Lesnar is none too pleased that you forgot about him so quickly either. Ryback doesn't seem to be trying to be a cool heel or anti-hero. Neither does the newly minted Curtis Axel. Damien Sandow shows nothing but contempt for the fans and his opponents. Big Show hasn't been trying to win anybody over recently. While Jack Swagger and Jeb Colter's xenophobia may appeal to some, I can't see anything heroic in their words or actions. Wade Barrett's sneers don't exactly say "buy my t-shirt" either.

I'm probably missing one or two, but it seems like you missed them all.

So you're saying WWE's top heels are Mark Henry, Brock Lesnar (who works 4 matches a year), Curtis Axel (who just passed his 1 week birthday, so you know more than I do), Ryback (who was given no reason for his turn and is basically a time filler for Cena), Damian Sandow, Big Show (who has flipped so many times, who even knows why he's a heel again), Jack Swagger (make no mistake if the audience is a cross section of the country, then 30% agrees with Zeb's xenophobia), and Wade Barrett?

You're saying these guys all have heat and are roundly hated and booed by the audience? After all, every wrestler I've ever heard talk says it's much easier to be hated than loved, so surely these guys are minted to make almost any babyface popular by default, right?

I wonder if you actually read my post or if you just skipped to the question. Either way is fine, it's just if you don't actually grasp what I'm trying to get at, it's going to be hard to really engage in any meaningful discussion.

 

[STFU Donnie]

I'm not going to repeat the heels that the above poster mentioned, but I will add some.

- The Shield: They have a t-shirt on WWE.com, but they never wear them. They're certainly not trying to sell anything when they do whatever they can to gain an advantage over a helpless opponent. I definitely don't see them as ant-heroes at all.

- Bray Wyatt is coming up. While he may not be established yet, he's definitely not trying to be cool or some kind of rebel.

So that's why the audience at Extreme Rules counted 1-2-3 while Ambrose was pinning Kofi and then popped. It's because The Shield is booked to be dastardly heels like The Governor in The Walking Dead or The Joker in Batman, rather than talk about Justice and worked a fast paced, high impact, babyface style in the ring as a group.

I really don't think you grasp what I'm saying.

 

[The Butcher]

So you're saying WWE's top heels are Mark Henry, Brock Lesnar (who works 4 matches a year), Curtis Axel (who just passed his 1 week birthday, so you know more than I do), Ryback (who was given no reason for his turn and is basically a time filler for Cena), Damian Sandow, Big Show (who has flipped so many times, who even knows why he's a heel again), Jack Swagger (make no mistake if the audience is a cross section of the country, then 30% agrees with Zeb's xenophobia), and Wade Barrett?

You're saying these guys all have heat and are roundly hated and booed by the audience? After all, every wrestler I've ever heard talk says it's much easier to be hated than loved, so surely these guys are minted to make almost any babyface popular by default, right?

I wonder if you actually read my post or if you just skipped to the question. Either way is fine, it's just if you don't actually grasp what I'm trying to get at, it's going to be hard to really engage in any meaningful discussion.

Where did I say "top heels?" Where in your original post did you say "top heels?"

Where did I say "these guys all have heat and are roundly hated an booed by the audience?"

Why don't you stop putting words in my mouth and just admit that you made a rambling, disjointed diatribe based off of a skewed perspective on what a villain is?

I read your post, but you're just wrong.

Then you had to go and be doubly wrong by responding. You asked for villains, I gave them to you, and then you grabbed for as many straws as possible to dismiss them. It doesn't matter how often Brock works, he's on the roster and is an unapologetic villain. Just because Curtis Axel is new doesn't mean he's exempt from discussion. Ryback not only gave reasoning for his turn, he actually made a lot of sense in doing so. It doesn't matter how many times Big Show has turned-- you asked about now, and he's a villain now. I explained that while Swagger may have supporters, he is in no way heroic.

