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OCTOBER 2015 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


RIPPA

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A heel can "get heat" (elicit negative emotions from the crowd that express themselves via booing, hurling insults/debris/weapons, charging the ring, etc.by his/her actions, personality or words) or "have heat" (be in a state of active crowd disapproval by previous actions or current angles/booking). Thus, the heel on top portion of a match is referred to at the "heat segment". A babyface get "get his/her shine" by reversing the heel or in the comeback segment, but there is no such thing as "having shine".

I witnessed a local top baby go over a match with Greg Valentine once in the locker room. GV nodded his head a few times at the youngster's ideas, but as soon as the lad walked away, The Hammer turned to the promoter and said "What the f*ck is babyface heat?". The promoter was flummoxed and nonplussed. 

Wrestlespeak is very subtle in its usage. It appears simplistic since several terms refer to disparate things, but that just makes proper usage important, and indeed can identify a greenhorn to a vet.

- RAF

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As an addendum to my previous thoughts about heels/faces in this Modern Age, I wonder why people have less emotional attachment to wrestlers but people still have emotional ties to sports teams. Perhaps because a team is forever, but wrestlers age and fade away? Folks still root for their home team, not usually the one they think is "best". 

Related: go to a wrestling show with a child and you will see true interaction and involvement. We all used to be like that - what happened? I learned long ago to sit in the section with the kids (and handicapped folks) because it's hard not to get swept up with them. Just keep kay fabe and you will have a great time.

- y'know, for the kids,

RAF

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Lets look at the "hero" types that the fans have picked since WCW died shall we -

RVD - Could have been champ in 2001 but was never stable enough outside the ring to be champ.

Orton - Flopped as a 'face' after we cheered the heel douche.

Benoit - Uhhhh...

Eddie - Heartbreaking story. Couldnt handle the pressure thrust upon him and his heart gave out despite beating his demons.

Cena - Became the new corporate champ.

Batista - Went from heel to face every 6 months.

Edge - Always injured at the wrong time.

Ziggler - Took too long to pull the tigger then neutered him.

Punk - Was never happy being 1b. Walked away because he couldnt be Cena.

Bryan - Injured and clearly no regard for his own safety.

Zayn - Just started but already seems to be injury prone.

The is definately an element of blame that needs to go with the booking team, creative, Vince etc but we as fans dont exactly have the best track record when it comes to picking "our" guys.

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In case you were wondering about Terry Funk recently.  Yep still crazy and awesome.  A brief clip of him last night at AIW Wrestling:

 

 

All I can say is God bless Terry Funk. I'm proud to say that I got to drink a beer with Terry Funk once. One thing off of the bucket list.

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Lets look at the "hero" types that the fans have picked since WCW died shall we...

RVD - Could have been champ in 2001 but was never stable enough outside the ring to be champ.

Orton - Flopped as a 'face' after we cheered the heel douche.

Cena - Became the new corporate champ.

Punk - Was never happy being 1b. Walked away because he couldnt be Cena.

The is definately an element of blame that needs to go with the booking team, creative, Vince etc but we as fans dont exactly have the best track record when it comes to picking "our" guys.

 

Even with the track record of the fans', though, there has to be a separation between things that are bad luck and which are our stupidity.

 

A lot of the people who became injury prone in WWE (Zayn, Bryan, Edge are hard to hold against the fans- especially since injury issues are harder to predict than you'd think. Keep in mind for injury-prone natures, Batista was as injury prone in 2002-06 as any of those names when he was the enforcer of Evolution, but when he became a top guy he also happened to get more durable with time. 

 

Likewise, some of those are things no one could have expected (no one could have fathomed what happened to Benoit or Eddie- and only how monstrous the story of Benoit was is a black mark there.) 

 

The biggest problem are the ones who the fans chose as their hero who we can, even in retrospect, see that we were absolutely idiots in picking even at the time and demanded. The best example there being Rob Van Dam- even though he was talented enough to watch and insanely over in 2001, it always needed to be said that it also boiled down to "Wait, you're telling me that the guy who talks all about how much he loves smoking marijuana in his promos, puts how much he loves smoking marijuana in his tagline of RVD 4:20, and generally draws most of his character as a performer from how much he loves to smoke marijuana...would eventually become the World Champion, and then make the title look bad when he's champion by being busted by police after being caught possessing marijuana that he intended to smoke? NO ONE could have predicted that would happen..."

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It's odd that RAW doesn't really leverage the fact that it's live programming and thus people should still be making sure to tune in to see it unfold. Hell, if you missed the first two hours, they'll recap everything important at the top of the third hour. They should really tinker with the format so that the announcers only allude to what people missed in the first hour or two rather than just giving it away. It might be wiser for them to edit the video clips of RAW and Smackdown (assuming Smackdown moves to USA and becomes a live show) that they put online so that they don't give as much away also.

