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Justifying Heel Actions


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One of the first "meta" heel turns was Undertaker forcing JR to join Vince's "Kiss my ass" club because he (Taker) had been kissing Vince's ass for years.

At the time I loved it but looking back it was a pretty big hole in the 4th wall...

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Barry was justified in beating Dustin up and to a lesser extent, bashing Steamboat and Douglas brains in. 

They stood there celebrating and thanking Dustin Rhodes for creating the situation that they took advantage of to win the titles, when Barry had merely attempted to do the same after the inadvertent headbutt to the nuts. Oh yeah, they had it coming.

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I definitely cheered when he attacked Steamboat and Douglas. I supported Barry from that point forward, while supporting the other faces in the company. It was only tough to go against Ricky Steamboat, since he was the good guy of good guys, but dammit he was wrong here.

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Vic (may I call you Vic? Thanks.) I always listen to your opinions but I sense that your repudiation of the defense of Hogan's turning pals comes from a childhood as a... Hulkamaniac. No shame, you were young and impressionable - heck, we all were! However, I feel that you cannot be objective here. I state as a fact that it is ALWAYS justifiable to turn on Hulk Hogan. He is a lowlife. Face the light, son: it will burn you clean.

the truth hurts,

RAF

p.s. - I know you are not a racist like Big Fresh.

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Windham's turn on Dustin included an amazing callback to Starrcade 88 that a lot of people missed.

The Bigalow match? Because I remember it being more of a callback to the Williams match from 87.

 

The Williams match is what I meant.

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One of the first "meta" heel turns was Undertaker forcing JR to join Vince's "Kiss my ass" club because he (Taker) had been kissing Vince's ass for years.

At the time I loved it but looking back it was a pretty big hole in the 4th wall...

 

Not really

 

Taker's whole role in the WWF during The Invasion was the "Conscience of the WWF,"  the long time guy who had never jumped to WCW. A heel turn right after by complaining about kissing Vince's ass was a logical progression. And also, Vince and Taker were never really on-screen adversaries. They did cook up the whole "Higher Power" scheme together. They had a minor tiff when Taker returned in 2000 but Vince left soon after and became the "GENETIC JACKHAMMER."

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One of the first "meta" heel turns was Undertaker forcing JR to join Vince's "Kiss my ass" club because he (Taker) had been kissing Vince's ass for years.

At the time I loved it but looking back it was a pretty big hole in the 4th wall...

 

Not really

 

Taker's whole role in the WWF during The Invasion was the "Conscience of the WWF,"  the long time guy who had never jumped to WCW. A heel turn right after by complaining about kissing Vince's ass was a logical progression. And also, Vince and Taker were never really on-screen adversaries. They did cook up the whole "Higher Power" scheme together. They had a minor tiff when Taker returned in 2000 but Vince left soon after and became the "GENETIC JACKHAMMER."

 

 

Even then, most of those turns were kind of "WTF?" for that reason- if it was Taker forcing Alliance members to do it, instead of just JR, it might have been more viable to make it work.

 

Same token, it's the reason Kurt Angle's heel turn became more justifiable after the InVasion ended (he was willing to pretend to be a traitor to the WWF and become the mole in the Alliance's ranks to destroy the Alliance for good- the single most heroic thing anyone on the WWF roster could have done to end them for good- and the fans repay them by choosing Steve Austin, who had sold out to the Alliance and actually WAS a traitor to the WWF and tried to destroy all of them?)

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I always supported Owen's heel turn on Bret.  Big Brother wasn't protecting you, Owen. He was keeping you in his shadow, man.   You had to step out on your own.

 

I don't think that Macho's turn on Hogan was justified.  That was Macho's kayfabe secret loathing, jealousy and resentment of Hogan reaching a boiling point.  The man showed his true colors and in true coward fashion, he projected all of that onto Liz rather than own up to his own feelings.