Don't be a moron, dude. You're a good poster. Don't get let people disagreeing with you mar that. If the first two to respond to your post apparently don't grasp what you're trying to say, try saying it a different way rather than being defensive.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I'm not really seeing where you're seeing anti-heroes. Anti-heroes in wrestling are guys who are very much tweeners that have become the "cool heels" for all the smarks to cheer for. WWE really doesn't go for trying to have all that many tweeners on the roster anymore. During the Attitude Era, damn near every wrestler of remote relevance on the roster was booked as a morally ambiguous character who saw everything in shades of gray. It's okay to have a few guys like that on the roster but the simple story of good against bad will always be key. That's something that holds true in the much broader scope of television because every show needs to have characters that have some clear moral compass. Off the top of my head, one of the only guys in WWE right now that really fits the description of an anti-hero, tweener or what have you is Randy Orton. Even though Orton is more generally thought of as a babyface overall because of the response he gets and the opponents he has, his general behavior & many of his actions are more typically associated with the heel. About this time in 2011, CM Punk was very much a tweener/anti-hero type of character. He was a smarmy, cocky, arrogant guy that got in people's faces in a confrontational way but was cheered like a face for it. Initially, WWE encouraged Punk to go down the road of a traditional heel, such as insulting the audience. Early on, however, Punk kept getting such a great response that WWE ultimately kept him as he was before making the transition to a traditional babyface after winning the WWE Championship from Del Rio late in the year.

Off the top of my head, guys who are definitely heels in as of right now in WWE are Big Show, CM Punk, Damien Sandow, Cody Rhodes, Dolph Ziggler, Mark Henry, Ryback, Curtis Axel, Brock Lesnar, Big E. Langston, AJ Lee, the Bella Twins, The Shield, etc. WWE doesn't have a shortage of heels from what I can see. Whether or not you're into any of the wrestlers who are currently heels as it pertains to the subject of the thread is irrelevant.

 

[STFU Donnie]

Where did I say "top heels?" Where in your original post did you say "top heels?"

Where did I say "these guys all have heat and are roundly hated an booed by the audience?"

Why don't you stop putting words in my mouth and just admit that you made a rambling, disjointed diatribe based off of a skewed perspective on what a villain is?

I read your post, but you're just wrong.

Then you had to go and be doubly wrong by responding. You asked for villains, I gave them to you, and then you grabbed for as many straws as possible to dismiss them. It doesn't matter how often Brock works, he's on the roster and is an unapologetic villain. Just because Curtis Axel is new doesn't mean he's exempt from discussion. Ryback not only gave reasoning for his turn, he actually made a lot of sense in doing so. It doesn't matter how many times Big Show has turned-- you asked about now, and he's a villain now. I explained that while Swagger may have supporters, he is in no way heroic.

Don't be a moron, dude. You're a good poster. Don't get let people disagreeing with you mar that. If the first two to respond to your post apparently don't grasp what you're trying to say, try saying it a different way rather than being defensive.

You still don't get it.

The top heels would be those most hated by the audience...and yet those in the top heel spots do things that elicit cheers or don't do things that would elicit boos, which makes them essentially ant-heroes. They're villains but with qualities or agendas the audience empathizes with.

If the heels you named were good heels, then they would be the top heels...BECAUSE THERE ARE NO OTHER HEELS!!!!. And it's the lack of any antagonists that makes WWE so uninteresting

That's the whole point. If you say you read my post, I believe you...but you clearly didn't grasp what it meant.

 

[The Butcher]

You still don't get it.

The top heels would be those most hated by the audience...and yet those in the top heel spots do things that elicit cheers or don't do things that would elicit boos, which makes them essentially ant-heroes. They're villains but with qualities or agendas the audience empathizes with.

If the heels you named were good heels, then they would be the top heels...BECAUSE THERE ARE NO OTHER HEELS!!!!. And it's the lack of any antagonists that makes WWE so uninteresting

That's the whole point. If you say you read my post, I believe you...but you clearly didn't grasp what it meant.

You ignore the smark factor, possibly because you may rapt in it yourself. Just because some choose to cheer for the guys who are doing villainous things doesn't mean that those characters aren't heels. It just means there are audience members who get their jollies off of subverting the show. The Masked Man calls the "meta-fans." It's a good term. It's also good that you see more than one dimension to WWE's heels. It's preferable to having everyone just wear a black hat or white hat and having no depth to their character.

