The real world is filled with good guys and bad guys. However the line
between good and evil is often blurred, and it can be difficult to tell
them apart, unlike the many stories we have read, watched, written,
and played out in many fictional scenarios.
You have Batman vs Joker, Superman vs Lex Luthor, Cloud vs Sephiroth,
Coon vs Mysterion, Doctor vs Daleks, the list could go on and on, but
hopefully you got the point. Wrestling is exactly the same.
In the older days it was a lot easier to define the good guys and the
bad guys, purely because people were more willing to suspend their
disbelief (Or actually thought it was real) and allow these characters
to shine. This is why wrestlers like Hulk Hogan were absolutely huge in
their day, because the character of Hogan was so good, and patriotic,
that he could get the whole world behind him. As wrestling has evolved,
fans have better access to the wrestlers personal lives, and have been
treated to excellent, athletic matches, which tend to give us a more
negative outlook on these over the top characters who may not have been
so athletic in their day.
In wrestling terms, they are called Faces and Heels.
Faces – The good guys in wrestling play to the crowd. If they
make an entrance and get no reaction, then they (or the company) are not
doing their job of getting them over. Faces get beaten up
throughout the match by the heel in order to get the crowd behind them.
Faces are more likely to taunt the crowd to get the fans behind
them, and will use high-flying moves, and avoid cheating. There are
exceptions though.
Heels – Fans often forget that a heel wrestler is doing their
job if you hate them, tell them they suck, and that the company should
fire them. The worst heel is a wrestler who the fans don’t care enough
to boo them. Heels will do anything and everything to make you boo them,
as that makes the faces look good when they beat them. Heels
are easier to portray nowadays, because all you need to do is employ
cheap heat (even if that means referencing someone who has died lately), steer away from being entertaining in the ring, and cheat as
much as possible.
In today’s wrestling, it has become easier for a wrestler to do a heel
promo then a face promo. Fans only really get behind a face if they are
1) Charismatic and 2) Technically sound in the ring. It seems that a
face really needs both, or they will get booed. This is the case with
the likes of The Rock (always cheered, but can be criticized for a lack of loyalty/ring skills) and John Cena, who we all know, finds
it difficult to get the majority of fans behind him. However, these
two wrestlers get a reaction, whether it is positive or negative, which
is better then nothing.
Heels like CM Punk and Bully Ray (just examples) are exceptional. They are praised for
their ability to play bad guys, and a lot of fans hate them,
whereas other fans enjoy their heel antics. These heels have it
difficult, because they don’t want to be praised, they want everyone to
hate them. They have to watch what they say, due to political
correctness (tot calling people homos or fags etc.) … although wrestling is
a fantasy world, and anyone taking those comments seriously … well, they should stop watching wrestling?
Positivity and negativity in wrestling doesn’t just come down to
individual wrestlers, but entire companies as well. At the moment, WWE
is having issues with older fans caring about their product, to the
point they just tune out and can’t be bothered to keep in touch,
(personally, I just can’t sit through Smackdown anymore, going to hate me now?) whereas a company like TNA brings in Hogan/Bischoff, creates
an evil stable like Aces and Eights, and people talk about it, often
referring to how “TNA sucks”.
Let me just state right now, if you are talking about TNA in any form,
whether you say you love them, hate them, or that the company is going
to die, you are advertising TNA Wrestling, and for a company that is
only ten years old, they need all the exposure they can find, so keep
hating and advertising their product to the world. Any reaction is better then no reaction.
The passion in wrestling fans is what I love to see, and some people
don’t realise how badly they have been sucked into the fantasy
world. Guys like CM Punk could have you booing him one week, and
cheering him the next, only to turn around the next week and call you
all sheep for buying into it. Bully Ray did the same thing, he was a bad
guy for so long, then he mysteriously became a face out of nowhere, and
people bought into it, making it that much sweeter when he turned again.
However the world of wrestling is no longer black and white. We have an inbetween, we have the Tweeners.
Tweeners – These wrestlers have characters who are not completely
defined as a face or a heel. They act like bad guys and fight the good
guys, but they don’t purposely try and draw heat, and can switch between
face antics (being entertaining) and heel tactics (cheating). Perfect
examples of tweeners were Daniel Bryan and Austin Aries at certain points. Daniel Bryan fought with Kane all the time (during Team Hell No), but wrestled against bad guys and told the crowd “No!”. Austin Aries entertained in the ring,
but cheated at the same time, like Eddie Guerrero use to do as a
face.
This blurred character makes for more interesting character development,
and in the past, we have seen this pulled off to perfection.
As this blog was originally written about a year ago, times have changed, and we have seen a lot of new faces. Tweeners of current times include:
-The Wyatt Family – Bray Wyatt, although he is meant to be the bad guy, has been getting in the head of the good guys (yes, Cena is meant to be a face still), but has become so entertaining, with catchphrases like … “insert city name” we’re here(!), and the song, “”He’s got the whole world in his hands”” is really over with audiences right now, so he’s not quite face, not quite heel, probably more heel then face, but ultimately ends up in a tweener position along with Erick Rowan and Luke Harper.
-The Shield – Just like the Wyatt family, this stable drew great heat in the beginning for dominating everybody, but after the fans realized just how great their chemistry was, and how great they all were individually, they started to cheer for them. Not enough was done to get the crowd firmly against this stable, and they became tweeners in a short time, and lasted as tweeners for quite some time (despite working for the full blown heels of the Authority) until they decided to turn them into faces.
-Cesaro – This guy is a phenomenon, despite being apart of a clear heel tag team with Swagger, got the crowd firmly behind him with his giant swings and athletic ability. After turning on Swagger, we assumed a face role, then he joined Heyman. Despite joining Heyman, the crowd appear confused on whether they should cheer him or boo him, because although he has sided with the most hated manager in the business, he has been really entertaining and turned on Swagger. He is in a unique situation, and is possibly the biggest tweener in the business right now.
-Bad News Barrett – Once again, a prime example of a heel trying to garner heat, but at times, ends up being so entertaining, that the crowd cheer for him instead over a clear face like Rey Mysterio. I feel like it’s down to the crowd on the night whether he works as a tweener or a full blown heel, which makes for interesting character development going forward.
-Samoa Joe – Not sure what to make of Joe right now, he was meant to be the face to the supreme heel nature of Magnus (who was getting some nice heat) but he wasn’t quite getting the crowd behind him. Whether this lead to TNA doing a complete left turn and pushing Eric Young in his place remains to be seen, but Samoa Joe was showing heel tendencies when coming face to face with EY. He was in the middle, not quite face, not quite heel, being his own man, only focusing on winning the title. I am sure he will return soon to put that straight and show his true colours.
Moving on, in history, Stone Cold Steve Austin is the greatest example of a heel who was so
entertaining, that he ended up becoming a tweener, and then suddenly
transformed into a face (while still acting like a heel) and became one
of the biggest legends to ever grace the business.
You could only see this in wrestling. Could you imagine Superman
becoming the bad guy? Or all of a sudden, they do a Star Wars movie
where Darth Vader is the good guy? It just wouldn’t make any sense.
People would be outraged and hate them for changing a formula that
works. Wrestling is a never ending fantasy world that changes the rules
as it evolves, and wrestlers come and go. This is what I love about
professional wrestling, that this fantasy world we care so much about
will always be changing. The faces, the heels, the characters, the
gimmicks, the special moments and the legendary matches, they will
always be relevant so long as wrestling remains the fantasy world that
it is.
Thanks for reading!