I’ve been thinking about the traditional heel/face (bad guy/good guy) dichotomy in pro wrestling for some time now. It’s interesting because it tends to be rare that a truly popular face, one the crowds will cheer like mad, starts out a face and then remains a face until they are a megastar. There are a few who did it that way (Ricky Steamboat and Rey Mysterio being the most notable). But more common is for a wrestler who is not over with the crowds to spend some time as a heel and build up a following in that manner.
There are reasons, of course. The hardcore fans love a good heel because then they can cheer for the guy all the little kids boo. (This has never been more true than when the company is headed up by a truly over face in their prime, a la Hulk Hogan or John Cena.) Heels get to be snarky and clever and sarcastic. Heels drive storylines – faces, like superheroes in comic books, are reactive elements in the story rather than proactive. Heels get to cheat, and cheating is the easiest and most satisfying way to get a crowd reaction. And if you’re a good wrestler at all – if you understand the skill of making moves look realistic, both on the giving and receiving end, and if you understand how to pace and build a match – in many ways you get more opportunities to build your craft as a heel. Thus, a very common progression for most wrestlers is to vary between the two – spend time as a heel, then time as a face, and revert back and so forth.
But the real reason most wrestlers who build a following start doing it when they’re heels because faces are the people the fans want to cheer, and it’s not easy at all to tell a crowd to cheer somebody. The Rock, Randy Orton, and John Cena (just to name a few) all started out as basically vanilla faces that the WWF/WWE tried to get the fans to cheer, and all failed miserably to draw a reaction until they were converted into heels.
But the WWE’s current problem in this regard started with Steve Austin back in 1996 or 1997, because Steve Austin was over as a heel and then was converted into a face – except he wasn’t. He was a heel who happened to get cheers and who continued to act like a heel: he would cheerfully cheat and swear and be a bad person generally and this was all sort of awesome. But then the Rock started doing the same thing, because he was mega-over as a heel and it just sort of stuck.
And on some level this is understandable, because if you get over as a heel doing a specific thing, you’re not going to want to mess with that just because you’ve become so popular that now you have to be a face by default. But now it often seems like the WWE’s top faces are just heels who happen to get cheers rather than boos. CM Punk, for example, is still basically a dickhead. Randy Orton just beats people up for the hell of it. And John Cena, who is supposed to be the WWE equivalent of Superman, now seems to spend more time beating up and humilating non-wrestlers in a distinctly creepy way than beating up baddie wrestlers.
It’s a problem, because wrestlers have to come up with new ways to get boos and if it is suddenly cool for the good guys to beat up and humiliate or emasculate helpless people, then they need to up their ante. (Daniel Bryan was on the verge of turning face by default but seems to have pulled back from that by maxing out his dickishness to an amazing degree.) But this leads me to wonder: is there something faces can do to proactively get cheers?
The only thing I can think of is the rescue. Fans always mark out for one face coming to rescue another, probably because it hits that six-year-old inside of us (or, in the case of Cena kids – and admit it, even if you don’t like Cena, Cena kids are awesome – outside of us) who wants Batman to show up whenever Luthor is menacing Superman with Kryptonite and beat Luthor up Bat-style. But is there anything else? I am genuinely stumped here.
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Be funny? That’s what got 2 Cool and Rikishi over, and that strongly contributed to getting the Rock over.
I was going to say, being a funny guy helps (look at Colt Cabana). And Zack Ryder’s face turn wasn’t just buoyed by his YouTube/Twitter interactions – the core of it was, he’s just as big of a wrestling fan as the rest of us.
I’m not an avid wrestling fan myself, but is there anything tangible gained by being a belt holder? Like, you get to do model shoots or dictate who gets to use a certain ring or anything? Because if winning conferred some kind of authority and/or privilege, then audiences would probably be more interested in decent and/or nice guys holding the title, even if they aren’t famous crowd pleasers.
I’m sure this storyline would never happen — but what if you had two gay wrestling fans who wanted to get married in the ring and the current heel title holder was super homophobic and said fuck no. And then a face takes up the couple’s cause and fights his way to the title and wins it. Then you have a wedding episode and heel tries to sabotage it, but then some famous old-school face stops him and drags him out to the ring and the couple seals their vows by hitting him with folding chairs.
I think the character the wrestler is playing matters immensely in how an audience reacts to said wrestler. Everybody loved Austin because he was (not saying this is absolutely true) representative of the normal wrestling fan. A beer-swilling, pot-bellied, foul-mouthed redneck who hated his boss. People liked The Rock because he was funny and had nifty catchphrases. Mick Foley got cheered because he was a regular guy who paid his dues for years and years, put his body on the line, and found himself on top.