JH laid it out well with Orton's case. Frankly, I just think what you define as an anti-hero doesn't line up with what most of us consider an anti-hero. There's nothing heroic about CM Punk or Dolph Ziggler. I won't deny that they have "cool heel" appeal, but that doesn't make them heroes. It makes them charismatic bad guys. Not all that unlike The Joker, who you mentioned earlier. He has legions of fans, but he is in no way shape or form an anti-hero.

The funniest part about this is recently I've seen a lot of posts about WWE's lack of faces. This is the first complaint I've seen in a long, long time about WWE lacking heels. I'll agree to disagree with you on this one, bud.

 

[STFU Donnie]

I'm not really seeing where you're seeing anti-heroes. Anti-heroes in wrestling are guys who are very much tweeners that have become the "cool heels" for all the smarks to cheer for. WWE really doesn't go for trying to have all that many tweeners on the roster anymore. During the Attitude Era, damn near every wrestler of remote relevance on the roster was booked as a morally ambiguous character who saw everything in shades of gray. It's okay to have a few guys like that on the roster but the simple story of good against bad will always be key. That's something that holds true in the much broader scope of television because every show needs to have characters that have some clear moral compass. Off the top of my head, one of the only guys in WWE right now that really fits the description of an anti-hero, tweener or what have you is Randy Orton. Even though Orton is more generally thought of as a babyface overall because of the response he gets and the opponents he has, his general behavior & many of his actions are more typically associated with the heel. About this time in 2011, CM Punk was very much a tweener/anti-hero type of character. He was a smarmy, cocky, arrogant guy that got in people's faces in a confrontational way but was cheered like a face for it. Initially, WWE encouraged Punk to go down the road of a traditional heel, such as insulting the audience. Early on, however, Punk kept getting such a great response that WWE ultimately kept him as he was before making the transition to a traditional babyface after winning the WWE Championship from Del Rio late in the year.

Off the top of my head, guys who are definitely heels in as of right now in WWE are Big Show, CM Punk, Damien Sandow, Cody Rhodes, Dolph Ziggler, Mark Henry, Ryback, Curtis Axel, Brock Lesnar, Big E. Langston, AJ Lee, the Bella Twins, The Shield, etc. WWE doesn't have a shortage of heels from what I can see. Whether or not you're into any of the wrestlers who are currently heels as it pertains to the subject of the thread is irrelevant.

The thing is that wrestling fans often misidentify what are essentially literary/theatrical descriptive devices. Simply being cool or kicking the evil bosses ass or being a loner is not an anti-hero. An anti-hero is Al Pacino in The Godfather films. He's a mafia boss who kills his brother, his sister's husband, and is abusive towards his wife...and we're all rooting for him because we're seeing the story from his perspective. If the film was told from Diane Keaton's perspective he would be the villain. John McLain from Die Hard or Martin Riggs from Lethal Weapon or Batman are not anti-heroes...they're just cool heroes.

I don't want this to sound like an attack, but I'll use CM Punk as my example of what WWE is missing. Punk does things that elicit cheers, from his words to his work. Whether it's his initiative or WWE's, being a heel is secondary to being CM Punk. If he was determined to be a villain, rather than content to be an anti-hero, if "best in the world" gets cheered or chanted, then he would never say it again and it would never appear on a t-shirt. If certain moves or his faster pace or doing the GTS mime or anything else gets cheers, he would never do it again.

The whole point of being a villain is to be hated and while I don't deny that there are those who try (although I don't agree with all those on your list as quite a few are doing the anti-hero act whether they get it or not) they're just not good enough to get the crowd to hate them. Meanwhile the more talented anti-heroes like Punk could become hated...but that's not what they do.

I saw a video on Youtube (it might still be there) with Terry Funk, Raven, and Kevin Sullivan from some convention. Anyway, Raven was talking about being a heel and he made the comment that some guys just can't be heels, like Ricky Steamboat could never be a heel. Terry Funk jumped right in and disagreed. He said that the greatest heels he ever saw were also great babyfaces. According to Terry, it's very hard to be loved and much easier to be hated. So when a wrestler actually figures out how to make his audience love him, then it's easy to become hated because all you have to do is withhold from the fans the very things that made them love you. The whole time Kevin Sullivan nodded his head and Raven, never short of words or certainty that he knows everything, actually acknowledged how smart that was and that he'd never thought of it that way.

