No one in wrestling gets "real" heat anymore. If anyone is a good heel, the crowd just cheers them. The only heat that seems to work is if a wrestler sucks. Kayfabe is dead & everyone has Twitter accounts. Hard to hate someone when you know they're doing Make-A-Wish, etc. when away from the camera.

WWE is not set up to incentivize heels, nor has it ever really been. You need someone so dedicated to their craft that they are willing to make less money to be hated. That's a tough sell. I always thought an easy compromise would be for the heel to get the lion's share of the PPV/gate payoff for the match itself, with the understanding that the babyface is better positioned to make money off of merchandise and the heel is making those sacrifices to sell the match.

WWE is not set up to incentivize heels, nor has it ever really been. You need someone so dedicated to their craft that they are willing to make less money to be hated. That's a tough sell. I always thought an easy compromise would be for the heel to get the lion's share of the PPV/gate payoff for the match itself, with the understanding that the babyface is better positioned to make money off of merchandise and the heel is making those sacrifices to sell the match.

This is very true. Because the way things are set up, so many of the heels now undermine themselves by playing to the fans' preference. This in addition to the way they have promoted heels like DX or the nWo as being cooler than cool in their time, and it is pushing modern wrestling further and further away from the old fashioned pure heels. However the other problem is that fans are going to cheer whatever they want. So it is like if there is a decidedly heelish aspect to someone's character but people think its cool so they cheer it when the heel does it, what can the heel do? Drop the act? It is very difficult to have cooperative crowds regardless of babyfaces being booed because it is obvious they are favored or heels that are cheered because they have some fun aspect to their character. I am thinking of people like Bad News who got cheered for doing the I got bad news for you catchphrase. Who ever imagine that stuff getting over? Im not talking about New Day though where it seems obvious they are actually pandering for cheers.

Maybe heels shouldn't do the same patterned promos and they shouldn't have catchphrases? I don't know - it seems tough. Jericho showed how a heel who is regarded as a great worker can get heat in modern times, but they had everyone copying him for a while and really ran that whole idea into the ground. Still, I'd like to think there is more than one way to do it.

Jericho showed how a heel who is regarded as a great worker can get heat in modern times, but they had everyone copying him for a while and really ran that whole idea into the ground. Still, I'd like to think there is more than one way to do it.

 

Yeah, for all of the criticism Jericho gets now, he may have been the last great heel. He refused to have merchandise during his heel run, which is really old school and dedicated - and like you said, a bunch of copycats sprung out of Jericho's last big heel run. Hell, Miz's whole character, mannerisms, and cadence during that time were a cosplay of short-haired, suit-wearing heel Jericho.

They totally killed Jack Swagger dead in his tracks when they suddenly decided to take him from a goofy red white and blue wearing Kurt Angle clone into a super serious suit wearing Chris Jericho clone when he won the World Title.

I think Kevin Owens is a pretty good heel too actually. Does he do anything cool or babyface-ish? I can't remember. I don't think being a John Cena foil disqualifies him from the list. It isn't his fault Cena is so polarizing.

Zack Sabre Jr. is not coming back to NOAH. There's some speculation he's going to NXT, specially after he was featured in the WWE.com piece.

As much as I enjoyed the bulk of the Cesaro/Reigns bout, that pre-match promo from Reigns was the shits. Brought me right back to his hype promo for the HIAC match with Wyatt actually. They pretty much trotted Roman out there to make all the same mistakes all over again. Second verse, same as the first.

 

He was just basically stating facts and telling the story - scene by scene - of what had happened since the HIAC event. It was fucking terrible as an "interview." Why don't they just use a video package in place of this shit? Why do the only Roman interviews consist entirely of him telling a live audience about things they've already seen? There's no spin and zero personality put into any of it. It's fucking awful for ANYBODY - let alone a guy that's being branded as the next top star.

 

If it's a case of them not fully trusting him to go out there and put a little life into his own story - in his own words - then that's a surefire sign that he isn't ready. I guess I just don't understand the thought process behind that approach with the guy.

Vince likes the guy and is who Vince wants to see on top. There is nothing more complex than that. It is baffling that a publicly traded company is the vanity project for a senile neo-facist, but that's WWE for you.

thing is, reigns has been great in more organic TV settings so the ability is there. just vince being vince

the craziest thing about Vince is that he keeps making the same mistakes over and over decades after the fact even when he has shown self-awareness that he made those mistakes in the first place.

 

like he'll admit to nearly missing the boat on Austin, or trying too hard to get Rocky over as a face or whatever *while he's doing the same thing with current wrestlers*

I agree with whoever said before somewhere on this board that Vince just doesn't like his current talent. I think it is why he is making mistakes now because he really does not believe in anyone and so he thinks he has to force the hand in getting whoever he dislikes the least into stars...or as much of a star as he thinks is possible for all those guys with such low ceilings in his eyes.

It is baffling that a publicly traded company is the vanity project for a senile neo-facist, but that's WWE for you.

 

This is the case for many, many publicly traded companies.

 

Re: "Vince doesn't like the current roster" which was my midsummer talking point of choice: a lot of it has to be his age. He's 70 years old - what does he have to talk about with Tyler Breeze and Sasha Banks? He already lived in a complete wrestling bubble back in the 80s when he was the same age as the roster (or younger). He's openly resentful of "millennials" because that's the word that the Wall Street Journal uses to describe that thing that he hates: his mortality and increasing lack of relevance.