What makes a good heel?
By Scott Keith on October 11, 2012
So I’ve debated this with several people and would like to get your thoughts. What makes a good heel? Is it as simple as pissing people off? Time and time again I hear people say how great Vicki Guerrero is. However, there is nobody that makes me hit fast forward on the DVR quicker. I suppose you could call it X-Pac heat. Is that bad, or is the only thing important that you get a negative reaction?
In my opinion a good heel is someone that makes you want to pay money to see them get their ass kicked. With Vicki, you don’t have this except on occasions where she feuds with a diva. If she is harassing a male wrestler, it is pointless, especially with no male on female violence allowed. So you are left with things like having her dance like Elaine. Then we have the “Cool” heel. I would say Hall and Nash were the epitome of this. You can’t say people didn’t pay money to see them. However, in the long run they ended up making WCW look like losers. That leads me to my second point, a good heel makes themselves look bad to make their opponent come out more popular. I’ve heard it referred to as Showing Ass. Hall and Nash would lose to Lugar and Sting or the Steiners, but they never made themselves look bad. The next night they would come out like it was no big deal. Compare this to the Brain getting put in a weasel suit and selling it to the point of chasing his tail. Thoughts?
Vickie has cooled off a LOT. People boo her reflexively now, but she hasn't added anything to the Dolph Ziggler package for many months and he'd be 1000% better off without her. Her peak as a heel was obviously the Smackdown GM run with Edge, where she was in an unwarranted position of power and did a really effective job as someone who deserved to be taken down a few pegs. Now she's just this annoying person who does nothing, which is like the Mr. Fuji managing method.
And yes, showing some ass is definitely a good thing, although WWE has gone so far over the top with it that no heels can get heat anymore. Ted Dibiase was probably the best template for what a good upper level heel should be — he talked a big game and looked like a threat to the main guys, but generally lost the big match when it came down to it because he was too arrogant for his own good. And the loss would upset him so much that he'd plot and scheme against his next babyface opponent. All good stuff.
The other alternative is of course the Monster Heel, the guy who never shows ass and keeps winning until one babyface finally is able to stop him, at which point he rockets down the card again so the next guy can have a turn. If they don't actually ever lose, then it's a Road Warriors situation where fans just turn them babyface, kind of defeating the purpose. The Monster Heel was of course the status quo during the Hogan era, but it's harder to pull off now because the product features the same few guys in a rotation and they don't want to break from the 50/50 booking patterns to let someone be that kind of dominant guy.
I think that it's tough to say that there's one "good" kind of heel, just like there's more than one good babyface type. It's fine to have cool heels, but eventually someone's gotta teach them a lesson. Obviously that's where Punk is headed.
Comments are disable in preview.