WWE does very average ratings and the house shows and PPV's put up average numbers with Cena on top. So why has Cena been on top for the last 7 years? Because he sells merchandise. That is where guys in WWE make a ton of money. So if you've been tabbed to be a villain, wouldn't you do everything you could to make sure the audience viewed you as a character and saw things through your eyes? If they cheered something, wouldn't you make it part of your routine? If anything you do increased the chances that more people bought your shirts or more people requested your shirts causing WWE to start selling them, wouldn't you do it?

If you get paid off of merchandise, what incentive do you have to make the audience hate you like they hate The Governor on The Walking Dead? And if nobody has incentive to be the most hated guy in the company, a villain nobody but the most anti-social fan would want a t-shirt of, then who do the babyfaces have to battle that will get the crowd behind them?

 

[STFU Donnie]

Fair enough but check out my argument to Jack Hammer and try this stupid exercise that I learned back in college.

Try to write a story about a conflict between a hero and a villain and you will find yourself spending so much more time creating your villain because it's the villain and his actions that creates the hero, not the other way around. Think of a Batman movie where he's just grabbing muggers. It's only dramatic when he has a villain that the audience despises.

See I'm using the anti-hero as it is defined in literary terms...not how wrestling fans misuse it. Steve Austin might have been an anti-hero for the first few months of 97...but after that he was 100% a hero. Just because he drank beer, flipped the bird, had no friends, and beat up his evil boss does not call into question his morality or ethics, which is what would make him an anti-hero. And I think the single biggest reason that the babyfaces in WWE are so boring is because none of the heels really try (whether it's their doing or WWE's) to be truly villainous and hated.

 

[InsomniaMusic]

So you're saying WWE's top heels are Mark Henry, Brock Lesnar (who works 4 matches a year), Curtis Axel (who just passed his 1 week birthday, so you know more than I do), Ryback (who was given no reason for his turn and is basically a time filler for Cena), Damian Sandow, Big Show (who has flipped so many times, who even knows why he's a heel again), Jack Swagger (make no mistake if the audience is a cross section of the country, then 30% agrees with Zeb's xenophobia), and Wade Barrett?

You're saying these guys all have heat and are roundly hated and booed by the audience? After all, every wrestler I've ever heard talk says it's much easier to be hated than loved, so surely these guys are minted to make almost any babyface popular by default, right?

I wonder if you actually read my post or if you just skipped to the question. Either way is fine, it's just if you don't actually grasp what I'm trying to get at, it's going to be hard to really engage in any meaningful discussion.

Historically in wrestling who would you call a real heel. As I don't think wrestling works with a pure heel as much as hero anti hero type

Mark Henry is definatly a heel
As well as Big Show
Swagger even those who might agree with him wouldn't like the way he's presented

Fair enough but check out my argument to Jack Hammer and try this stupid exercise that I learned back in college.

Try to write a story about a conflict between a hero and a villain and you will find yourself spending so much more time creating your villain because it's the villain and his actions that creates the hero, not the other way around. Think of a Batman movie where he's just grabbing muggers. It's only dramatic when he has a villain that the audience despises.

See I'm using the anti-hero as it is defined in literary terms...not how wrestling fans misuse it. Steve Austin might have been an anti-hero for the first few months of 97...but after that he was 100% a hero. Just because he drank beer, flipped the bird, had no friends, and beat up his evil boss does not call into question his morality or ethics, which is what would make him an anti-hero. And I think the single biggest reason that the babyfaces in WWE are so boring is because none of the heels really try (whether it's their doing or WWE's) to be truly villainous and hated.

