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Better as Face or Heel (Part 2)?


Liam O'Rourke

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For this week's podcast, we're doing a follow-up on a previous show and taking a look at six wrestlers, discussing whether or not they were better in their role as a babyface or a heel over the course of their career, considering their work in the ring, as well as analysing their characters/personalities/runs, and would love to get your thoughts and feedback on the following individuals and whether you prefer them as faces or heels, and most importantly, why:

 

1. Jerry Lawler

 

2. Hulk Hogan

 

3. Sgt. Slaughter

 

4. Steve Austin

 

5. Brock Lesnar

 

6. Eddie Guerrero

 

As always the best contributions will be read on the podcast and you'll be credited accordingly. So what do you think?

 

EDIT - The show discussing whether these guys were Better Faces or Heels and taking your feedback, is now online and available to listen to at the following link: http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/play/98g74q/SCGRadio63-BetterAsFaceOrHeelPartDeux.mp3
 

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Austin was better as a heel, but only from the period from around King Of The Ring 96 to WM13. He wasn't cheesy, he wasn't pandering to smart fans - he was just going out and being an out and out psychopathic heel driven and motivated by only himself. Look at the clips from him on LiveWire where (under the constraints of a live PG audience) he proceeds to rip Todd Pettengill, Sunny and any phone callers a new one on air whilst advancing his charachter.

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1. Jerry Lawler - Heel - I haven't seen a huge number of face matches from Lawler but he was able to draw the ire of any crowd with his obnoxious, slimy character from the mid-1990s. His series with Bret Hart typified by childhood, making scathing remarks about the Hart Family (especially Bret's mother and father). He could just turn and look at the crowd and he would have them. That said the fans loved him in Memphis. 

 

2. Hulk Hogan - Face - This was a tough one. His heel turn kicked off one of the biggest boom periods of the last 30 years (combined with Goldberg, Austin and DX). However he was the ultimate good guy for years and sold wrestling off of the patriotic guy who wanted to be the role model for the children. His matches with Warrior, Savage, Earthquake, Flair and others really stand out as classic Hogan as a character. 

 

3. Sgt. Slaughter - Heel - Easily. I have never been a fan of characters that are based on patriotic/military type personas. His heel turn in 1991 was classic (albeit a little offensive to the audience at the time). It was great to push the envelop in this era though poor Sarge was never the best worker ever. 

 

4. Steve Austin - Anti-Hero - Austin has and always will be the ultimate good bad guy. His work against the Hart Foundation was stunning (no pun intended) in 1997 and was a credit to how diverse his (and Hart's) characters were to have completely different reactions in two countries. Austin never really changed character, always being an anti authority figure with a mean streak but the crowd changed their view of him. 

 

5. Brock Lesnar - Heel - I can't recall Lesnar ever being a straight up face. Even his current gimmick is less face and more badass but how you define a good or bad guy can make this one tricky. I adored his work against Undertaker in 2002 and his matches vs Angle were always top draw. Since his return I have appreciated his work more than ever, in large part due to his association with Paul Heyman. Lesnar doesn't look weak ever (and would be ridiculous to make him look such). As a result his heel work will always be his stronger suit. 

 

6. Eddie Guerrero - Face - I really loved Eddie as a good guy, the scheming cheating underdog who went for and won the biggest prize in the industry. Again he was cheating but wasn't a bad guy, everything he did made the fans love him more. I didn't buy into his heel character in WCW and early WWF run. The more human he became (less scowling more smiling) and the more humour he injected into his act the better he was.

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Great selection. Tough.

 

1. Jerry Lawler

 

I'd have to go heel given that I've seen more of his stuff on a national level where he's just the most brilliant and hilarious heat seeker compared to his local work where he was Hulk Hogan before Hulk Hogan was Hulk Hogan. Lawler has an uncanny ability to make you laugh your socks off without even almost starting to like him. He was an incredible heel. I wish we'd got to see him work opposite Hogan in the mid 80's WWF. That could have been incredible. 

 

2. Hulk Hogan

 

Babyface. Not only because as a worker, he had incredible timing and knew how to play the audiences emotions like a violin but also because for all of the success of the nWo, I found his heel character repetitive and utterly shit. It was occasionally inspired but just generally consisted of Hogan trying to be as cool as guys decades younger than him while Eric Bischoff verbally sucked him off. I'd rather watch his red and yellow stuff any day of the week.

 

3. Sgt. Slaughter

 

I don't care. He's shit.

 

4. Steve Austin

 

Hard to argue against wrestling's greatest ever babyface so I won't try. He was probably more entertaining as a heel either in WCW, in the early days of Stone Cold or after his turn in 2001 but not so entertaining that you can discount just how much wrestling's biggest ever national audiences absolutely fucking adored the guy.

 

5. Brock Lesnar

 

Heel. I never really enjoyed his babyface stuff in his first run and while he's a babyface by proxy now, it's essentially by being his heel character and doing heel things but to heels. He works great as a heel and before he buggered off in 2004, he was showing signs of developing into a great heel outside the ring too.

