The Reason Heels Don't Get Over

Really?
Riley
Randy
JIMMY!

Could you imagine The Four Horsemen doing this kind of promo in 1985? Or Randy Savage, Rick Rude, Ted Dibiase and Mr Perfect in 1989? Or Jake Roberts, Ric Flair and Sid Justice in 1992? Or Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall in 1997? Or Evolution in 2003?

No, because - however entertaining - it would have made the top heels in the promotion look like idiots.

Well we could have had a seriously talented, conniving and machiavellian world champion in CM Punk for the last two years but WWE don't seem to like giving world titles to good heels anymore.

WWE only like comedy cartoon like characters.

I can see your point, but to be fair I think R-Truth has done a brilliant job as a crazy psycho heel, everyone says Christian is a brilliant heel, and The Miz is very similar to Jerichos' gimmick as a heel. I personally found it a very funny one off segment, and they all get enough heat as it is. Totally agree with the above statement about CM Punk though, he should obviously be the top heel in the company.

This was a pathetic segment everything that's wrong with pro wrestling these days encompassed in one silly segment.... Can someone please tell me the point of this?

Also I'd like to know why a heel Christian is losing a match by being genuinely hard done by (foot under the ropes)? Then he takes a shot to the head with the title belt after the match??? Isn't this the role of the babyface? Yet the babyface then takes out a heel with a punt to the head???
Bret Hart sticks Punk in a sharpshooter to secure win for faces? Riley destracts Miz to help Piper the face pin heel??

When did heels & faces switch sides? There's no morality play in wrestling anymore...

I've said this for a while, I like the fact Christian didn't lose clean but i just don't understand why the heel is hard done to, its meant to be the faces who are hard done by which in turn will make the crowd pop when the face finally avenges the heel

Brady sums it up in one sentence, there's no morality play any more.

Babyfaces and heels may seem like an antiquated idea to some, but every story needs a protagonist and an antagonist. In the case of wrestling, it needs to be clearer than most art forms - you're trying to sell people on cheering one guy in a fight and booing the other guy.

People may use Steve Austin as an argument, but Austin was as big a babyface as there has ever been: He was the everyman fighting the corrupt system, however outnumbered he was, and however much the heels tried to cheat him out of victory. The boundaries were clear - the fans were supposed to cheer for Austin.

The Christian/Orton ending at the PPV was totally bum-backward. The guy who wins unfairly and then attacks his opponent after the match with a foreign object is the heel! Where is the incentive to cheer Orton and boo Christian? If that incentive isn't there, the feud doesn't make money.

It just doesn't work when the heels are funny, and the babyfaces aren't honourable, when the commentator trying to sell angles and PPVs is a heel, and when the babyface commentator openly admires heels who cheat.

It's another one of those things that worked for nigh on a hundred years before Vince McMahon randomly decided to change it.

That's Orton all over though - I mean take his feud with CM Punk at Mania, Punk costs him the WWE title at RR'11 = heel. But then Punk explains that was revenge for Orton punting him in the skull and costing him his title two years ago = tweener. Then Orton takes out every member of the New Nexus in the build up to Mania via the punt, which imo made Punk look almost Face. Orton's whole apex predator gimmick just screams heel yet he's cheered not booed and somehow gets booked as a face even though he is tweener at best and really boarderline Heel.

I think that they are trying to get away from stereotypical good guys / bad guys and move to more characters being realistic (ie. a bit of good and a bit of bad).

I don't think it works in what amounts to a stylised, caracaturial industry. People don't want to see the pale or normality, they want over the top storylines, fantasy and a break from reality.

There is no room for shades of grey in Pro Wrestling, I'm all for swerves and shocks and surprises but the overall story has to be black and white

In all honesty, I enjoyed that segment with Truth, Christian and Miz...But everything that has been said is completely true.

I think a lot of the time it's actually the fans at the arenas fault, as soon as we start to like a heel they get cheered, it happened with Orton and that is why he's still got the heel character but is supposed to be a face. It looks like it's about to happen with The Miz, but if the WWE keep pulling the trigger on face turns when their heels get a few cheers, the only heels we'll be left with are ones with "X-Pac" heat, who are getting that kind of heat because we genuinly don't like them.

I wish the fans would just buy into the illusion while at the shows, it's supposed to be like a pantomine, you wouldn't go to a pantomine and randomly cheer the villain because you think he is a good performer.

I agree in a way, while you can blame the fans, the reason heels get cheered is because the faces the WWE present to us now are so bland and cheesy, the best face the WWE had in ages was Christian and they inexplicably turned him, the reason fans got behind Orton was the WWE stupidly decided to let him punt Vince (who the fans love to hate) then have him feud with HHH, it was a no-brainer, same goes for the Miz, they put him up against a face half the crowd hate (Cena) and it was obvious he was going to get a positive reaction

As far as Orton goes could it be that he's just not a very good heel? I mean I'm sure all heels secretly want to be loved as invicible said no one really wants 'X-Pac heat'! I think Orton is desparate to be loved and build a 'legacy' as a WWE all time great...or at least favourite. He's a complete and total company man, we all know his colours. Same with Cena - these guys wouldn't be wrestling if they weren't in the WWE; they have a love for the business in one respect but i don't think they have a pure love of the 'sport'. They like the money, the fame and the celebrity that the WWE brings. Orton, like Cena, has starred in WWE produced movies. For them the WWE is wrestling. There are guys in ROH for example who obviously wrestle for the sheer passion of it - guys like Davey Richards, Eddie Edwards, Delirious, Roderick Strong, the Briscoe Brothers etc who put 110% into every match and wrestle many times in Japan too in pro wrestling NOAH. These 'indie darlings' of the IWC wrestle because they love to wrestle plain and simple. If any of you saw the interview Davey Richards gave at Final Battle 10 about returning to ROH you would know what I'm talking about - wrestling is Davey's life. I think in many ways although WWE is still viewed as the promised land of wrestling and every wrestler wants to make it in the WWE, once many wrestlers get there they do start to toe the company line and begin thinking of themselves as 'superstars' or 'sports entertainers'. I think this is part of the problem now in the decline of decent heels.

I'm older now and am one of these people that like to say that wrestling isn't as good as it used to be. Ive tried to watch it now and again but the characters of today have no where near the substance or intensity of the late 80's and early 90's.
The truth is if a new Wrestling fan sat down and probably watched Summerslam 1990 or Wrestlemania 6 they'd be amazed at what they saw.

One of the best heels I ever saw was Honky Tonk man because he was so bloody useless he was always getting his backside handed to him yet always somehow kept that damn intercontinental belt! It used to incense everyone, but as we understand more about the way it works now you realise he was doing his job perfectly he was the bad guy and you wanted him to get hurt and to loose!