Jim Ross goes off on the status of heels in WWE

[TNC]

He was for sure. Heat magnet...natural hatable heel, and they fukked it up bad. He shouldve gotten a one month title reign and NEVER given him that piece of shyt "the core" leftover stable in favor of cm punk (punk shouldve stayed straight edge society...him in nexus made no sense)

Agreed. They hotshotted the Title on Sheamus around the same time and he had a failed run, why not Barrett when he was clearly the most over thing at that time period

 

[Vilified not verified]

The last great heel was JBL, I think. He never did anything to make himself look strong in the eyes of the fans and always scraped a win by cheating or the skin of his teeth.

God, I hated that nikka

I think King Booker done a great job as a heel.

 

[R=G]

Well neither of those guys are anything special either.

But it ain't just about not having any character it's about getting the fans and getting ME to believe in you. When I see Daniel Bryan out there making his case for why he should be the champ I DON'T BELIEVE HIM. I see a guy who's explosive in the ring and a guy who loves to wrestle but what I don't see is a guy who can make me believe he's the best wrestler in the WWE.

And that's your primary job as a performer, to get these people to believe in you. And you have to ask yourself do these people really BELIEVE in Daniel Bryan or do they just chant because they desire to be apart of something.

Like I said now that the journey is over and the chase is over and the the underdog angle no longer plays, it's gonna be very interesting to see where this goes. I'm not sure what else there is to cling to when it comes to that character. I don't know if he has the versatility to keep you engaged. If he's still this "over" as a babyface in 7-8 months I would be highly surprised.

Nah...those backstage after Raw promos are some of the best of the year....sorry, Brey Wyatt. This kid came from the bottom and politics and his size worked against him. He's not supposed to be here but he is because the fans put him in this position. There is no one on the roster more legitimate than he is...look at his special, the Austin podcast interview where he sounds 100% than that fake bullshyt spin Cena was spinning about his Rumble match reaction with Blandy....people are hating on Bryan RIGHT NOW because he got too big and exceeded what they thought he would amount to. You got trolls acting like Cripple H got him here...saying he was Kliq'd up but those same clowns were CM GAWD THIS AND CM GAWD THAT until that dirty looking fool quit on them and their rambling and words amounted to nothing as usual.

Bryan isn't on Raw? Crowd is damn near dead. That's the facts that count now. Cripple H is a super heel but the crowd gave no fukks about little Evolution....all that "swagger and character"...all that bullshyt? Didn't mean a motherfukking thing....again.

 

[Love Sosa]

I agree to an extent. Brock Lesnar does not need to be a cowardly heel by any means

 

[Rack4K]

Well neither of those guys are anything special either.

But it ain't just about not having any character it's about getting the fans and getting ME to believe in you. When I see Daniel Bryan out there making his case for why he should be the champ I DON'T BELIEVE HIM. I see a guy who's explosive in the ring and a guy who loves to wrestle but what I don't see is a guy who can make me believe he's the best wrestler in the WWE.

And that's your primary job as a performer, to get these people to believe in you. And you have to ask yourself do these people really BELIEVE in Daniel Bryan or do they just chant because they desire to be apart of something.

Like I said now that the journey is over and the chase is over and the the underdog angle no longer plays, it's gonna be very interesting to see where this goes. I'm not sure what else there is to cling to when it comes to that character. I don't know if he has the versatility to keep you engaged. If he's still this "over" as a babyface in 7-8 months I would be highly surprised.

All this 'I don't believe him' rhetoric seems to be your problem. There's no objective evidence to support any of it.

Your first stance was 'if you take away the Yes chants, he has no character', which for the past year or so would be considered false. I don't know why his underdog character during his Authority angle is considered 'no character' to you but to be fair to you, that angle seems to be over. Regardless though, it was a character and a successful one.

Maybe you think he won't have much of a character going into the future, or you think his current underdog character doesn't have longevity. Fine. Say that. But verified history doesn't support your opinion; he's had successful characters that didn't rely on the yes chant in the past (his run with Kane) so your opinion doesn't have as much to stand on as you probably think.

 

[Da King]

JR is right, it's corny ass smark crowds that ruined the product by trying to be cool and always cheering for heels


So the wwe reacted and started creating these grey area heels, aka no drawing heels

 

[Da King]

Plus if there's anything we've learned it's that these fukkin idiot fans will chant anything.

ANYTHING.

Doesn't matter who you are. You could cut a promo about fukking Daniel Bryan's mother in the ass with a steel pipe and as long as you could find a way to get the fans involved, as long as you make them feel like they're apart of the show... you will get over. You see because fans no longer demand creativity and innovation from their wrestling superstars. They no longer want someone to put their faith in and believe in. Like HHH and Steph said in that promo, fans don't want to put in the work. They just wanna latch on and chant shyt.

And sadly the audiences have conditioned these wrestlers to think that the only way to get over is to get a chant going. So none of these guys feel they need to push the boundaries anymore and give us anything innovative or fresh. They just go out there and concoct methods to encourage some type of fan reaction. I still maintain to this day that Daniel Bryan isn't over. It's his CHANT that's over.

