A good idea, a good idea forever?

[King Pitcos]

Wyatt is also supposed to be a heel but feels much more like the bad guy you're supposed to like, the city name before the entrance prompting a pop, the phones out, the sing-along-song.

 

And Bray Wyatt's never really had many feuds or matches that it's been easy to give a shit about, partly for that reason. He's an interesting, charismatic character but there's usually no reason to care whether he wins or loses. Even he doesn't seem bothered either way. That's the problem with wrestling and comparing it to Breaking Bad, you can be as intricate and shades of grey with a character or storyline as you want, but being too clever can be counterproductive when the end goal is just people paying money to see whether one bloke can pin the other. 

 

 

It's easy to book a bad guy and make him unlikable, Rollins a perfect example. Cowardly, ass-kissing, shirks matches etc.

 

 

Not that easy to avoid him getting hefty cheers a lot of nights on TV, though.

[PowerButchi]

A lot of heels have a hard time getting boos as well, for the same reason, but that's partly because they want to be cheered.

 

I wanted to come to that point. Heels are dead now because of merchandise. Is there anyone that's happy to be a real heel other than William Regal? I honestly think the art of the villain is dying because being liked = t-shirts = money. Also, that's worked to the favour of WWE where there's no strong heels to create strong faces to be the draw. Instead the company is the draw now.

[Vamp]

Was there a thing about the E no longer allowing heels to cheat or is that Internet balderdash?

 

The very basics are probably always sound ideas for what might work but I do think it's a lot harder to do certain things now. People asking for refunds during what seemed like a long term storyline surrounding Daniel Bryan being constantly screwed (which turned out not to be a storyline but certainly seemed like one) is kind of evidence of that. You can't get away with certain finishes anymore. It's not easy to promote certain wrestlers to certain sections of the audience anymore. Wrestling audiences seem increasingly divided. Blood used well was always seen as a good way of adding drama before but isn't seen that way much now. Perro and Mistico had a great version of an old school blood bath a little while ago but is that still great now? I'm genuinely not sure how I feel about that. Theoretically I think the days of blood baths should be over.

 

Some of the problems I think the E have is that as they're the big dog people expect a lot more of them than they do from other promotions. But at the end of the day it's still wrestling, it's still silly nonsense, it's still one of the more limited story telling mediums, and it's never been consistently 'good' or logical or whatever because that's not what wrestling is. Lucha underground very much promotes a product I've thought the E should lean towards for years (only better) , or any promotion really, create a tone, create some myth, have lots of colourful and simple masked characters in short matches. That said I wouldn't be surprised if the things they get praised for, or certainly the things that people just accept from them, would get more cynical reactions if the E did them.

 

At the end of the day wrestling is a circus with strong men, daring stunts, clowns and so on. When it's on telly it's mostly taken that and stretched it out into what's somewhat akin to a soap format in that it just goes on and on. Which I suppose all regional promotions have been before telly actually. But that's incredibly challenging to keep fresh and interesting. So the basics will work some of the time but not always. That said I'd think that they're your best bet for something that will really work on its day.

[King Pitcos]

 

A lot of heels have a hard time getting boos as well, for the same reason, but that's partly because they want to be cheered.

 

I wanted to come to that point. Heels are dead now because of merchandise. Is there anyone that's happy to be a real heel other than William Regal? I honestly think the art of the villain is dying because being liked = t-shirts = money. Also, that's worked to the favour of WWE where there's no strong heels to create strong faces to be the draw. Instead the company is the draw now.

 

 

It's worked against them as well. The company is only the draw to a certain extent, you still need guys to actually be the big draw. The years without a strong headliner between Hogan and Austin nearly killed them. And other than Cena, they've got nobody who is. That's why they've had to lay out for the Lesnars and Rocks on the big events. We'll find out Sunday whether they're going to lose their bottle when it comes to putting someone else in the Cena bracket.

[Undefeated Steak]

I hope they don't bottle it. Having Reigns win and Rollins cash in gives them a chance to make two stars and eliminate the risk of Wrestlemania going off air to a sea of fans booing Reigns. Lesnar has to lose.

