The Heel Report – Week 3
As a fan I have always been naturally drawn to cheering for heels and booing faces, now maybe I have the WWE backwards but it just seems to me that heels are far more entertaining to watch, so I have decided to showcase the heels of the WWE in all their cheating and underhanded glory with this weekly heel report.
This week’s top ten:
1st Place: Randy Orton
The Legend Killer bounds into the number one spot this week after an amazing display of heel cowardice in his match against Batista at Judgement Day. Yelling at the referee to count him out and then the blatant slap to the face shows just why Orton is the top heel on Raw. (10/10 points)
2nd Place: The Miz
Going back to the Cena well this week is The Miz. The Raw newcomer showed he has no problem with self confidence as he went out in front of the PPV crowd and changed them from the mediocre heel chant of ‘What?’ to the heel trademark ‘you suck’. Anyone with crowd manipulation skills that good deserves this high a ranking on the chart. (9/10 points)
3rd Place: Jack Swagger
Remaining on ECW proves deviance again as Swagger keeps his spot for a third week in a row on the chart. With plenty of air time and no real competition for the role of top heel of the show the ‘All American, American’ looks to remain dominant for a long time to come. (8/10 points)
4th Place: Chris Jericho
A slow week for the Superstar of the year, losses to Punk and Mysterio in preparation for a longer feud cost him his place at the top of the chart and stellar performances by younger heels means that Jericho slips all the way down to fourth. Don’t think he’ll stay there though. (7/10 points)
5th Place: Matt Hardy
Some underhanded dealings with the General Manager of Raw meant that Matt Hardy was rewarded with a US title shot on Raw. Unfortunately he failed to get the job done, but he did manage to secure himself a solid six points. (6/10 points)
6th Place: Edge
The World Champion can be seen slacking off again this week in the heel department as he drops down to sixth place. He may have saved his championship at Judgement Day but he is quickly losing his hold on his position as top heel on Smackdown. (5/10 points)
7th Place: Maryse
Slowly working her way up the charts, Maryse is proving that the divas can be just as dominant in the heel department as the male wrestlers. Can she keep on climbing? We’ll find out next week.
(4/10 points)
8th Place: The Big Show
Bent on exterminating John Cena once and for all The Big Show has become a ferocious lion in the ring with damaging attacks and a new submission hold. Miz feeding Jerry Lawler to the hungry giant means that the largest athlete in the world earns eighth place. (3/10 points)
9th Place: David Hart Smith
After his debut last week, David Hart Smith is already making waves in the heel scene on ECW by taking a place on the chart after a powerslam on the outside and a boot to the head to give him the win over the fighting Irishman Finlay. (2/10 points)
10th Place: The Brian Kendrick
Trying to teach the basics of heel tag team wrestling to Goldust didn’t go so well for the cocky youngster, but his berating and slap of ‘The Golden One’ gets him a place on the chart this week.
(1/10 points)
Overall top ten:
* 1st Place – Chris Jericho: 26/30
*2nd Place – Jack Swagger: 24/30
*3rd Place – Randy Orton: 23/30
*4th Place – The Miz: 22/30
*5th Place – Edge: 21/30
*6th Place – Matt Hardy: 12/30
*7th Place – The Big Show: 9/30
*8th Place – Maryse: 7/30
*9th Place – Dolph Ziggler: 7/30
*10th Place – Mark Henry: 5/30
Weekly Filler:
The Face-Off: John Cena’s win over Big Show at Judgement Day
The outcome of their match at Judgement Day is a perfect example of why so many fans hate John Cena; because his wins simply aren’t believable. Are we really supposed to believe that a man who has been barely cleared to compete and then beaten down by the largest athlete in the world for the entire match can suddenly nip up and deliver an F-U? (I refuse to give in to the kids initiative on that one!) It just doesn’t work! Sure if it was real then it would be an amazing comeback story and you would have to give Cena massive respect, but the fact is the whole injury thing was scripted, so it means nothing. I honestly thought that this was going to be how Cena was going to leave for his latest movie, but oh no Mr. Cena has to win and now we are going to have to put up with him for at least another few weeks, oh joy.
Face the Facts: John Morrison’s face turn
Yes that’s right; this is a retraction of such. Last week I highlighted Morrison’s face turn as a bad thing, however after watching his performance at Judgement Day I’m going to have to take back what I said. It seems as if when Morrison was a heel someone said to him; ‘Alright you are allowed to be good but if you are too good it won’t come off right that you are a heel.’ So he took it easy in the ring, being impressive but never using his whole athleticism. Either that or he read this report and decided to step up his game, whatever the case it seems like John Morrison could be a major player if he keeps on putting on performances like that at PPVs.
