WWF Face vs. NWA Heel: Which Was Better?

[The Brain]

Two names ruled the wrestling world in the 80s: Hulk Hogan, the top face in the WWF, and Ric Flair, the top heel in the NWA. Each man dominated his respective promotion and always seemed to be in the main event as champion. I’ve always found it interesting that one promotion decided to go with a face as the top guy while the other chose a heel. Which do you think was the better way to go?

It seems like the WWF made the logical choice by putting a face as their top guy. The fans loved Hogan. They bought Hogan t shirts, posters, and the giant yellow fingers. He sold out arenas all over the country and became one of the most recognizable figures in all of pop culture. Every few months another villain would come around and try to dethrone the Hulkster. Fans loved it as Hogan went through The Iron Sheik, Big John Studd, Rowdy Roddy Piper, King Kong Bundy, Paul Orndorff, Andre The Giant, and plenty more. No matter how big the challenge the Hulkster always prevailed. It seemed with each victory he became more popular and the WWF rode that wave for years.

On the other side of the wrestling world the NWA had a different approach. The hated Ric Flair reigned supreme throughout the decade. Even though the fans despised him they would come to the arena in hopes of seeing their latest hero put the champ in his place. Flair would often drop the title to a popular wrestler only to regain it a short time later. By doing this the NWA made fan favorites out of Dusty Rhodes, Magnum TA, Barry Windham, Ricky Steamboat, Sting, and plenty more. Each time Flair regained the title he became more hated and the fans would get behind his next challenger even more. They wanted to see someone finally dethrone Flair for good.

So which approach do you prefer? Do you like one hero constantly taking down many villains or do you like a variety of heroes being created to try and take down one villain? I think the reason both worked so well at the time is because one provided the other the alternative. Which did you like better and if only one promotion existed which would have been the way to go?

 

[Ferbian]

That's actually a hard question to answer.

From one perspective the obvious choice would be WWF face. After all they were the superior promotion. Hulk Hogan's popularity steamrolled the NWA and their long existing territorial system. Hulk Hogan's popularity and the promotional approach of WWF is what got them to go world wide rather than territorial like they had been in the past, and NWA was stuck to be doing.

WWF was just quite simply economically superior. Vince McMahon had hit a goldmine by turning Hulk Hogan face and marketing him like he did.

However, NWA certainly held on to their second place thoroughly. Ric Flair became a hugely popular heel in the terms that people just hated the shit out of him. The sheer fact that a heel could carry the company for so long, and do it so thoroughly that Ric Flair did is still applaudable. And I think that Ric Flair and NWA's approach revolutionized the business for years to come. After all eventually WCW realized that they could market their top star as heels. WWF and later on WWE started actually giving longer reigns to heels, and they started to get showcased much more than they had in the past. So in one way you could say NWA's approach in terms of building the future of the business was the better approach.

But in terms of popularity and overall success the choice still has to fall on WWF for the sheer fact of how insanely far they took their promotion riding Hulk Hogan's popularity.

 

[MrHashasheen]

So which approach do you prefer? Do you like one hero constantly taking down many villains or do you like a variety of heroes being created to try and take down one villain? I think the reason both worked so well at the time is because one provided the other the alternative. Which did you like better and if only one promotion existed which would have been the way to go?

I've always liked the NWA/WCW style more. Have a villain who is either just that good plus some cheating just in case (Ric Flair, Triple H during Evolution, Eddie Guerrero, etc...) who have lengthy title reigns and serious hate from the crowd always manages to build a face wrestler rather than the short-lived careers in the spotlight the WWF heels always seemed to have. You could have an NWA/WCW face turn heel against all the other face challengers and it would be more poigant I would think, than Tenta or Andre or any other WWF heel going face.

 

[realdealasshole]

I'm too young to remember watching the glory days of both their careers, but I LOVE Ric Flair. He's the best wrestler ever and I always enjoy watching his matches from the past. As for the thread, I must say, my favorite time watching wrestilng was when HHH was the Champion for a LONG time and people were just dying to see the Rock put him in his place. It had me tuning in every week in hopes that the Rock would at least slap the taste out of HHH's mouth. So I love the top star as a heel approach. But i'm definitely biased because I usually root for the heels regardless.

