If being a heel makes you weaker, why should anyone go heel?

[Deleted]

It's happened a million times in wrestling. The happy-go-lucky guy gets unlucky for a while and decides he's had enough of pleasing the fans. Enough's enough, time for a change, and so on. So what's the logical solution? Turn your back on your fans or stop playing by the rules, and strike out for yourself!

...except that it fails miserably 99 times out of 100. Paige telling AJ that this was her house cost her the title. Tatanka selling out to Dibs was the beginning of the end for him. Rikishi went evil and got jack squat for it. It goes on like this. SES Punk was a loser, whereas snarky pro-indie Punk had the might to defeat John Cena clean as a sheet.

So why does everyone do it? If heels are willing to resort to anything, why not kiss some fan booty and continue to receive superpowers? Maybe the inverse of their idea is true and they can only get stronger by kissing more ass and doing everything for the shorties.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

This question doesn't make sense, because wrestler logic exists in kayfabe. A wrestler's character doesn't think 'I am turning heel,' they think 'I am tired of this shit, so I'm done with it regardless of if it costs me friends/fans.'

Besides which you can also be monster heels or technical heels or asshole heels.

[Deleted]

Jul 23, 2014 10:03:19 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

This question doesn't make sense, because wrestler logic exists in kayfabe. A wrestler's character doesn't think 'I am turning heel,' they think 'I am tired of this shit, so I'm done with it regardless of if it costs me friends/fans.'

Besides which you can also be monster heels or technical heels or asshole heels.

Most of whom get weaker when they turn. Face Kane with Bryan kicked butt. Now even the announcers treat him as a paper tiger. And then there's Ryback.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Jul 23, 2014 10:04:59 GMT -5 @mightykretzler said:

Jul 23, 2014 10:03:19 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

This question doesn't make sense, because wrestler logic exists in kayfabe. A wrestler's character doesn't think 'I am turning heel,' they think 'I am tired of this shit, so I'm done with it regardless of if it costs me friends/fans.'

Besides which you can also be monster heels or technical heels or asshole heels.

Most of whom get weaker when they turn. Face Kane with Bryan kicked butt. Now even the announcers treat him as a paper tiger. And then there's Ryback.

Except they don't 'turn.' They just act differently, they change. They aren't thinking 'weird how I'm weaker since I went evil, huh?'

[Deleted]

Jul 23, 2014 10:05:44 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

Jul 23, 2014 10:04:59 GMT -5 @mightykretzler said:

Most of whom get weaker when they turn. Face Kane with Bryan kicked butt. Now even the announcers treat him as a paper tiger. And then there's Ryback.

Except they don't 'turn.' They just act differently, they change. They aren't thinking 'weird how I'm weaker since I went evil, huh?'

But they embrace evil instead of good. They may not see themselves as heel, but if they want to be stronger, why don't they just continue to smile and be nice but embrace a more cunning game plan?

[Deleted]

Because they all want to be THE ONE DIAMOND IN THIS BUSINESS and cut 20 minute promos about it every week. Cant' do that shit and be a face. If you want to reach for the stars, you gotta turn heel. You have to follow in the footsteps of Jesus the King of Kings, the Alpha, the Omega, the Sole Survivor, WOOOO!, THE GAME, TRIPLE H.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Jul 23, 2014 10:07:03 GMT -5 @mightykretzler said:

Jul 23, 2014 10:05:44 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

Except they don't 'turn.' They just act differently, they change. They aren't thinking 'weird how I'm weaker since I went evil, huh?'

But they embrace evil instead of good. They may not see themselves as heel, but if they want to be stronger, why don't they just continue to smile and be nice but embrace a more cunning game plan?

That would still be evil, just a more subversive evil, and would not work in wrestling storytelling without there being hints of it.

Besides which most of these characters don't actually watch the show anyway.

[Deleted]

Austin tapping out to Rock's Sharpshooter and being visually pinned 3 or 4 times not even 24 hours after turning heel at WM 17 still ranks as the all time worst "heel turns into a coward" match.

[Deleted]

Being a heel makes you smarter, that's why.

In WWE you're either an intelligent heel or an obtuse face.

[SEAN CARLESS]

Heels taking shortcuts are fine. But I hate the bullshit with them becoming incompetent all of a sudden just because they turned. To me, that's always been a sign that your hero protagonist is weak.