How is Stone Cold not an anti hero for most of the time he never really was a babyface he would stun who you love or hate he was just stone cold

 

[The IWC Butcher]

You ignore the smark factor, possibly because you may rapt in it yourself. Just because some choose to cheer for the guys who are doing villainous things doesn't mean that those characters aren't heels. It just means there are audience members who get their jollies off of subverting the show. The Masked Man calls the "meta-fans." It's a good term. It's also good that you see more than one dimension to WWE's heels. It's preferable to having everyone just wear a black hat or white hat and having no depth to their character.

JH laid it out well with Orton's case. Frankly, I just think what you define as an anti-hero doesn't line up with what most of us consider an anti-hero. There's nothing heroic about CM Punk or Dolph Ziggler. I won't deny that they have "cool heel" appeal, but that doesn't make them heroes. It makes them charismatic bad guys. Not all that unlike The Joker, who you mentioned earlier. He has legions of fans, but he is in no way shape or form an anti-hero.

The funniest part about this is recently I've seen a lot of posts about WWE's lack of faces. This is the first complaint I've seen in a long, long time about WWE lacking heels. I'll agree to disagree with you on this one, bud.

I am guilty as charged. The current product over the last 5 years has been so "Cena Corny Kid Friendly" my entertainment comes from subverting the show and seeing the 7 year old Cena fans with confused looks on their face, like why are they cheering for Super Cena to get beat?!? I know it's sad but I'm a dad and my daughter loves BROCK LESNAR!! So to each their own....and to the topic Cena isn't a pure hero because half the audience hates him and its due to how he is booked... Example every match the last 5 years... The biggest gripe go watch Cena Vs Ziggler in the Raw Cage Match... I mean come on... Ziggler could have shot him and Cena would have kicked out...but the point is a hero character is one majority of the audience cheers... Onethey root for because they come out as an underdog or the strike a nerve and emotion with the audience... not being forced down the audience's throat (Cena, good guy Miz, Rocky Maivia character, Max Moon) Example 1980s Hulk Hogan... Look at Hogan Vs Andre at WM3. Good Vs Bad. Andre wasn't getting cheers regardless of his previous merits... Hogan Was universally cheered across all demographics It wasn't till WM8 that Hogan 's popularity and hero status began diminishing...
So to that argument what is a real villain... Are we talking Sgt Slaughter WM7, to me a real villain is pure evil....Jake Roberts heel turn was perfect...he was pure evil...I think Bray Wyatt has that type of character...the Shield will be anti heroes and I would say Reigns turns face eventually...Ambrose would be a true heel if he goes solo... go see his Indy work on YouTube...great stuff...the shield get a bigger pop then most faces do... The crowd wants something different than John Cena currently....so they will embrace anything "cool, edgy" and different ... For a real villian there needs to be a real hero... Bret Hart was that hero character... Sheamus has it... WCW Sting had it, Definitely the Undertaker... Until a universally accepted hero comes out that isn't John Cena I think the real heels will not be able to flourish. That's my rant.

 

[The IWC Butcher]

The thing is that wrestling fans often misidentify what are essentially literary/theatrical descriptive devices. Simply being cool or kicking the evil bosses ass or being a loner is not an anti-hero. An anti-hero is Al Pacino in The Godfather films. He's a mafia boss who kills his brother, his sister's husband, and is abusive towards his wife...and we're all rooting for him because we're seeing the story from his perspective. If the film was told from Diane Keaton's perspective he would be the villain. John McLain from Die Hard or Martin Riggs from Lethal Weapon or Batman are not anti-heroes...they're just cool heroes.

I don't want this to sound like an attack, but I'll use CM Punk as my example of what WWE is missing. Punk does things that elicit cheers, from his words to his work. Whether it's his initiative or WWE's, being a heel is secondary to being CM Punk. If he was determined to be a villain, rather than content to be an anti-hero, if "best in the world" gets cheered or chanted, then he would never say it again and it would never appear on a t-shirt. If certain moves or his faster pace or doing the GTS mime or anything else gets cheers, he would never do it again.

The whole point of being a villain is to be hated and while I don't deny that there are those who try (although I don't agree with all those on your list as quite a few are doing the anti-hero act whether they get it or not) they're just not good enough to get the crowd to hate them. Meanwhile the more talented anti-heroes like Punk could become hated...but that's not what they do.