 

[Midnite Express 2009]

Hands down, Ric Flair. God, I hate seeing Flair destroy himself for a quick buck and pops. But the Ric Flair I grew up watching was indeed The Man. Flair could wrestle, cut the best promos, had the better feuds and was what wrestling was all about. Hulk Hogan was a lime-hog, someone who would die before he put anyone over cleanly and basically was someone who I couldn't stand. So, let's look at the tale of the tape (PPV wise) from 1985 to 1989 between Starrcade & WrestleMania...

Ric Flair's Main Event Matches: 1985 Dusty Rhodes
1986 Nikita Koloff
1987 Ronnie Garvin
1988 Lex Luger
1989 Iron Man Tournament

Hulk Hogan's Main Event Matches: 1985 Tag Match vs. Piper & Orndorff
1986 King Kong Bundy
1987 Andre the Giant
1988 2nd Round of Title Tournament
1989 Randy Savage

Sure, 1987's WrestleMania was great, but the Andre/Hulk Hogan match in retrospect wasn't that great. Both men wrestled in steel cage matches, Hogan at WM 2 vs. Bundy and Flair at Starrcade 87 vs. Garvin. Flair once was the challenger while Hogan was twice. Flair wrestled 3 men in 1 night at Starrcade 89. Hogan wrestled in a title tournament and lost. The list goes on and on. IMO, Hogan will always be 2nd to Flair no matter what (except for now when both are a joke).

 

[Cookie14]

For me, both options are correct. Allow me to explain......

From a veiwers perspective, I have always preferred the heel champions. They are more entertaining IMO and there are more possibilities with a heel champ than there are with a face.

However, Heels, by definition, are NOT fan favourites. Fans support the faces, they buy the merchandise of the face. From a business veiwpoint, it makes sense to have a face champ.

That is why, IMO, WWE succeeded over the NWA. They are both businesses, but WWE had the bigger money maker because they had a face champion.

(Out of curiosity, can anyone tell me the last heel champion that was a big draw/merch seller? because I can't think of any who outsold the face they were against)

 

[cbear47]

In a lot of ways, this is the contrast of National Configuration vs. Regional Configuration.

Going even before Ric Flair, he took the belt from Harley Race, who had a similar run through the 70s (when wrestling was in a downturn) and before that you had other heels in the position of the Regional's World Champion, more often than not.

The idea was each region's top star, heel or face, would take on the smarmy World Champion, who would look good, and then nearly lose, and everyone thought the Regional guy was almost as good as that dastardly World champion. See Jerry Lawler's book for a more detailed (and admittedly more credible) description of this system.

Essentially, the faces wouldn't have big runs because there's no conflict. Kerry von Erich comes to town, people say, "Hey, he's a great guy. I'm glad he's the World Champ." But they don't buy tickets.

The only promotion I know you could counter my theory with is WWWF. (sic)

Bruno Sammartino, Bob Backlund... the good guys you can look up to. It works when you have enough of a fan base... like NYC-Boston and all points in between. Even when the usual fans get bored, there's more marks to fill seats, dying to finally get in.

When VKM started expanding, he took that knowledge, and used a national issue (Iran hostage crisis) to push a heel Iron Sheik, and the great hero to destroy the evil menace (Hulk Hogan) exploded onto the scene. Rock N Wrestling, all that, it all played a part. But, in the 80s, we wanted a hero to end the Cold War, save the world, yada yada and it worked, big time.

Of course, at the same time Ric and the traditional model still worked as well. And really, when they need to make a big shift, they still bring it out. The dominant heel, or a stable (like say Evolution, in the mid 2000s, when numbers had dipped) takes the reins and rules with an Iron Fist -- just like WWF did with Sheik, in order to kick off the Hulkamania Era.

Then, just like that, you boost numbers by having the good guy win one over the dominant heel. Now, the people (and there are always some) who were turned off by the heel will return to see the hero. When the hero falls, they stick around (assuming the product is good) to see if he can get back. Eventually the heel will be dominant, and the dynamic will shift (because, if the face is gonna dominate, it's gonna get boring, as stated.

That's the critical part of what made Hogan's 80s run so spectacular. Simply by making him look so vulnerable (hard to do with a guy so big) they kept the cycle on "face" much longer than ever before. Even Savage's run, was a face run, that fed Hogan's run. Warrior--face. And then as numbers might have shook a bit, in comes Iron Sheik again, with Sgt. Slaughter, and they rode that out quite well... for awhile.

The point here is really, they are both the same model. WWF just turned the thing on its head a bit, and could because of its larger fanbase (jumping on PPV and MTV and all that), and the fabulous booking of Iron Sheik as the Evil Iranian Heel.