[Arch Stanton]

If Reigns wins and immediately loses the belt, does that really do him any favours? Getting beat by Seth Rollins, no matter what the circumstances, is worse than going down to Lesnar as far as I'm concerned. Especially when you factor in the fact that Reigns beating Brock will be met by massive disapproval by the live crowd and a subsequent cash-in would generate an enormous babyface reaction for the man they want to be their next top heel. We've already been over the 'cool heel' problem and MITB cash-ins are a massive issue where that is concerned. People raved about Dolph Ziggler's title win on the post-Mania Raw a couple of years ago, ignoring the fact that since he was a heel, people were supposed to hate it.

 

My thoughts are that delaying Roman's big moment will not hurt him in the long run. He's got time on his side. Brock staying on means that there are more options for them now. I'd keep that title on him until the end of the year.

[UK Kat Von D]

Heels aren't heels anymore because they aren't allowed to act like it. How often do you see someone acting a heel during a match? Where's the eye gouging, low blows, feet on the ropes, pulling tights? When was the last time a heel hit a challenger with his title belt while the ref wasn't looking?

 

Today's heels are given scripted promos, no storylines and aren't allowed to cheat. How the fuck do they get over as a heel? Yeah there will always be a few who want to be cool, but a lot of guys aren't even given the chance to be bastards. I'm sick of seeing so many "heels" win clean these days

[air_raid]

Heels don't cheat? Sorry, that's bollocks. Rusev needed a low blow to beat Cena at Fast Lane. Nikki Bella used the tights to pin Paige. Barratt got himself intentionally disqualified. Do I need to go on?

[WWFChilli]

I think he means they cheat alot less on the pantomime 'no didn't do it referee', choke on the ropes, pull hair etc. This probably happens on the house shows mind. I kind if get it, when you watch older stuff it is very heel is crap,the babyface should always be better than the heel.

 

Who was the first heel in WWF with merch. Piper? If it was he sold merch and still stayed a heel until it naturally happened.

[air_raid]

Was Piper the first heel that you could buy a t-shirt of? My knowledge of WWF merch only goes back as far as the LJN figures, which all the heels got one of :

 

[WWFChilli]

Was Piper the first heel that you could buy a t-shirt of? My knowledge of WWF merch only goes back as far as the LJN figures, which all the heels got one of :

 

Yeah sorry I meant the shirt.

[UK Kat Von D]

Heels don't cheat? Sorry, that's bollocks. Rusev needed a low blow to beat Cena at Fast Lane. Nikki Bella used the tights to pin Paige. Barratt got himself intentionally disqualified. Do I need to go on?

It's not bollocks. You can name a few finsihes sure, but if you watch Raw for the most part heels wrestle the same as the babyfaces. The only difference is the baby faces have to sell for longer. I didn't realise how samey everything had gotten till I started going back and watching older stuff.

 

The heels aren't cutting faces off in heelsih ways, they aren't cheating to maintain the advantage. If you don't think heels need to cheat more then you aren't paying attention

[Undefeated Steak]

Arch - I tried splitting your quote up to reply to it in sections but the formatting messed up. I'll summarise it best I can.

 

Firstly, I don't think it's a perfect idea. I like Lesnar as much as anybody but they need Reigns to win if they're making him their next star. It's Cena vs Triple H from ten years ago. Having Reigns win and Rollins cash in immediately wouldn't negate Reigns winning a brutal match against Lesnar or make him look bad. The most recent example I can think of was when Bryan beat Cena at Summerslam and then lost straight to Orton. It was a great angle that worked well.

 

A Rollins cash-in would get a face pop, there's no way around it. (I don't think I could stomach the pop if he cashes in on Raw the next night.) But, isn't a Rollins pop better than the fans shitting all over a Reigns celebration as Wrestlemania goes off the air? It would be worse than the Rumble.

 

Do you really think that Reigns, after going through hell to beat Lesnar, would look bad if Rollins attacked him from behind after with the briefcase and then cashed in?

 

As it's a multiple year deal that Lesnar's signed, I can't see them doing anything other than Lesnar winning though.

 

 

[Carbomb]

Was Piper the first heel that you could buy a t-shirt of? My knowledge of WWF merch only goes back as far as the LJN figures, which all the heels got one of :

 

 

They seem to have missed out Big John Studd in the listing below.

[Scott Malbranque]

When was the last time a heel did a face drag across the ropes?