I saw a video on Youtube (it might still be there) with Terry Funk, Raven, and Kevin Sullivan from some convention. Anyway, Raven was talking about being a heel and he made the comment that some guys just can't be heels, like Ricky Steamboat could never be a heel. Terry Funk jumped right in and disagreed. He said that the greatest heels he ever saw were also great babyfaces. According to Terry, it's very hard to be loved and much easier to be hated. So when a wrestler actually figures out how to make his audience love him, then it's easy to become hated because all you have to do is withhold from the fans the very things that made them love you. The whole time Kevin Sullivan nodded his head and Raven, never short of words or certainty that he knows everything, actually acknowledged how smart that was and that he'd never thought of it that way.

WWE does very average ratings and the house shows and PPV's put up average numbers with Cena on top. So why has Cena been on top for the last 7 years? Because he sells merchandise. That is where guys in WWE make a ton of money. So if you've been tabbed to be a villain, wouldn't you do everything you could to make sure the audience viewed you as a character and saw things through your eyes? If they cheered something, wouldn't you make it part of your routine? If anything you do increased the chances that more people bought your shirts or more people requested your shirts causing WWE to start selling them, wouldn't you do it?

If you get paid off of merchandise, what incentive do you have to make the audience hate you like they hate The Governor on The Walking Dead? And if nobody has incentive to be the most hated guy in the company, a villain nobody but the most anti-social fan would want a t-shirt of, then who do the babyfaces have to battle that will get the crowd behind them?

Reading this quote this came to me.... Terry Funk is right to a degree... For John Cena to be a universally hated heel....even one the IWC hates, in the end do one thing...cheat to win. Change absolutely nothing about his character...nothing except he pulls a Lebron James...getting all ref calls, maybe wins one match with his feet on the ropes, but change nothing else...he can claim hes super cena, like King James...but change nothing else, he would be hated by EVERYONE..same intro, same lame interviews, same everything except cheat... 100% pure heat...keep kicking out of finishers...and keep the belt 435 days ....can you imagine what this site would be like on day 435 of cheating Cena...I'm gonna call hunter now...this is $$$$$$$$$$$$

 

[Swarles Barkley]

When last we saw CM Punk, he was desecrating the memory of a recently deceased human being to get under the skin of his opponent. If that's not a heel, I don't know what is.

And just because some fans cheer guys like Punk or Henry, doesn't mean they aren't heels. If The Dark Knight was played in front of a live audience, there would have been people cheering for The Joker because he put on a great show. It's the same with guys like Punk and Henry and The Shield.

There is never going to be a guy who is 100 per cent loved or 100 per cent hated. Even as a kid, I loved Mr. Perfect and the Hart Foundation when they were heels because they were entertaining. I would go to WWF events and cheer for these guys when they were heels because they were among my favourites, but that doesn't mean they weren't heels.

You're equating appreciation for the performer/performance with guys not being heels or having heat. If getting cheered means a guy's not a heel, then no one in the history of wrestling has ever been a heel.

 

[ryankayy506]

I agree with Swarles. The Four Horsemen are normally regarded as one (if not the) top heel factions in wrestling. They did dastardly things (true heel tactics) and still got some cheers.

 

[Brahma_Bull9]

If you really can't see that the audience shifted in the 90's all that reading and studying you do is absolutely useless. You have intelligence, I'm not trying to insult you, but if you can't apply it, it is absolutely useless to have.

Bret Hart vs Austin at Mania, Austin was the heel and got cheered. That was when things shifted, and it was bigger than wrestling. The world has just continued in that trend in my opinion with reality tv then social media. Watch early 90's and 80 PPV's, if you think Hogan would have gotten over in the mid to late 90's just by saying I'm a real American then I take back saying you are smart.

And you say Austin was only a heel for the first few months, yea because the crowd was pulling for him and the WWE embraced it. That's when he started drinking beer and beating up his boss.... I just mean wow, you know your stuff but it seems like you are so stuck to your point beyond reason or you really have a hard time understanding that in entertainment the audience dictates a lot. You know, you can write the most beautiful poetry or book in the world, but if it doesn't entertain anybody or a market doesn't exist for it, it will never get published.