It’s the biggest problem with Cena right now. Kids like Cena because he’s funny to children with his PG jokes. Nobody else likes him because he comes off as kind of a douche, the type of guy who gets a drink spilled on him at a bar, sucker punches somebody, then waves his hand in front of his face screaming “You can’t see me.”
CM Punk became a face because he represented the “smart” wrestling fan who wanted WRESTLING and was good at WRESTLING and referenced backstage stuff which the “smart” wrestling fan follows.
The best faces are wrestlers who the audience thinks they could be if only they were muscular, charismatic, etc.
Wrestlers have to be compelling in the ring and out of it. It’s a tricky balance to the action and the story.
One of my favorite face runs was the Rock & Sock Connection when the Rock and Mick Foley were a tag team. Each match of theirs followed pretty much the same outline: The Rock would start and hold his own against an opponent, Foley would tag in and do well for a while but then start to get battered and cheated while the ref would be busy holding the Rock back, Foley would keep almost tagging in the Rock until the fans couldn’t take it anymore and then finally the tag would be made, the Rock would come in and change the momentum and then they would win (or get cheated).
I can’t remember the circumstances or the opponents of their run, but I remember the thrill of hoping that this time Foley would be able tag in the Rock before he was dragged away. Most faces/heroes/protagonists are defined by their ability to overcome great odds. A face who won’t sell a match or has no real obstacles is dead in the water.
What’s interesting is that there is also an element of the face/heel drama that’s out of the fed’s hands. Austin may have become a huge face, but that essentially came down to the crowd forcing the issue so the Fed made the move (brilliantly, with the double Hart / Austin turn). But it doesn’t always happen that way.
What’s ironic with Daniel, is that he’s so completely over at this point, but the people who are fans of him are willing to ‘play along’ and boo him. But the ‘Yes’ chants still leak out. Two weeks ago he thoroughly beat Kane with a chair on Friday night, and with each and every whack the crown chanted ‘Yes!’. That’s despite the fed having him dial it back.
So it will be interesting to see what becomes of it.
The key to being an effective face is to seem to be above the crowd, but still part of it. Rock was an expert at having the crowd in the palm of his hand, they completely idolized him and were just waiting to be able to show how much they loved him (or hated him). Whether it was chanting his name, echoing back ‘and MILLIONS!’ or screaming ‘Rocky Sucks’ when he was a heel. He worked a crowd as few have before, or since.
I used to be a huge wrestling fan, I’m now mostly on the outskirts for various reasons (Benoit being a big one), but I admit Punk and Brian have sort of pulled me back in to the point that I TiVo the main shows on Saturday and skim them for the ‘good’ parts.
As an avid wrestling fan, my simple answer is thus:
Heels are cool because they HAVE to be good. If you can’t make the audience think you’re a danger to the face, make the audience think that you could make them tap or pin them, if you can’t be more charismatic, if there’s nothing to fear, you might as well just be a babyface jobber. But if you’re Dolph Ziggler, a charismatic juggernaut of selling ability, you get in good graces. If you’re Daniel Bryan, the best technical wrestler working today, you get over.
That isn’t true for EVERY wrestler. Some guys do so well as heels that the crowd refuses to cheer for them out of respect. Chuck Taylor of independent fame is a good example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wsbibukjh4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r49nndUNiTY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOOM1Urnneo
The crowd loves to hate him, so he’ll probably never be a face.
The best faces are wrestlers who the audience thinks they could be if only they were muscular, charismatic, etc.
I think this is pretty close to the point – the audience must be able to relate to the face. For example, Dusty Rhodes was the working man (go check out his “Hard Times” promo, where he seamlessly moves from unemployment and the loss of manufacturing in America to his broken leg at the hands of Flair and the Horsemen), Steamboat was traditional family values to Flair’s excessive consumption, Kurt Angles Superpatriot shtick suddenly being taken seriously post-9/11, etc, etc.
There are a few exceptions – but with exception of comedy guys, they are few and far between and tend to rely on either personal charisma or sheer badassery (such as The Rock and Brock Lesnar respectively).
I agree with all of this,but I’d add that they have a similar problem with the heels too. They all seem to be the same cowardly douchebag type. It’s a valid archetype,but there’s no variations. They have an occasional monster (Mark Henry, Kane, but they tend to vanish after they encounter resident dragonslayer Cena.
They really need a HHH/Shane Douglas type to dominate the league for a year. It would make things so much more interesting.
The only wrestler I can think of who started as a face and never went heel while still maintaining a wild degree of popularity other than those already mentioned is the Ultimate Warrior. He, uh, might be something of a special case, though.
Warrior worked as a face because he was pro-active and a fully established character right out the gate; in most cases it’s easier to establish a character and motivation for that character as a hell, because heels have a chance to explore their characters and do that redemption thing that makes people want to cheer for them. Warrior worked around this by being a raving lunatic and telling people (at length) what he was about, though it could be argued that his explanations made no sense.