 

This has been one of the biggest problems with WWE programming for years. Nothing is must-see when everything gets replayed and recapped to death. Has anyone ever clocked the amount of time wasted on that kind of stuff during a given RAW?

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Batista - Went from heel to face every 6 months.

 

Not really. I mean he turned twice during his main run - face on HHH and heel on Mysterio.

 

They brought him back as a babyface and it didn't work because of Daniel Bryan, but let's not hold that against him.

 

 

Never!  Heel Batista >>>>>>>>>>>>> face Batista.

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The way I look at it there's a segment of the audience who appreciates good work, regardless of whether they are a heel or face. When someone like Sasha or New Day are bringing it, they will start getting cheers for their heel tactics.

For some reason this audience hasn't realized the way to appreciate a heel is by booing them out of the building.

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Well I think a major reason entertaining heels are being cheered more is due to a lack of good babyfaces. Sasha got booed plenty when she heeled on Bayley, but is anyone going to care if she attacks Charlotte or Paige on the main roster? There's no likeable entertaining faces to balance things. New Day has 10 times the personality of most of the people they go up against. They made Cena feel ancient when they were clowning him, and Cena was standing there like get off my lawn New Day. Of course these acts are going to be cheered over bland babyfaces.

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Arguably, heels should not be entertaing enough for fans to want to cheer them.

 

But that really does tie into the overarching problem: Heels SHOULDN'T be entertaining enough for fans to want to cheer them- but in the modern era, all fans- no matter how hardcore or casual you are- have become intelligent enough about pro wrestling so that they can appreciate and respect the talent it takes to be a good heel, and forgot somewhere along the way that boos are the heels' cheers. 

 

As a result, you have the big problem: Heels shouldn't be entertaining enough for fans to want to cheer them...but the only heels who are sufficiently NOT entertaining enough for fans to want to cheer them...and thus, can actually get heel heat...are the ones who are so inept at their job that they become impossible to respect as a performer. 

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It really bothers me that heels don't wrestle like heels. Cheating, choking,old school eyes rakes on ring ropes and boot laces etc.

It bothers me that things like eye pokes choking and back rakes are more likely to result in people ironically cheering than reacting viscerally.

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It really bothers me that heels don't wrestle like heels. Cheating, choking,old school eyes rakes on ring ropes and boot laces etc.

 

I've noticed more eye pokes recently, most notably with Kevin Owens winning the IC title from Ryback due to an eye poke and Sasha Banks scoring a fall in the Iron Man match due to an eye poke.

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It's odd that RAW doesn't really leverage the fact that it's live programming and thus people should still be making sure to tune in to see it unfold. Hell, if you missed the first two hours, they'll recap everything important at the top of the third hour. They should really tinker with the format so that the announcers only allude to what people missed in the first hour or two rather than just giving it away. It might be wiser for them to edit the video clips of RAW and Smackdown (assuming Smackdown moves to USA and becomes a live show) that they put online so that they don't give as much away also.

 

This has been one of the biggest problems with WWE programming for years. Nothing is must-see when everything gets replayed and recapped to death. Has anyone ever clocked the amount of time wasted on that kind of stuff during a given RAW?

 

I've often thought in one of those pie-in-the-sky moments that I would market WWE's two big shows as Must-DVR TV and refuse to replay any big angles/moves/moments: "You missed Raw? Well, you missed something important!"  Make it so fans are worried about missing the show, be vigilant about keeping stuff off of Youtube etc. etc. etc.

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Why does it matter if Raw is most dvr or not. anyone can set Raw to be recorded every week then not watch it live, then read a review see if there is anything worth catching if not delete if so watch just that part and never see anything. if your an advertiser why would you put money in that?

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It's odd that RAW doesn't really leverage the fact that it's live programming and thus people should still be making sure to tune in to see it unfold. Hell, if you missed the first two hours, they'll recap everything important at the top of the third hour. They should really tinker with the format so that the announcers only allude to what people missed in the first hour or two rather than just giving it away. It might be wiser for them to edit the video clips of RAW and Smackdown (assuming Smackdown moves to USA and becomes a live show) that they put online so that they don't give as much away also.

 

This has been one of the biggest problems with WWE programming for years. Nothing is must-see when everything gets replayed and recapped to death. Has anyone ever clocked the amount of time wasted on that kind of stuff during a given RAW?

 

I've often thought in one of those pie-in-the-sky moments that I would market WWE's two big shows as Must-DVR TV and refuse to replay any big angles/moves/moments: "You missed Raw? Well, you missed something important!"  Make it so fans are worried about missing the show, be vigilant about keeping stuff off of Youtube etc. etc. etc.

 

 

I don't think that will work. If your show is good, people won't be able to get enough of it. They won't be satisfied with 2 minute Youtube clips.

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