So, to me, academically speaking, Hogan's run is more impressive. Not just because of the sheer numbers, but because of the unorthodox way of using the heel/face struggle.

In the end, the thing to take away from this, is that today's quickie runs and blurred heel/face lines (it's shifting back, I know, but still) have ruined the tried and true methods of keeping fans butts in seats. There's no domination, either way, and thus there's no motivation for the fans to show up, or even tune in (given the declining numbers for WWE).

So there. LOL

Quick answer: Hogan.

 

[cbear47]

Hands down, Ric Flair. God, I hate seeing Flair destroy himself for a quick buck and pops. But the Ric Flair I grew up watching was indeed The Man. Flair could wrestle, cut the best promos, had the better feuds and was what wrestling was all about. Hulk Hogan was a lime-hog, someone who would die before he put anyone over cleanly and basically was someone who I couldn't stand.

I think you've misunderstood Brain's question. While Flair may have been the better wrestler (I have heard stories about Hogan putting on demonstrations in Japan in the early 80s that you'd shit bricks over, they were that good) and in a lot of ways a better person (as a Mick Foley fan, I don't really care for Ric's off-screen personality myself, but he put the guys over who needed it--though Piper had a nice run against Hulk, too, as did Hennig)

Jeez, I'm in a long-winded mood today. Sorry about that. Anyway, it wasn't so much about the men involved, but the models, if I understood correctly.

The list goes on and on. IMO, Hogan will always be 2nd to Flair no matter what (except for now when both are a joke).

QFT.

 

[La Parka]

I gotta be honest, I prefer the Japanese model, of it just being a competition. The heel vs. face thing...it gets old. Yeah, yeah, epic struggle, we got it. But watching some Japanese matches, it was sooooo refreshing to see two guys just sort of, doing their jobs. Yeah, one of them might be a bit of a streetfighter, one of them might use some dirty tactics, but it isn't really that huge a deal to the cleaner guy.

Plus, I enjoy seeing a match end suddenly, rather then the big finisher build-up, but that's really got nothing to do with this question.

In short, my answer, is neither.

 

[mulkeymania]

while true that people will enjoy and support a face more than a heel IMO a good heel will draw more money just because of people willing to spend lots of money to see him get his ass handed to him by the hero and if it appears that the face can win easily but gets cheated over and over by the heels it will draw massive money just my opinion but either answer could be correct

 

[mikeyboy]

This is a hard one to answer, imo you could argue for both. Hulk Hogan was by far the most famous wrestler of the 80's and early 90's, people who didnt even watch wrestling knew who he was. He was great at what he did, the best of the era.He and the wwf /Mcmahon took wrestling from the territories to the national level , no one can resonably argue that point. Now personally i would argue for Flair , i grew up on NWA , i was watching it starting in the mid 70's , ive always preferd heels to faces and Flair was always my favorite wrestler from the very first time i saw him.Imo he personified what a heel should be .Great thread , it will be interesting to read peoples opinions on this.

 

[Wolf Pac]

Hulk Hogan. As good as Flair was, so was Hulk as this thread points out and Hulk as a face put wrestling on the map not Flair as a heel, so obviously Hogan since he brought in a huge fanbase for wrestling just to see him. Nuff said.

 

[realoldskoolfan]

for me it was Flair and the NWA. WWF was like 4th or 5th on my list of wrestling programs to watch in the 80s. just too cartoonish for me. i like real old school wrestling and brawls. not some unathletic bodybuilder types in crappy costumes whos idea of chain wrestling was a punch, kick, big boot, and powerslam for the pin.

 

[The Brain]

I think some people are missing my point. This is not really about Hulk Hogan or Ric Flair being better. Those are just examples. The question is which was the better thing from a booking and business standpoint. Was it the face on top and always fighting off many villains or the heel on top with a new face to challenge him all the time?

From a business standpoint I'd go with the face. The WWF's success during the 80s proved this was a good way to go. People love to get behind a hero and cheer him on. Hogan sold tickets, ppvs, and merchandise. There's no doubt he was a cash cow.

From a booking standpoint I'm not sure, but am leaning toward the heel. It just makes things less predictable. For as much as I loved cheering Hogan I have to admit his matches were rather predictable. With the heel on top you never really knew which face would come around to dethrone him. This always kept the fans guessing.