Goldberg did a similar job of getting himself over by being pro-active and mysterious. His motivations were never clear beyond the idea that he destroyed whatever was in the ring with him, and people sometimes enjoy the idea of a force of nature striking down heels (sort of a Wrath of God concept). He did turn heel, though, which was more WCW being WCW than an actual necessity, and not really working anyway.
What I’m trying to get across is that wrestlers can get over as pro-active faces by being booked strong against heels and sticking to a force of nature persona and developing it on the fly, but sticking to that development.
Another option – and one I’ve never seen done – would be to take the “Ryu from Street Fighter” archetype. Have a guy breaking in that is skilled but humble, and all he wants to do is be the best. He’s not fighting his opponents, really, but fighting himself and his own weaknesses.
@NCallahan, it was established during the Smackdown Six era that being a title holder gets you more money. They ran an angle where this terrible trailer trash couple (Jaime Noble and Nidia) were together and poor and then Jaime won the Cruiserweight Title and suddenly they could afford a new trailer and food. It kinda turned them face, because while they still cheated, their motivations for doing so were completely understandable in a way that doesn’t often happen (see Big Show’s recent hissy fit as an example of how to not do this story).
@Adam Farrar, that style of tag wrestling was developed back in the 80s by a team called the Rock n’Roll Express. Foley was playing the role of Ricky Morton, who spent most of his career getting destroyed and then not quite making the tag to his partner until he finally did, at which point the entire arena would erupt. A lot of tag matches use that formula.
@T.Shock , I’ve always thought the problem with Cena is that he fails to be the good guy he claims to be and puts on a persona. Kids like the persona because they haven’t figured themselves out yet and so pretend is okay, but teens hate it because they haven’t figured themselves out yet, put on a persona, and feel weird when it’s pointed out, which Cena does by being Super Homey. Adults don’t like him because he claims to be a super good human being and then acts like a dick, then grins and thinks that’s okay. He’s a walking hypocrite too much of the time and everyone treats him like he’s supposed to be the good guy. It’s annoying.
It’s deceptively simple, but the best answer really is fight a heel, especially if nobody else can/will.
I mean, remember how Sheamus turned face? Three words, when Mark Henry’s destruction spree was at its height and he was in the ring bellowing about how nobody was even man enough to get in the ring.
“I’ll fight ‘im!”
Funny is a big thing. Santino gets some of the biggest face reactions. He is able to do the other face stuff too, he’s sympathetic because he’s often getting beat up as he isn’t ‘better’ than other people. Ryder is in a similar boat. They have the underdog thing combined with humor, and that is a very good combination.
One of the big heel/face divisions is your desire to fight. Something that you will often see heels do, AND they will often get booed for doing: Refusing to fight. With a bunch of new people doing jobber squashes recently, Damien Sandow debut’ed and after doing his “talk down to the audience” thing, he declared his opponent was unworthy, and then walked out. So he’s getting good heel reactions, with Tensai, who just beats people up, doesn’t really get any.
A lot of it comes down to interaction. If someone is really over as a heel, you can get a face reaction by fighting them. For example, Cena is now dealing with Johnny Ace, who is so over as a heel, that he’s getting less of a heel reaction. Similarly, by having Daniel Bryan fight CM Punk, his face pops are muted a bit. If you put D-Bry against Cena, the ‘heel we like’ vs. the ‘face we hate’ could lead to a Bret/Austin situation.
Being an underdog is a good way to be a face, but it has the drawback of having a limited shelf life. Win too often, and you become like Cena. You can’t really BE an underdog when you are the most dominant person on the roster. On the other hand, if you lose ALL the time, there is a risk that people will just stop caring about you.
At the same time, while it’s fun to cheer for the underdog, especially when it seems like they could win the big one (i.e. Santino at the end of the Rumble before Del Rio beat him), there is also the desire to get on the bandwagon of someone that wins all the time. [Goldberg is the extreme example, but some guys like Brock Lesnar, and maybe even Rybak can, eventually, get support]. The latter is hard to maintain … if you have an undefeated streak, one loss, or even a BS ending to a match, can be enough to break the momentum, but at the same time, they can quickly wear out their welcome when you know they are just going to win all the time. You need them to move up the roster slowly, so it does seem like progress is being made, but doing it too fast can be problematic (i.e. Tensai beats Punk and Cena within a month of getting back … no one cares).
