Thoughts From The Top Rope 10.29.08: The Art of Heeldom

I cannot recall the last time so many great heels were in the WWE main event scene at one time. In the last year, we have seen Edge, Randy Orton and Chris Jericho blossom into truly magnificent heels – granted, they were all pretty great before, but each have taken that level of heeldom to a whole new level in recent times. And more recently, The Big Show has been on the roll of his life, once again finding himself playing the unbeatable monster – the difference between now and the other times he’s been in that role is major credibility, be it due to taking out Undertaker on a few occasions or being paired with one of the most hated performers in the business in Vickie Guerrero.

Of course, if we go further down the card, we have a plethora of heels that make the weekly shows that much more entertaining – I’m talking about guys like Miz and Morrison, MVP, Santino Marella, Priceless, Vladimir Kozlov et al. Some of these guys get booked like absolute shit (Marella, MVP) but are so good at what they do, they remain over anyway. Others are seemingly ready to make the jump from mid-card act to stars on the rise, but frequently get their legs taken from under them before they can really make that transition.

Heels are infinitely more interesting characters than faces, nine times out of ten. Because all faces really have to do to get cheers is smile, play to the crowd, maybe throw in a high-flying move or two; their character traits are limited to “honest” and “resilient.” With heels, there’s generally much more opportunity for character development because they have to really give the audience something to hate. Hate is an extreme emotion. In an ideal world, we’d all like to be able to like everyone, but sometimes people give us a reason to dislike them, and the job of a heel is to garner such a response from an audience – not always an task that’s easy to accomplish. Sure, there’s always the cheap heat method of insulting a local town’s biggest sports stars or calling some chick in the front row a fatty, but that’ll only get you so far.

Arguably the greatest heel of the modern era, Edge has really taken it to another level in the past few years. Now I don’t want to spend too long discussing Edge, because it was just a few weeks ago that a wrote an entire column on the guy, but some things need reiterating. Of course, Edge has something of a head start, what with the whole Matt Hardy saga giving fans a legitimate reason to hate the guy. But what Edge did so brilliantly during that initial heel run in 05 was exploit that, play up his relationship with Lita and allow it to carry him to the top of the card. I think another reason why Edge was hated so much was because he’s such an amazing in-ring performer and the people knew it. Take for example, the Hardcore match with Foley at WrestleMania 22 – people loved the match and admired the effort put in by both guys, and thus the fact that Edge won it makes fans loathe him even more. I also think that this is part of the reason La Familia worked so well – Edge did not need them to succeed, but he used them anyway, because he’s simply that much of a dick. If you recall that memorable edition of The Cutting Edge with Mick Foley earlier in the year, that was the whole point of that particular promo.

No one seems to be particularly sure when Edge is due back; supposedly his injuries were minor nagging ones, which suggests he should have been back before now and perhaps creative isn’t sure what to do with him. And to be fair, that is a puzzler. One would imagine he has some unfinished business with Taker and Vickie Guerrero, but I don’t think we need to see that again, and creative probably knows it. Perhaps Edge will go straight after the WWE Championship, and while Edge has already fought Triple H once on pay-per-view this year, the two really haven’t had much of a feud, so that would appear to be the fresher option. Personally, I’d love to see Edge win the title and hold it until Mania where he drops it Jeff Hardy.

There is, of course, one other option and that is to turn Edge face. I know, blasphemous, but here me out. Edge does have unfinished business with Vickie Guerrero, more so than The Undertaker, because it was she who forced Edge into Hell in a Cell with Taker. Now we saw elements of Edge’s psychotic side when he spent several weeks torturing Vickie back in the summer, and those actions were, to an extent, getting him a lot of fan support. I see no reason why, when he returns, they can’t go back to that dynamic and throw in the added twist of Taker and Edge being aligned through a mutual hatred of Guerrero.

Sometimes, it’s not creative’s decision to turn a guy heel or face – sometimes it’s up to the fans. I think we’ve seen this with the likes of Stone Cold, Rock, Eddie Guerrero, John Cena, Randy Orton, Mr. Kennedy and countless more over the years. The problem with this is, all too often WWE decide to change these guys’ characteristics as well; they don’t seem to realize it’s those characteristics that the fans were cheering in the first place. John Cena is probably the obvious example here – had he remained a badass wigger, I’d wager he would never have gotten all those boos he did. Randy Orton’s face run failed for the same reasons.

When the fans turned Steve Austin face at Mania 13, he didn’t suddenly start promoting the peace sign instead of the middle finger, did he?

Randy Orton is in a similar position right now; there seems to be a lot of fans ready to embrace him. They appreciate how awesome he is and they want to cheer him. But they don’t want him to suddenly start slapping hands on the way down to the ring. In this day and age, being a dick is seen as cool, particularly in wrestling. And they don’t come much cooler than Randy Orton.

Ever since he started punting fools in the head in the summer of ’07, Orton’s been my favourite performer to watch in WWE. His feud with John Cena last year was red hot, albeit cut short due to Cena’s unfortunate injury. He kept bringing the goods in the ring with the likes of Triple H, Shawn Michaels and Jeff Hardy. So you can imagine how thrilled I was when, despite all those “in the know” guys in the IWC predicting otherwise, Orton walked out of WrestleMania 24 earlier this year as WWE Champion. Needless to say, the Age of Orton was growing stronger and Orton was probably the best heel in the business at the time. Had he been given the chance, I imagine he would have put together one of the strongest WWE Championship reigns in quite some time. But for whatever reason, creative took the ball off of him and gave the WWE Championship to Triple H.

Sometimes, it’s not enough to just be great, particularly as a heel. What you have to remember is that without heels, faces are worthless. Faces are only going to stay popular if they’ve got a strong heel to go up against, and for that reason, creative needs to have great faith in heels not just to be good in-ring performers, but also to help the faces rolling. And maybe we’ve come across another reason why John Cena started getting booed – people just didn’t want to boo the likes of Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle in the summer of 2005. Back to Orton, maybe it was just a disciplinary thing, but taking the title off of him at that time was a bad move in my book, and creative should’ve shown more faith and let him run with it for longer. And you copy and paste that last sentence and apply to Chris Jericho’s latest title reign, by the way.

Speaking of Jericho, how amazing has that guy been this year? Regarding his comeback last year, people were saying it was going to be a huge let down, that he would be shunted back to the mid-card, jobbed to the likes of Triple H. Few predicted he would in fact go on to become the most despised man in the business, go on to have one of the greatest feuds of all time and once again reign as World Heavyweight Champion.

What’s made Jericho such a unique heel this year is that just about everything he has said has been justified. Yes, Shawn Michaels did lie and cheat. Yes, Mike Adamle did treat him unfairly and yes, he was screwed out of the World Heavyweight Championship. Maybe that’s the reason the fans hate him so much, or maybe it’s just because he is smarmy and cocky and a dick, but either way it’s because Jericho is so damn good and doing what he does.

Being a heel is far from easy, at least, being a truly good heel is. Sure, they boo you, but do they loathe you. Chris Jericho, Randy Orton and Edge are loathed by fans. I’d imagine those scattered cheers they receive are from guys like you and me who appreciate just how good they are. And even you’re one of those people who think having Cena, Triple H, Batista and Taker on top results in a stale product, be thankful for those awesome heels who keep things interesting. And if it’s true that the best characters in wrestling are a person’s true personality with the volume turned up, be thankful Edge, Jericho and Orton are such pricks.