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WWE turning popular heels into intolerable babyfaces


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The biggest thing WWE does to ruin big heels is forcing them to work the same formula match as any other face. They go from dominating one week, to eating 90% of the offense in their first match as a face. Nobody wants to cheer a guy who always gets beat up. Watch Austin's run when he was massively over in 98... He's getting almost 50% of the offense in his matches, and probably the majority of the offense in some (like the Foley matches). People want to cheer for guys who can kick ass, not someone who's gonna be selling 90% of the match against David Otunga. 

 

I guarantee Roman's heat will dwindle if he starts being on the receiving end of a lot of "chinlock, elbow, elbow, hair pull, chinlock" spots. 

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Del Rio is the big one for me. The guy had cool music, cool cars, and dressed to kill. Ass in his ridiculously over-the-top Jerome Benton like man-servant and the gimmick was ace! He then turned face and started cutting lame promos about how he is proud to be Mexican-American while entering arenas around the world to a cornier and faster version of his theme music. The cars were gone and replaced with goofy bows ties and if I am not mistaken Ricardo was don't the Johnny B. Badd gimmick for a while but his 'Bad Blaster' of choice was a bucket (or am I making this last part up) ?

 

WWE doesn't realize that the good guys can dress cool and have cool things and not be completely corny. Look at The Fast and The Furious movies and pretty much all of Jason Statham's movies. Good guys who get the girls and who don't take shit DO EXIST...just not in WWE for some reason.

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I was watching Raw and thinking this, oh look there's Sheamus, he should be a heel. Oh look there's Batista I hope he goes heel. Oh look there's Daniel Bryan pandering to the fans who are confused because he doesn't normally pander to them. Miz, seriously?

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Honestly? A better note would be the guys who they DIDN'T do this with.

 

Austin. Jericho in 2000. Rock in 98. Savage, maybe? I'd be curious if people took a look at Savage. When they turned the Natural Disasters face, they still had them just killing jobbers and what not. They weren't suddenly huggable lovable guys. 

 

At the time, I thought that Michael Hayes was right and when they turned Cena, he REALLY should have given the FU to ... was it Benoit? I guess history says otherwise, but they had to completely change the way they presented guys and did business to get there? 

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What I really hope is the Shield turns face, and Roman kicks ass while the others enjoy the glory, and when Roman gets his title shot or is about to win, THAT'S when they strike because that's when their true feelings come out.

Sounds both Russo-esque and like a great way to end up a topic of conversation in this very thread.

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I think one thing WWE has to do is start ignoring crowd reactions in general, to an extent- at least when it comes to heels.

 

Post kayfabe, people treat the WWE like they treat any other show, and you're just always going to get people that would rather cheer for Joffrey than they would for Jon Snow. That doesn't mean that the Game of Thrones producers go 'oh shit Joffrey is over, send him on a babyface quest to bring Ned back from the dead.' 

 

Same with wrestling. People were cheering R-Truth because he was stupidly entertaining as a heel. I am constantly down on that guy, but his heel work as a crazy person with an imaginary friend that wore Civil War uniforms because everyone was out to get him was AMAZING. Just let him keep doing that. 

 

People love Roman Reigns because he does heel things, has heel friends, but isn't necessarily a SUPER HEEL. He's this soft spoken handsome dude whose motivations aren't really clear yet that murders dudes with spears and superman punches. Just let him keep being that- the story that fans give to Roman in their heads will always be more entertaining than the one WWE eventually assigns him...which will probably involve USA pants and a huge smile, sadly. 

 

Eventually there are times to finally turn a guy face, of course. But it takes time to let something happen organically, not just 'hey people really think Little Jimmy is funny, let's make this guy start smiling. 

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Just let him keep being that- the story that fans give to Roman in their heads will always be more entertaining than the one WWE eventually assigns him...which will probably involve USA pants and a huge smile, sadly.

 

So he's going to slam Brodus Clay and start riding around in Punk's bus which will now be called The Roman Roamer?

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I was gonna say Ted Jr, but he was never a popular anything.

 

*wah wah* trombone

 

 

While The Rock and CM Punk may be partial aversions because they maintained popularity with fans, you could argue that they both got stale very quickly as faces. It's just hard to translate smugness and arrogance to a face character.

I can't sit through two seconds of a Punk/Rock promo anymore, but both those dudes are over like rover..

 

 

the story that fans give to Roman in their heads will always be more entertaining than the one WWE eventually assigns him...which will probably involve USA pants and a huge smile, sadly.

Why did I read this and go "I want that"?

 

ps.

Post kayfabe, people treat the WWE like they treat any other show, and you're just always going to get people that would rather cheer for Joffrey than they would for Jon Snow. That doesn't mean that the Game of Thrones producers go 'oh shit Joffrey is over, send him on a babyface quest to bring Ned back from the dead.' 

This too. I already read the damn books, I wanna see all the Walders gang up and take over Westeros, Wyatt Family style.

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At least some of the time, when you turn a heel, you should make him the sort of character who does not appeal to, and perhaps actively turns off, fans who love cheering for heels.

 

Apparently WWE thinks the only kind of heel that can do that is a chickenshit heel.

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Apparently WWE thinks the only kind of heel that can do that is a chickenshit heel.

Is there an abundance of chickenshit heels in WWE that I don't know about? Their refusal to make Miz one is basically what sabotaged the last few years of his career.

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Truth should've gotten at least one PPV main event shot against Cena. Or at least temporarily replaced Del Rio in his interminable WHC merry-go-round.

 

Truth vs Cena did main event Capitol Punishment 2011

 

Yea Truth did get his one PPV main event, but it nothing memorable. Maybe Cena's weakest PPV main event.

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At least some of the time, when you turn a heel, you should make him the sort of character who does not appeal to, and perhaps actively turns off, fans who love cheering for heels.

 

Apparently WWE thinks the only kind of heel that can do that is a chickenshit heel.

Maybe you are misunderstanding me, but I am saying that when you turn a "cool" heel, sometimes that heel should become a babyface who does not appeal to fans who love cheering for heels.

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Surprised Cena hasn't been brought up more, since he was the first guy I thought of. After his face turn he became a Punk-level pandering bitch, and they slowly stripped away everything that made him cool before trying to make him The Immortal Stone Cold People's Champion John Cena, and THAT is when the crowds turned on him.

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Surprised Cena hasn't been brought up more, since he was the first guy I thought of. After his face turn he became a Punk-level pandering bitch, and they slowly stripped away everything that made him cool before trying to make him The Immortal Stone Cold People's Champion John Cena, and THAT is when the crowds turned on him.

This is good and true. I do think that of all the WWE superstars that John Cena's gimmick is the closest to his actual personality.

- RAF

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