 

[realoldskoolfan]

then my answer is both. you have to look at the two audiences they catered too. the NWA audience loved seeing there heroes try to knock Flair and the Horsemen down and they drew big numbers for years doing this. before them it was Harley Race. before that it was Dory Funk. the NWA crowd loved giving heat to the cheating villan champion. the WWF/WWE audience loved the untouchable hero vanquishing the villians time after time. look at it today with Cena, its the same thing.

 

[It's...Baylariat!]

You build more over wrestlers by having the villain being the champion. Think about HHH when he was champion. The Rock, Mankind, Stone Cold, Randy Orton, Batista, Jericho, and numerous others ended up being over because of them trying to and sometimes dethroning HHH.

It's easy to have the most popular person as champion and please everyone, but you rarely see anyone being over from trying to beat up the good guy. The basics of pro wrestling is to have the heel be mean, hurt a babyface, babyface gets revenge and some how, some way nearly gets the win over the heel. All of a sudden, people want to see that guy beat the heel. It's common sense to me.

And the NWA did this to perfection. Many, MANY people were over because they nearly beat Ric Flair. Not actually beat him, but NEARLY beat him. Jimmy Garvin, Ricky Morton, Magnum TA, Sting, Luger, Windham... they were over because they were supposedly going to shut up the cocky, styling and profiling Flair.

Think about this... fans don't pay good money to see someone kick some ass...they pay money to see someone get their ass KICKED.

 

[Dyno Kid]

Give me the heel NWA champ everyday of the week and twice on Sundays ! The goofey cartoonish face like Hogan as the champ drove me away from the WWF in the early 1980's. I HATED Hogan with a passion as it was the same thing all the time: Hogan gets beat on, then magically Hulks up and wins with the big leg.

 

[Hodgos]

Another thing worth considering here, is the very different objectives both companies had at the time, and how this affected their approach to booking their World titles.

The NWA drew its revenue from gate sales. Hence, the one question that mattered when deciding who to give the belt to, was "what will put arses on seats?". By and large, they took the attitude that people will pay in droves to see an arrogant champion heel get dethroned, and -furthermore- if you continually make it look like he's finally going to lose, only to have him snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, people will hate him and want to see him lose even more. An added bonus was that it sometimes made stars out of the challengers: the fans would emotionally invest in the challenger in the months leading up to the match, and even though he'd fail to win the title, by this stage he was already over, and a draw in his own right. The NWA had always tended towards this policy, but in the 1980s, when they gave the ball to Ric Flair, he took it to a whole new level, drawing serious money, becoming household name in the South, and playing a hugely important role in making a alot of wrestlers stars (most notably Sting, Magnum TA and Dusty Rhodes). In the context of what the NWA was trying to achieve, nobody could have been a better champ than Flair.

While gate sales were important to the WWF, it wasnt their sole objective. Vince McMahon wanted to turn the company into a revenue generating machine. He made the foray into pay per view, and took the gamble of producing merchandise on an unprecedented scale. He also wanted to make the WWF a mainstream program, and he made every possible effort to use other media to gain crossover exposure (the Rock N Wrestling connection, talk shows, etc). As a result, Vince had other questions to consider besides just "what will put the most arses on the most seats?" when considering how to book his World title. He had to ask, "will kids LOVE the guy, will they nag their parents to buy his action figure, his posters, etc?"- obviously, if he's a heel, they wont. He had to ask, "is this guy 'cool'? Does he have crossover potential?"- Hogans gimmick was obviously very relavent in Reagan-era America, his look was "cool" in terms of 80s conventions, and he had HUGE crossover potential, having already starred in Rocky 3 before his big push. Vince also had to ask, "how telegenic is he? Will people who watch wrestling on TV but dont attend shows, pay to watch him on PPV?" Hogans look translated brilliantly to television; he was larger than life in a way that Flair, for all his flamboyance, could never have been. Again, in the context of what the WWF was trying to achieve, nobody could have been a better champ than Hogan.

I guess what I'm saying is, both approaches were equally great, as both were immensely successfully in achieving two very different ends.

 

[byrnside]

From a booking standpoint, it seems pretty clear that the WWF had it right with Hogan/Top Face. Then again, I think it just worked out better for them at the time. In the 80s the epic struggle business mode was king. Hogan and Vince revolutionized the way business was done. As for my personal preference, well I don't know.. at the time I would've definitely said the WWF way of doing things. But now, I'm not so sure.. I love heels.