 

6. Eddie Guerrero

 

Babyface. I could never take him particularly serious as a heel. He put everything into it and bell to bell, he was very good at it, but he was too likeable and at his size, he just really suited the role of an underdog face better. He was a charming guy who had a naturally amusing accent and eyes that screamed mischeif but in a harmless sort of way. Eddie was a blue eye all day long.

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Jerry Lawler - HEEL.

Yes, he was a fantastic babyface, but I've had to watch his best stuff retrospectively as opposed to watching his mid-90s WWF run as it happened. He was the biggest cunt ever in the Bret run - achieving levels of heat with nothing more than words, that a load of guys would love to get with a hundred gang beatdowns or chair shots. He managed later on to make me hate him all over again in his run with Jake, who I dismissed as a washed-up has-been, but I was perfectly happy to cheer for against The King. For the babyface or heel debate, I struggle to imagine loving ANYONE as much as I hated Lawler.

 

Hulk Hogan - HEEL

Probably spitting in the wind here, but it's down to personal preference. While I do love a lot of his hero performances today, I was so sick of him in the mid 90s that his heel turn was a real game-changer. I absolutely loved the nWo run in 96-97 and WCW harnessed the fact so many people (especially in the Southern states) were sick of Hogan, by making that into the desired reaction. Whether it was Luger or Dallas Page or Sting or Goldberg, I was always looking forward to someone giving the twat what he had coming to him. Hulkamania nostalgia is great but for genuine emotional response, Hollywood did it for me. HATED him.

 

Sgt Slaughter - pass

I haven't seen enough of his early babyface work to make a fair judgement.

 

Steve Austin - FACE

I thought Stone Cold was phenomenally entertaining as a heel but he was best as a babyface. He was the company figurehead and what every episode of TV was about for practically 2 years straight and it never got old. Bell to bell he'd flail around getting battered due to some dirty heel cheating or the odds stacked ridiculously against him and all you wanted was for him to get up, start swinging and win in the end, and invariably he would. People say anti-hero but he was totally a hero. Fair enough he had fairly loose morals and was a selfish bastard, but he stood up for himself, took no bullshit, never ran and never backed down from anything. I loved heel Austin for entertainment but I never hated him. He's a babyface.

 

Brock Lesnar - HEEL

Brock's a villain. He's that unstoppable force of nature your hero keeps bouncing off and you just will him to keep getting up and SOMEHOW find a way to conquer him. His face after he ended The Streak.... what an arsehole. It's a shame the Daniel Bryan match is likely to never happen because that would have been the peak of Evil Lesnar, I imagine.

 

Eddie Guerrero - HEEL

I'm sure plenty would disagree but I preferred Eddie as the antagonist, whether straight up piece of shit trying to steal Rey's mask, or cat and mouse irritant in a more comedic style. His first couple of months in The Radicals were a joy, even with his arm in a sling at No Way Out he's a heat machine, and he gives a masterclass at WrestleMania 2000 in making the audience want to see Chyna (of all people) murder him. Later in the much-maligned Dominick storyline he displaced hitherto-unforeseen ability to pull off "really fucking sinister" and I was really enjoying his last pseudo-babyface run where we all knew that Big Dave couldn't really trust him, sadly curtailed by his untimely death. I was prepared to cheer for him but only in the smarkish "cheer the great wrestler" manner or because I thought the bloke behind the character deserved his success - in terms of actual performances, I thought he made a better heel, personally.

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Great selection. Tough.

Tried to make this one a bit of a challenge in the sense that, as has been picked up, 4 of the 6 have a lot of bleed over between that face/heel dynamic. Am pleasantly surprised there's some face Eddie love being toured so far from what I've seen, because he wa such am exceptionl heel, but very few faces you could love as much as Eddie which blurs the line a bit.

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I want to thank everybody for the contributions, we got to read many of them on the show, which is now available at the following link:

http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/play/98g74q/SCGRadio63-BetterAsFaceOrHeelPartDeux.mp3

Join us as we talk about these six tremendous personalities in wrestling history and debate whether they were better as faces or heels! Talking in depth about the talents of Jerry "The King" Lawler, Hulk Hogan, Sgt. Slaughter, Steve Austin, Brock Lesnar and Eddie Guerrero, we discuss which side of the fence they were best sitting on. A fun show talking promos, feuds, bumps, turns, career highlights, great matches and more, check it out and let us know what you think!
 

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I was in agreement with (I think it was) Chase on the podcast about Austin. I came back into wrestling after a time away like he did and didn't see the evolution of Austin, and like him couldn't understand why everyone was cheering someone who acted like such a bullying twat. I get it a bit more now but I was mystified at the time!

 

Interesting how torn people were on Eddie Guerrero too. I'd have gone with face for him - in WWE anyway, he was just so easy to support, you couldn't help but love him. The face turn in 2003 despite acting ostensibly heelish showed that. I'll never forget seeing him as Champion at a house show in 2004 - he was so easy to cheer for. Great heel too, of course, but it's the 2003-2004 Eddie that always comes to mind first for me.

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