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i want to appreciate Mick Foley in here. He's justified most of his heel turns (pre 2000) in the ring, and it just makes sense. It always felt like he put a ton of thought into his character's actions and worked to express that to the audience.

the one that always sticks in my mind is the "i was getting beat up and you fans chanted, not for me to fight back, but for some other guy to come in" which led to his feud with Austin.

 

Foley has his own version of the "the heel should always believe he's in the right" maxim [credited upthread to Hayes] in one of his books (the first one, I think, since I don't think I ever read the others), as he relates a story about how he learned it early in his career and has espoused it ever since.  Don't remember who he credits with teaching him though.

 

And as I recall, he certainly stuck to that in his career.  The various incarnations of Foley always had a logic to their turns.  Sometimes it was insane logic, but a logic nonetheless, and "insane" befit both Mankind and Cactus Jack anyway.

 

 

He used Max Cady in Cape Fear as an example of a heel being somewhat justified in his actions. Cady was an asshole and a rapist but he did have a point in that Bowden didn't defend him to the fullest of his abilities. So Cady does have a legit beef with Bowden, the problem is that Cady is such a scumbag and takes it way too far that you don't sympathize with him at all. Basically you need a heel who does have a logical reason for going after a face but he has to be very unreasonable and go way too far with his revenge so that you don't root for him.

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I always supported Owen's heel turn on Bret.  Big Brother wasn't protecting you, Owen. He was keeping you in his shadow, man.   You had to step out on your own.

 

I don't think that Macho's turn on Hogan was justified.  That was Macho's kayfabe secret loathing, jealousy and resentment of Hogan reaching a boiling point.  The man showed his true colors and in true coward fashion, he projected all of that onto Liz rather than own up to his own feelings.

 

i liked this post for your support of Owen.

 

your lack of supporting Macho Man makes me want to take my like back, tho.

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One of the first "meta" heel turns was Undertaker forcing JR to join Vince's "Kiss my ass" club because he (Taker) had been kissing Vince's ass for years.

At the time I loved it but looking back it was a pretty big hole in the 4th wall...

 

I know that angle is popular among some of the people on this board, but it really was terrible.  It pretty much led to nothing and the only point of it it seemed was to piss off the OKC crowd.  Which it did because that was the last time the WWE ever sold out there.  Even the PPV four years later didn't sell out. 

 

JR gets his face rammed in Vince's ass, the crowd boos, Jerry Lawler sits there like an idiot doing nothing to help, then Lillian thanks us for coming out and the show ends.  

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I always supported Owen's heel turn on Bret.  Big Brother wasn't protecting you, Owen. He was keeping you in his shadow, man.   You had to step out on your own.

 

I don't think that Macho's turn on Hogan was justified.  That was Macho's kayfabe secret loathing, jealousy and resentment of Hogan reaching a boiling point.  The man showed his true colors and in true coward fashion, he projected all of that onto Liz rather than own up to his own feelings.

 

i liked this post for your support of Owen.

 

your lack of supporting Macho Man makes me want to take my like back, tho.

 

Kayfabe logic.  Macho was paranoid and jealous.  In real life and in retrospect, yeah, I wish that Macho would've flying elbowed the crap out of Hogan.

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To this day I don't understand why Dustin and Barry didn't go into a blood fued, they both just seemed to hotshot them to NWA and US champions. I know they did a couple of no holds barred matches in the UK but that was it as far as I recall.

 

I wish they'd brought Barry in to fued with Dustin during the Stud Stable deal too as a call back to the incident thinking about it

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I always supported Owen's heel turn on Bret.  Big Brother wasn't protecting you, Owen. He was keeping you in his shadow, man.   You had to step out on your own.

 

I don't think that Macho's turn on Hogan was justified.  That was Macho's kayfabe secret loathing, jealousy and resentment of Hogan reaching a boiling point.  The man showed his true colors and in true coward fashion, he projected all of that onto Liz rather than own up to his own feelings.