Another thing that can work, at least short term, for a face, is being abused by a heel. Ricardo gets huge face reactions when he has wrestled or gotten time to shine without Del Rio. Part of it is because he’s very funny and charismatic, but also because he’s Del Rio’s butt monkey. When Alex Riley broke free of the Miz, he was very over, but it didn’t really carry over to his post-Miz career. During Legacy, whenever it seemed like Cody or Ted would get sick or Orton’s BS and turn on him, there were huge pops. It’s something that has to be done the right way, with Batista’s split from Evolution being one of the better examples.
I think the paradigm shifted once and for all with Austin. Before 1997, it was about how you acted that made you a face. After ’97, it was purely a question of whether the fans cheered for you. WWF spent the whole year basically letting Canadian fans cheer Bret and American fans cheer Austin, and once they let the fans decide who the good guy was, they ceded control.
The only hard line in the sand is that faces team up with other faces, and heels team up with other heels. That’s why rescues still win over a crowd, because it emphasizes babyface solidarity. They’re all stand up guys who respect each other, regardless of their personal differences. It’s also why betrayals always cement a heel turn so well.
I think this is the main reason you see all the big names in wrestling flip back and forth. It’s all subjective these days, so it’s become a rite of passage for a wrestler to play both roles. Sheamus is a good example. When he was evil he was destroying guys in the ring and bragging about ending careers. As a good guy, he’s everybody’s tough Irish drinking buddy. If he only stuck to one role, he come across as two-dimensional, but by being both face and heel, he can present a fully realized character: a jovial Irishman with a mean streak.
Generating face heat proactively isn’t too difficult, I think. Funkasaurus is a perfect storm of face heat, because he combines comedy with sexy valets with in-ring dominance. Even the most jaded fan wants to cheer for a winner, someone who gets the girl or kicks everybody’s ass or always gets the last word.
Winning a lot of matches seems to USUALLY work, unless the fans feel the guy is being shoved down their throats.
Goldberg, for instance.
What about championing a cause? Start with someone taking up the mantle of a ‘safe’ cause that most people can get behind. Protect the Weak, or Animal Rights, or Education. It may have to be a more specific cause that is targeted at their particular fan base, but when a guy that represents a basic belief that you have gets in a fight you tend to want him to win.
From there, introduce characters that represent the more political or polarizing topics. Gay rights would be hard to sell, but someone whose out of the ring behavior says ‘public health care’ or ‘global warming is BS’, then you have characters that some fans want to support or agree with and others hate but either way they want to watch.
I think the trick is to not become a parody of your own cause. Be a regular guy in the ring but subtly gain publicity for being pro-gun rights or whatever at events or wear NRA shirts in post-match interviews or whatever. Then you can create characters that gain an audience and are a face to some and heel to others.
That sorta happened with Rikishi’s first solo run (as Fatu). Didn’t Make a Difference, and he ended up repackaged as the Sultan.
And these days, championing a cause/movement seems to be more of a heelish thing to do (see: Punk and Bryan).
Squashes can work with either a face or a heel, but it’s not a slam dunk. Mark Henry got over recently by squashing mid-carders. Ryback seems to be getting over squashing jobbers. And Tensai… would’ve been better off coming back as Albert.
A number of people in here have already noted that winning a lot can put anyone over, until it feels like they’re being shoved down your throat. The question is how to judge that accurately, because fans are…well, they’re terrible judges of their own behavior. The individual fan can tell you how they feel about John Cena and how he should be handled. If you then ask 10 more fans of the same age, you will usually get 8 different answers, so now you have 9 different opinions about how to fix the Cena Problem.
This isn’t a specific problem to wrestling, it’s an issue with any kind of continuous entertainment (even if said continuity is only a movie sequel or two). There’s what the fans think they want, what they really want, and what you can deliver. You have to merge 1 and 2 and then match it as best you can to 3. This is all while knowing that 1 is part illusion, 2 is never fully stated, and 3 is always changing.
@NCallahan: I’m not a big wrestling fan, either, but I would enjoy the hell out of what you propose up there.
@Dan: Well,they’ve sort of done that.CM Punk is famously a Straight Edger, and Daniel Bryan is a vegan. But it’s wrestling. If they reveal an aspect like that to their personality, it’s probally going to be exaggerated and mocked at some point.It’s the nature of the beast.
Controversial opinion as to The Dwayne’s enduring popularity, circa 1997-1998 (that an older white gentleman from Savannah, Georgia told me during a match at the Civic Center):”That Rocky Maivia, he’s a half black Canadian, half Samoan that don’t ack black or Canadian or Samoan. It’s a total mindfuck.”
As much as I love watching The Rock perform, that fan’s opinion has stuck with me for over a decade (mainly due to the fact that Southern fans didn’t really begin to pull away from WCW until the Fingerpoke of Doom.) Even now, in recollection, I’m shocked that a white 80-something year old Southern man would have anything *positive* to say about a character like 90’s era Rock. I mean, he was still in the “Nation of Domination” at that point.