Dynamic Dee
ALF
I love it when they call me Big Papa
Posts: 1,174
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Post by Dynamic Dee on Feb 15, 2007 21:51:38 GMT -5
I miss the days of babyfaces like Kerry Von Erich. He played the part of clueless (would always be distracted by heel managers like Gary Hart and Precious) clean cut babyface to a T. I blame the attitude era for this 'shades of gray' bullcrap we see now. But then again, I'm just an old fart so what do I know To me Sting will always take the cake for stupidest babyface ever. How many partners have turned on him throughout his career? But don't get me wrong, I love Sting. Yeah the funniest had to be Halloween Havoc 95. He told Flair before the match that if he turned on him he would be a "dead man." Then Flair supposedly got taken out by Arn and Pillman before the match leaving Sting to fight alone. Then Flair finally shows up, Sting makes the hot tag and Flair turns on him right away. Lol. Then there was that whole weird relationship with Luger (who also turned on him in the past) from 95 to 96. Luger would act all heelish and associated with Dungeon of Doom members but Sting still stuck by him as a friend. They never pulled the trigger on the feud though and Luger went full face by the time the nWo showed up.
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nisi
Vegeta
Da Bears
Posts: 9,868
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Post by nisi on Feb 15, 2007 22:26:28 GMT -5
I miss the days of babyfaces like Kerry Von Erich. He played the part of clueless (would always be distracted by heel managers like Gary Hart and Precious) clean cut babyface to a T. I blame the attitude era for this 'shades of gray' bullcrap we see now. But then again, I'm just an old fart so what do I know I'm older than you and I miss it too, but we're in the minority. Like karisma said, faces are supposed to be "edgy" now, like Poochie The Dog.
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Post by kitsunestar on Feb 15, 2007 22:42:14 GMT -5
People want an amoral badass to rally behind because it's the person that they wish they could be. Everyone secretly wishes they could get away with murdering that one person that sets them off, so they don't want to see the clean-cut guy who wouldn't do the same. They want the badass who assaults whoever they want, whenever they want.
It sucks, but it's how things are.
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JMA
Hank Scorpio
Down With Capitalism!
Posts: 6,880
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Post by JMA on Feb 15, 2007 23:35:04 GMT -5
Wow. I couldn't disagree more about Michaels. He's so naturally unlikeable, that he works that much better as a heel. I agree 100%. As a babyface, Shawn comes off as insincere and self-righteous.
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Jeff Mack
Don Corleone
Drago is mankind's greatest hero
Posts: 1,362
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Post by Jeff Mack on Feb 15, 2007 23:58:03 GMT -5
Clean-cut babyfaces are boring. How can you identify with someone like that? Same goes for pure evil. Escapism works best when the characters are above all, human. That means selfish, vengeful behavior.
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Post by -Lithium- on Feb 16, 2007 0:14:40 GMT -5
Dude cleancut babyfaces really suck, its so unrealistic and boring. Same with 100% evil heels, thats pretty unrealistic too. Also its gay that heels and faces are always friends with other heels and faces just cause they are bad or good...
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Post by Rob Scorpio, 2 time BCW Champ on Feb 16, 2007 0:31:16 GMT -5
I have to say, a lot of the faces we've been handed the past few years are very heelish. Remember when Stone Cold tried to murder HHH? And how many tweener faces have attacked or threatened to attack women? It's not cool. Also, I hate that faces are always stupid and heels are always spineless. It's especially noticeable in tagteam matches. Faces tend to suck at tag team wrestling, always falling for the "distract the referee" schtick. Why can't we sometimes have faces who can outsmart heels, and heels who can outwrestle faces?
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Post by angryfan on Feb 16, 2007 0:31:17 GMT -5
I miss the days of babyfaces like Kerry Von Erich. He played the part of clueless (would always be distracted by heel managers like Gary Hart and Precious) clean cut babyface to a T. I blame the attitude era for this 'shades of gray' bullcrap we see now. But then again, I'm just an old fart so what do I know To me Sting will always take the cake for stupidest babyface ever. How many partners have turned on him throughout his career? But don't get me wrong, I love Sting. I'll take this one. What is "all of them", Alex? I get that some people miss a "pure babyface", but to me, it only works in rare circumstances. Far as I know, only one person has ever managed to maintain the absolute babyface role his entire career, and that's Steamboat. Beyond him, everyone has had to change things up. As far as "shades of grey", it can get annoying when everybody does it the same way, but, in theory at least, that's more believable. Is anyone, outside of Mother Teresa, always perfect and, I don't know, boyscoutish? Moreso, do we really want the faces running around like a crew of happy go lucky Beaver Cleavers? No, we dont, or at least I don't. However, it is possible to inject the "real humanity" into a babyface without having them always have alterior motives. Granted, this is also WWE, where there can be only two kinds of faces (Hogan or some weird Austin/Rock hybrid) and two heels (evil haw hawing maniac, or cocky, arrogant and, yet somehow dorky).
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Post by carter 15 on Feb 16, 2007 3:17:22 GMT -5
I'd say for the most part this is wrong, the problem with the WWE is they're trying to hard to HAVE clean-cut faces a lot of the time, which ruins a lot of characters.
The HBK tweener thing is obviously just a leadup to WM23.
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Post by ronsimmons on Feb 16, 2007 4:21:23 GMT -5
See: Lashley, Bobby for reaction to Clean-Cut Face. Uhm, the fans love him?
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Post by Avalanche Alvarez on Feb 16, 2007 10:03:14 GMT -5
It's the way things are now. No one's squeaky clean or even close to it anymore. They're trying to reflect the way the world is now.
Yeah, I get it.