 

i liked this post for your support of Owen.

 

your lack of supporting Macho Man makes me want to take my like back, tho.

 

Kayfabe logic.  Macho was paranoid and jealous.  In real life and in retrospect, yeah, I wish that Macho would've flying elbowed the crap out of Hogan.

 

I'm too lazy to bring up the YouTube link but Savage did flying elbow the crap out of Hogan. The only problem was they were tag team partners and the Flying Elbow of Doom revived the Hulkster. So Savage would need a brand new finishing move to defeat Hogan

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Since we're talking about justified heel actions directed at Hogan, let's talk about Hogan himself making the biggest heel turn in wrestling history. Yes, I'm aboard the Fuck Hogan Train as well, but thinking back, here was a guy who carried the biggest wrestling company in the world on his back, stood toe-to-toe with big behemoths, battled an Iraqi sympathizer, got turned on by countless friends (Orndorff as mentioned above, Beefcake, etc.), then goes to "Dubya See Dubya" and has all these hicks in the crowd booing him to the point that even the best of canned crowd noise couldn't mask it anymore. Other than legdropping Savage, why wouldn't Hogan be justified in turning on WCW?

 

Also, back in 2013 Sheamus was making jokes at Mark Henry's expense pretty much every week leading to Extreme Rules. If someone keeps fucking with you as a man just to get laughs out of the people around, what are you gonna do, just sit there and take it? Hell no! That's why this happened...

 

 

WHOOP YOU LIKE YOU STOLE SOM'N, BOY!!!

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I always supported Owen's heel turn on Bret.  Big Brother wasn't protecting you, Owen. He was keeping you in his shadow, man.   You had to step out on your own.

 

I don't think that Macho's turn on Hogan was justified.  That was Macho's kayfabe secret loathing, jealousy and resentment of Hogan reaching a boiling point.  The man showed his true colors and in true coward fashion, he projected all of that onto Liz rather than own up to his own feelings.

 

i liked this post for your support of Owen.

 

your lack of supporting Macho Man makes me want to take my like back, tho.

 

Kayfabe logic.  Macho was paranoid and jealous.  In real life and in retrospect, yeah, I wish that Macho would've flying elbowed the crap out of Hogan.

 

I'm too lazy to bring up the YouTube link but Savage did flying elbow the crap out of Hogan. The only problem was they were tag team partners and the Flying Elbow of Doom revived the Hulkster. So Savage would need a brand new finishing move to defeat Hogan

 

Savage and Bundy are the only two wrestlers that understood the mystic powers of the Hulk Up. It is why he could win by count out with regularity in 89, but never pin him. 

His best shot was Havoc 96, but the Giant stopped that. It is bullshit Savage never got one pinfall win on Hogan. 

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  • 10 months later...
On 10/24/2015 at 6:26 AM, thee Reverend Axl Future said:

I totally agreed with Dory Funk, Jr's actions after Billy Jack insulted him as he did on CWF television, and after all the vet had done to improve the career of that green as grass ingrate. DFJ is a righteous man.

- biased,

RAF

 

I just now watched after all this time. Dory is having interview time on the Florida TV taping, and as Arn Anderson once said television time is expensive so he was fortunate to get it, even for being a former NWA World champion like he was, and here comes this little young shit barging in on it. Then he proceeds to suck Dusty's dick and make a backhanded comment about him being better than Dory. The Funks already don't like Dusty and you're gonna run your knobgobbler about him on my TV time? Suck a bag of dicks, asshole!

By the way I thought it was an interesting slight breaking of the forth wall when Dory alluded to the political power that Dusty had in the NWA.

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On 28/10/2015 at 2:23 AM, DMN said:

Foley's are almost all great. Turning on ECW after 'Cane Dewey' might be the moat justifiable turn in the history of the business.

I can't remember why he turned heel in 2006? I remember it being a great little run, but can't remember how it started? I remember it ending with Melina kicking him in the balls. 

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