These dumb muthafukkin fans were actually chanting "WE THE PEOPLE" along with Zeb even though they knew full well the hateful and intolerant origin of the catchphrase. But because fans love to chant, because they have no other way to entertain themselves... this redneck hillbilly conservative tight ass BAD GUY manager had arenas chanting along with him in unison. It makes no sense.

JR is right. If there are heels getting positive reactions for whatever reason... then stop whatever it is that they're doing and change course. A heel's job is to get HEAT. That's it. If you're not getting HEAT then you aren't doing your job as a heel.

:shaqhaha:

 

[showtime]

Two words John Cena. When your top face is a corny sumbytch that nobody likes and wants to cheer for it messes up the entire business. Everytime someone faces Cena they instantly become one of the top faces, and the top heels are always booked against the top face. So all the top heels are being sabotaged by having to face Cena. Bray Wyatt is a great heel when he faced Bryan he got booed a week later he faces Cena and you would think he's one of the top faces in the company.

 

[Mr. Negative]

It's 2014, the "heels always cheat" shyt is hillbilly wrestling. If JR was in charge every heel would grab the tights to pin someone and cut "these people don't get it in (insert city), because they're idiots!" type promos.

Brock Lesnar shouldn't have to cheat or be a coward. Look how over any heel got in any combat sport without cheating. A good heel can be a dominant @sshole. Batista kicking DBry's ass and calling him too small to be a top guy or in the business would get a lot of heat.

yeah. JR seems to have forgotten Mark Henry's heel title run.

or, hell... Ryback's bully run.

It's nobody's fault that WWE has been scared of making legit heels out of fear of offending somebody.

 

[MercuryHayes]

I'll take Smark crowds over Universe era sitting on your hands watching wrestling like you're in a movie theater. 2008-2012 was the absolute worst.

 

[Toe Jay Simpson]

The thought of Brock Lesnar absolutely destroying Zack Ryder for 15 minutes then pulling the tights on his lifeless body for the 3 count and bailing out of the ring and hurrying backstage while he laid there unconscious



That would be some heat

 

[23Barrettcity]

Do you agree with JR?

Punk was the last real heel .

 

[jadillac]

Two words John Cena. When your top face is a corny sumbytch that nobody likes and wants to cheer for it messes up the entire business. Everytime someone faces Cena they instantly become one of the top faces, and the top heels are always booked against the top face. So all the top heels are being sabotaged by having to face Cena. Bray Wyatt is a great heel when he faced Bryan he got booed a week later he faces Cena and you would think he's one of the top faces in the company.

This is actually a good observation.

This is 2014, they can't expect a Hogan-like character in Cena to be a fan fav. People are TIRED of him and have been for over 5-6 years.....so yeah whoever goes against Cena will get massive cheerrs. Remember when Ryback got a massive ovation the night after WM 29 b/c he attacked Cena.

 

[Art Barr]

The problem with Cesaro is he shouldn't be a heel, he was no character or personality right now and his moveset is awesome, he's a natural face.

Brock is over as a heel, he was clearly the heel against Punk, got mostly booed against H, clearly the heel against taker, and will be the overwhelming heel against Bryan.

cesaro should never be a face.
only reason he is a face.
is the wwf conditioned its audience to like the heel turned face, with hulk Hogan.
then, hulk Hogan appearing as thunderlips.
to hulk Hogan reappearing after rehire to win the wwf championship over sheik.

then, later the wwf using macho as the most believeable heel in their existence.
then, turning him into a babyface.
when, real talk,...
macho should have been a heel his entire career.
plus, went over Hogan via some nefarious means as a heel to garner the champion.


wwf, has never known how to book heels effectively and their only move is to create a a heel to turn bf.
when, ideally it should be saved for certain explicit talent.
of which, imo,...
the only wwf heels turned bf, should have been the Hogan, rock, Daniel bryan, and scsa.

yet, the wwf tries the same formula to try to create a fake boom.

heels such characters like bret, hbk, hhh, jake, macho, etc.

should have stayed heels and they would have drawn more to the general public.
plus, the wwf probably would not have lost viewership or ruined boom periods as early as rock'n roll wrasslin.



art barr


art barr

 

[thenatural]

Punk did all of those things that JR mentioned and insulted the fans every week. He was still receiving babyface reactions from the crowd. There's always going to be that small, albeit vocal segment of fans who cheer heels because they appreciate their work. Listening to Heyman talk about heel work on Austin's podcast was cool to hear. I forgot about the Sandman/Tommy Dreamer story from '94. Edge was a great heel. People justifyingly clown Matt Hardy now, but that scumbag shyt Edge and Lita did was a make 'em mad special. They turned that legit hatred into money. Vince created the heel CEO angle and ran wild with it. He's one of the best of all-time.

I agree with JR in the sense that heels need to create an emotional hatred with the audience. There needs to be some personality exuded by these guys. The only way I could see how any of those physical heel characteristics are effective is if they are used on a babyface that the whole crowd connects with. Hell, if Wade Barrett pokes Daniel Bryan in the eye or holds the tights to win the WWE title, he'd be pretty over. Doing that against Ziggler or RVD isn't going to help.


I'll be honest. I don't watch a lot of indies and overseas promotions, so I have no idea if there have been any strong heels in NJPW, AAA, DG, Evolve, ROH, etc... If anybody knows of any good ones, let me know.