Has someone left a window open?

[Dirty Eddie]

 

You need a beloved Babyface to get real heat from.

I would argue that that cuts both ways; if anything, I've often argued that it's more the other way around, that you need a good baddie to raise a goodie, mainly because blue-eyes are usually reactive and villains pro-active. It's based on the old "I didn't start this, but by golly I'll finish it!"

 

Obviously, a feud requires both sides to be doing their job, but ultimately, I think the heinousness of the villain would influence just how much people come to like the blue-eye.

 

 

 

Oh yeah, it's surely a 50/50 thing in general, but if your starting point involves a face whom half the crowd boo, it's way harder for the heel to build any momentum (without just getting cheered). A new bloke turning up one week and trying to blind Daniel Bryan with a lit cigar would have created instant heat. If a newcomer jumped Cena and tried the same a fair chunk of the crowd would cheer him on, just because it's Cena he's attacking. It's a huge uphill struggle.

[NEWM]

I wonder how frustrated the agents feel with it all now. Arn Anderson and Steamboat are both agents aren't they? Talk about quintessential baddies and goodies. It must do their fucking nuts in that they can't dish out a load of what they'd consider as heel/face basics now because of various rules and regulations.

 

I dunno who would have been in charge of, say, Kevin Owens' first match with Cena, but it's amazing that there may have been a chat where Owens talked through the various spots he had planned and the agent respond with '...well, that's not exactly villainous is it?'

 

The old stuff would still work I think, because ultimately so what if it makes us laugh or clap them. A dickhead will still be a dickhead to a good loud portion of the crowd. Seeing as I've picked on Owens I'll use him as a good example too - the famous boot to Alex Riley and the big run-up punch to Finn Balor at Takeover were both certain to get cheers and chuckles from us lot, but that's acting like a nobhead and doing your best to get the crowd to dislike you. Can't fault that.

[Mr_Danger]

Unfortunately I think that the current audience, or a predominant portion of it wouldn't have the time for a widespread traditional approach to heel wrestling styles. It's a point and click culture where everything has to be super duper bombastic at the speed of light to stop these little fuckers looking at their phones.

 

That's not to say they couldn't balance it out better. A few more Jerry Lawlers amongst tge Kevin Owens would certainly help.

[unfitfinlay]

... For as long as I can remember, WWE has just been about the babyface moments and pops hasn't it? There's been very few genuine heel moments where they get legit heat. Even stuff like Edge's cashing in of the MitB briefcase got a hero's reaction. I know the fans trying to be cool and cheering the baddies has a lot to do with it, but it's still possible to get real heat and have children crying - or is it? Ultimately, the pay-off is always going to be the face winning, but a lot of it comes down to the villains' ability to get the hero cheered. Maybe that's the problem with Reigns - there aren't enough decent heels to go against him. Would the crowd boo him so much if he was in there against younger Lawler and co on a regular basis?

Well, Triple H did just that a year ago, and immediately broke character, hugged the kid and told him it was all an act. That leads me to believe they don't *want* proper heat anymore.

 

It makes sense I suppose. Everybody knows it's not real anymore so there's a risk that heat will just go onto the company rather than the heel. Paige taking the piss out of Reid Flair's suicide got a lot of heat, just not on her. Same with Miz interrupting the National Anthem at a House Show. It wasn't "How disrespectful! I hope someone kicks his head in.". It was "How dare they script this?!!".

 

Other than that, the fact that most of the roster seemingly have no balls, parity booking and the weird tunnel vision everybody has where they can only focus on one feud at a time, makes it almost impossible to build anything but "go away" heat nowadays.

[Onyx2]

Everybody knows it's not real anymore so there's a risk that heat will just go onto the company rather than the heel.

WWE is so desperate to say the competition is Game of Thrones, Netflix, Monday Night Football, or any other mainstream entertainment. And all of those are able to create "heels" naturally or by design. Who doesn't hate Joffrey, Ken Kratz, Peyton Manning?!

 

It can be done. But it needs planning, follow through and real commitment from the talent. Somebody beat me to mentioning Rusev which is a great prospect.

[Sphinx]

Joffrey isn't in front of a live audienve though. Nor is his show aimed at kids.

 

I'm not saying it's right because the product suffers for it, but the comparisom isn't fair.

 

And NFL isn't scripted so there can be no criticism for their scripting.