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As I was thinking about what I could write for this article, I was listening to the Jim Ross podcast with his guest Jim Cornette. They brought up an interesting notion about heels in wrestling. They mentioned how the heels today are unable to obtain heat compared to the wrestlers in the territory days.
So is it today’s fans who are unwilling to boo the heels because they think it’s ‘cool’ or is it simply because the superstars who are portraying heels, just aren’t good enough?
As I wasn’t born until the late 80’s I can’t give a real description of what it was like for the heels of the territory years to be hated as much as they were, but listening to stars of them times, they were really hated.
I find myself looking back to the mid-90s at Bret Hart and the Hart Foundation, Bret was hated in America but worshipped in Canada for the obvious reasons. It sounds like the norm but from what I remember, Bret was able to make the American audience want his blood. They hated the Hart Foundation even though they were a stable full of great wrestlers.
I look at heels today though and people either hate them because they are awful in the ring, have a shit gimmick or they just don’t care about a character. The supposed heels don’t seem to be able to live the role of their character and they aren’t able to piss us off like they should.
Cesaro is a great example of a current heel. He is supposed to be hated but the fans respect him for his ability and his strength. At one point I didn’t enjoy watching him and I was bored until I realised how good he is in the ring and I have turned into a fan. I want to see him as a babyface and I want to see him excel.
In the ring he is fantastic to watch, he does moves I want to see and he is believable as someone who can take the WWE into the future. As a heel though, I shouldn’t believe it – I should hate him and I should want to see him get beat every week.
The same goes for a babyface. The obvious example is John Cena – someone who I should believe in, someone who stands for what is right – but I don’t.
This is the time of blurred lines in wrestling. The time when we don’t have to hate or like someone just because we are supposed to for the sake of a storyline, this is the internet age and for better or worse, it has affected the wrestling world.
Fans are now exposed to what is real and what is not, we know when something is scripted or a shoot which makes it harder for us to believe in a heel.
Paul Heyman is a heel manager and in the last few years he has become one of the greatest managers in the history of the business, he has done this simply by saying the right things. Anyone with a brain should respect Heyman but he has that ability to make us hate him. In the past 5 years, Paul Heyman has been the only real heel in the WWE.
Does it come down to us fans trying to be smart and not just enjoying the product? Should we accept that a superstar should be a heel or a babyface or does it depend on the superstar portraying their character to make us love or hate them?
I don’t think we will ever see a real heel in the business again simply because some people will always think they are cool by liking the bad guy. It’s harder than ever now for a superstar to get over as a heel simply because fans are exposed to the business and a few try to be smart by pretending they want the bad guy to win.
I would love to see one superstar really piss off everyone to the point where we really don’t want him to exceed, but at the same time we will continue to tune in to see who will stop him.
As far as I’m aware there is no-one on the WWE roster who is able to do that yet.
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