Just for the record I almost didn’t put Morrison here after seeing him team with Cryme Tyme this week, a team he feuded with for ages not long ago, but if WWE creative can’t book correctly it’s not exactly Morrison’s fault so I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.
On the Rise: Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibease
I know people have been putting down The Legacy as a group and I myself think they could do better than just being backing for Randy Orton but I think they came just a little bit closer this week. Both Rhodes and DiBiase impressed me this week; Rhodes by pulling off that top rope Moonsault and DiBiase with his general heel tag work. All Legacy need now is an enforcer and the Priceless duo can focus on their tag team work and regain the belts from the shills that are the Colons.
Flat Footed: Ricky Ortiz
Now did someone in creative have a bet or something? ‘I bet I can Ortiz become a heel just by facing Jeff Hardy for no reason, all we have to do is have the announcers hint that he is annoying on air and the fans will lap it up like the ignorant fools they are!’ I don’t know about you but I’d like at least some explanation for why Ortiz is suddenly a heel. I mean he always annoyed me as a face with the whole Rally Towel, which for ages I thought was a ‘rowlee’ towel since the guy can’t say ‘rally’ to save his life, but again it’s an example of WWE creative being lazy and knowing that the kids will boo who they want them to boo. This whole kids initiative stinks of un-creativity and Ortiz’s heel turn is just another example of this.
It was a week for the youngsters as several of them take up places in the chart, time will tell if this is just a temporary flurry or a permanent change. That’s all from the heel report this week, see you next time.
If you’d like to comment on the heel report or if you disagree with any of my decisions then feel free to below.
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you know, I thought the Ortiz heel turn was VERY week. There was no drama in it. He just did the job to Jeff Hardy. It’s a prime example of a heel turn, without a push of any kind. Then he had a tag match with “the worlds greatest tag team”, another job. The same goes with Charlie Haas. He just takes a few months off and shows up with Shelton. WTF? This is just bad writing.
is it because they just have no faith in midcards or are they trying to bring back squash jobbers like Steve Lombardi and the Brooklyn Brawler. It would go with their “let’s treat all wrestling fans like their ten years old” movement.
you say nothing about TNA. Kurt Angle, Beautiful People, the new dramatic turn of Mick Foley get no mention. You have a great column but I have to say… Try to expand. WWE isn’t the only game in town. TNA could be better. I just don’t think we should be spoonfed this kids shit anymore.
I agree with you Dorkstar, WWE is going through a very bad patch creatively and they need to pull their act together. Ironically this is why I only do the heel report on the WWE.
I have already covered this in a previous heel report but I will say again that TNA is far superior to WWE, especially at the moment. However since they do have better writers and a more complicated storyline doing a heel report with TNA in mind would be difficult since the lines are not as clear. The one thing the WWE does right (from a face-heel POV) is try to cram a wrestler’s position as face or heel down our throats, making it much easier to judge. Plus TNA still only has one show and as such not everyone gets to participate each week, even if they are major stars. This would be unfair and so I’d rather have someone in TNA like Kurt Angle, the greatest wrestler in the world, not on the chart than have them coming behind someone like Mark Henry due to lack of airtime.
Oh and I know I said this before but again ‘The Beautiful People’ are teh best heel divas ever. Ever!
I agree that is what TNA are doing, blurring the lines between heel or face, but in my eyes that’s not what wrestling is, nor how you sell tickets and get people behind a character. The fact that Vince Russo is no Joss Whedon, David Chase or Kurt Sutter also hurts. They know how to write characters that we love and hate at the same time.
It’s one of those things, when TNA throw a match together I say; ‘oh that’s good, not every one of their matches has to be about storyline, sometimes we can just enjoy some wrestling, where winning is the only incentive.’ Then when WWE put Ortiz against Jeff Hardy in what seemed to be a thrown together match I said; ‘WTF! Wow, WWE has really let itself down having this match for no reason.’
It feels like a double standard but it’s not. WWE have set themselves up so that all of their matches do revolve directly around their storylines, so if we see a match outside of this it doesn’t seem to fit. They also know this and that’s why it couldn’t just be Ortiz vs Hardy, they had to turn Ortiz into a heel. It can never just be about match to match competition in the WWE, there has to be a running theme. In some ways that is a good thing but it also means that WWE creative have to be just that and at the moment they are not. That is why we see terribly booked matches like Morrison teaming up with Cryme Tyme, it makes no sense! Their rivalry on WWE.com was such a big thing!
Although I think WWE will win out in the end and be better for sticking with their time tested method of having every match count to something I think that while the creative team is in such a shambles, TNA will get higher and higher until we have another WCW-WWE on our hands. Which of course will motivate the McMahons and we should see some good writing and another attitude era. Things move in cycles, we will just have to wait awhile before this happens that’s all.