[RowdyRobbyPiper]

In some ways, a heel has it made. A heel champion can bend the rules and twist the loopholes to their advantage and wind up screwing over the failed hero. Sure, they don't get the clear cut physical victory, but what they do get is knowing that they fully screwed over their foe without the foe even realizing it. I.e. Nick Bockwinkel screwing over Hogan, Flair screwing over Dusty, Luger and Sting, Honky Tonk Man screwing over the entire late '80's WWE mid card, Yokozuna and Jim Cornette screwing over Luger, Hollywood Hogan screwing over the entire WCW roster, Vince screwing Austin over, Triple H and Steph screwing Bryan over and so on....

[Perd]

There's a trade off. Being heel makes you weaker, being face makes you dumber.

[Deleted]

Jul 23, 2014 10:10:33 GMT -5 "Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay said:

Jul 23, 2014 10:07:03 GMT -5 @mightykretzler said:

But they embrace evil instead of good. They may not see themselves as heel, but if they want to be stronger, why don't they just continue to smile and be nice but embrace a more cunning game plan?

That would still be evil, just a more subversive evil, and would not work in wrestling storytelling without there being hints of it.

Besides which most of these characters don't actually watch the show anyway.

Eh, I see your point, but they've become so self-aware with all of the tropes and clichés of wrestling that it's hard to believe that people can't be genre savvy. I don't buy that every single wrestler is oblivious to the good-evil balance of power which has existed since before the first WrestleMania.

Jul 23, 2014 13:00:15 GMT -5 SEAN CARLESS said:

Heels taking shortcuts are fine. But I hate the bullshit with them becoming incompetent all of a sudden just because they turned. To me, that's always been a sign that your hero protagonist is weak.

Right. Heels should be more powerful because they break all the rules and do whatever it takes. That shouldn't be a weakness. But heroes should have superior morale. They'll take more of a beating and are harder to force to submit.

Speaking of which, I think submissions would be used more because they're a much better way of doing the face/heel dynamic than "Good guy got knocked out; bad guy got knocked out." There's much more space for ring psychology.

[Deleted]

The weird thing is when a monster wrestler turns heel he becomes unstoppable. When Rusev turns face he will become a jobber to the stars.

[CATCH_US IS the Conversation]

Jul 23, 2014 13:16:39 GMT -5 @supersweetbotch said:

The weird thing is when a monster wrestler turns heel he becomes unstoppable. When Rusev turns face he will become a jobber to the stars.

I don't think Rusev will be that bad off when he turns face. Most likely Rusev will only be jobbing to other big guys like Lesnar or a heel Big Show or the next monster of the month. Otherwise Rusev CRUSH Heath Slater or Fandango for lolz. Any losses to smaller heel wrestlers will probably be a flukey Countout loss, even if it's against the WWE World Heavyweight Champion.

[RIHT]

Don't ask us, ask WWE.

[Deleted]

Jul 23, 2014 13:26:34 GMT -5 CATCH_US IS the Conversation said:

Jul 23, 2014 13:16:39 GMT -5 @supersweetbotch said:

The weird thing is when a monster wrestler turns heel he becomes unstoppable. When Rusev turns face he will become a jobber to the stars.

I don't think Rusev will be that bad off when he turns face. Most likely Rusev will only be jobbing to other big guys like Lesnar or a heel Big Show or the next monster of the month. Otherwise Rusev CRUSH Heath Slater or Fandango for lolz. Any losses to smaller heel wrestlers will probably be a flukey Countout loss, even if it's against the WWE World Heavyweight Champion.

Yeah but same time they lose to whatever new upper midcarder heel whose getting push bunch of times

[olympicgoldmedalist]

Jul 23, 2014 13:16:39 GMT -5 @supersweetbotch said:

The weird thing is when a monster wrestler turns heel he becomes unstoppable. When Rusev turns face he will become a jobber to the stars.

I see this coming, unfortunately. He'll eventually fall out of favor with the writers and end up in " comical pairings " before burning out and being future endeavored.

[PsychoGoatee]

Jul 23, 2014 9:43:10 GMT -5 @mightykretzler said:

whereas snarky pro-indie Punk had the might to defeat John Cena clean as a sheet.

Though that match did have an outside distraction which led to Punk surprising him with his finisher. It wasn't quite fully clean, they like to leave a little something to excuse Cena from not winning every match.


I do agree the heels being weaker or cowardly thing isn't a great choice. Like during the Cena/Kane feud in 2012, during the buildup Kane runs away and they're like look Kane is a coward folks! Why would the monster need to be a coward? Much like how they remove a lot of the more flashy cool moves when you go heel, they want to make it very black-and-white for the crowd. But I think they should give the crowd a little more credit.