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Post by Kerry Von Erich is my hero on Feb 16, 2007 10:22:39 GMT -5
Clean-cut babyfaces are boring. How can you identify with someone like that? Same goes for pure evil. Escapism works best when the characters are above all, human. That means selfish, vengeful behavior. Then why were the Von Erichs and Sting as over as they were? Obviously someone identified with them
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Post by skskillz on Feb 16, 2007 10:54:02 GMT -5
Here is my problem with the "tweener" characters:
If the babyface is badass and does things in heelish ways (say Austin, for example), then that will most likely undercut the heel. The heel is supposed to be bad. He's the one who is supposed to beat up the women, cheat, take advantage of situations, etc. If the babyface is doing those things, then how can a good heel ever be developed?
When I think of the perfect heel, I see 1986/1991 Jake Roberts. He was devilish, creepy, tough, and coward all at the same time. So when he was put against a cleancut guy like Steamboat or to a lesser extent Savage, the two of them could put a damn good story out there because one clearly represented good and the other evil.
The cleancut babyface can work. They just have to 1) be likable (charisma) and 2) have a good foil. Not enough emphasis on heels has deteriorated the face character, IMO.
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Post by bjboston on Feb 16, 2007 11:58:40 GMT -5
Clean-cut babyfaces are boring. How can you identify with someone like that? Same goes for pure evil. Escapism works best when the characters are above all, human. That means selfish, vengeful behavior. Then why were the Von Erichs and Sting as over as they were? Obviously someone identified with them The Reagan 80's were a different time as far as what our heroes looked like. Hulk Hogan was the right character for that period in America just as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin was right for the 90's when people were feeling angrier and more disillusioned. Who's right for today? I don't know that they've found a character with whom people really connect. Personally, the closest is Test. He deeply appeals to my inner Canadian buck-toothed roid-head.
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Post by Kerry Von Erich is my hero on Feb 16, 2007 12:22:53 GMT -5
Then why were the Von Erichs and Sting as over as they were? Obviously someone identified with them The Reagan 80's were a different time as far as what our heroes looked like. Hulk Hogan was the right character for that period in America just as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin was right for the 90's when people were feeling angrier and more disillusioned. Who's right for today? I don't know that they've found a character with whom people really connect. . I was about to say.. I mean do people really connect with guys like Cena? I suppose if someone is a 15 year old wigger, they might but for the rest of us normal functioning members of society I find it particularly difficult to sympathize with him at all. I grew up in the 80's so naturally, I identify more with the Kerry Von Erichs and Stings of the world than I would someone like Austin or Cena. Plus, being that my own individual personality is very clean cut and likeable, that also adds to me being able to relate to the 80's style babyface. That is why I am more fond of that era, while looking upon the attitude period with disgust and apathy. I couldnt relate to the characters, which is why I stopped watching WWE from 1996-2003
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Post by bjboston on Feb 16, 2007 12:37:14 GMT -5
I'm not sure what today's hero (or anti-hero) looks like. Post 9/11 it seemed like people wanted to go back to a more comfortable black and white "with us or against us" mentality. But in the past few years, I think disillusionment has returned. It's a very confusing time for heroes.
I think the closest they've come to a character that really captures the way people were feeling was Muhammed Hassan. But obviously, it touched too much of a nerve and made people too uncomfortable, so they scrapped it.
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Post by Arturo Classico on Feb 16, 2007 12:45:01 GMT -5
I'm not sure what today's hero (or anti-hero) looks like. Post 9/11 it seemed like people wanted to go back to a more comfortable black and white "with us or against us" mentality. But in the past few years, I think disillusionment has returned. It's a very confusing time for heroes. I think the closest they've come to a character that really captures the way people were feeling was Muhammed Hassan. But obviously, it touched too much of a nerve and made people too uncomfortable, so they scrapped it. I liked Muhammed Hassan alot. Thats was the best charcter they created in a very long time and made a really great point. However they messed him up with the terrorist crap. Basically I feel the only charchter that would get over as a face would be one disillisouned that is fed up and dosen't even want to be part of mainstream society.
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Post by Kerry Von Erich is my hero on Feb 16, 2007 13:00:47 GMT -5
I would have liked to see Hassan as a babyface, sympathetic Arab-American character, rather than just an America-sucks, foreign (even though he was billed from Detroit) heel. It would have provided more depth and could have worked into some really thought provoking storylines. That appeared the direction they were heading for with the first 2 vignettes, but by the second one, they had pretty much scrapped that idea, and decided to go with the typical america-hating foreigner, like we havent seen that before
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Dynamic Dee
ALF
I love it when they call me Big Papa
Posts: 1,174
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Post by Dynamic Dee on Feb 16, 2007 13:05:18 GMT -5
Hassan was doing fine as a character in the beginning. He was speaking out against Americans for racist attitudes towards arabs. Then suddenly they started making it seem like he was a terrorist himself and it all went downhill.
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Post by skskillz on Feb 16, 2007 13:56:07 GMT -5
I would have liked to see Hassan as a babyface, sympathetic Arab-American character, rather than just an America-sucks, foreign (even though he was billed from Detroit) heel. It would have provided more depth and could have worked into some really thought provoking storylines. That appeared the direction they were heading for with the first 2 vignettes, but by the second one, they had pretty much scrapped that idea, and decided to go with the typical america-hating foreigner, like we havent seen that before In Hassan's first vignette, he said "Praise Allah" as a way to generate a negative reaction (and the fans did in fact boo). He was always going to be a heel, in the crybaby "the world is against me" way (similar to Bret in 1997). The WWE is not creative enough to pull off Hassan as a face. The WWF/E itself has promoted xenophobia for decades. They weren't going to mix it up. Any time they play a foriegn character as a face, it's usually in the comedy variety. I agree though, Hassan as a face (especially against heels like JBL) would have worked if done properly.
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