The Heel Report 08.31.11: Absence and Mergers

Each Week there are ten places, with points out of ten awarded based on these positions. These points are then added to a rolling chart that will continue each week to show who is wrestling’s overall top heel.

Due to the recent brand remerging of the WWE expect their superstars to appear perhaps a lot higher than the wrestlers of Impact as most will probably get the chance to appear on two shows instead of one, giving them a huge advantage. Still it’s not impossible for a heel from TNA, given enough air time and push, to headline the chart. Either way this is a place where the heels of TNA and the WWE can be praised for all the hard work they do trying to get us all to hate them, so without further ado let’s get on with the report…

Weekly Top Ten

1st Place: Christian

Despite getting his arse handed to him at the end of Raw it is hard to ignore his match with Daniel Bryan on Smackdown, not to mention his promo that put him back into the World Heavyweight title picture, at least for another week. With the recent face turns of C.M. Punk, Sheamus and possibly even DiBiase, Christian is in a prime position to become one of the company’s top heels, especially if Del Rio continues to have problems with his visa. Then again if Jericho comes back any time soon it’s all over for Captain Charisma as I honestly don’t think he could hold a candle to the man who is the best in the world at what he does.

2nd Place: Mark Henry

The World’s Strongest Man might have lost both his matches this week but being in the main event on both Smackdown and Raw get him enough points to come in second. Henry made up for his count out loss to Sheamus by slamming him on the steel steps after the match, and on Raw despite losing the match he was in no way involved in the decision. It seems like the WWE are set to put Henry in the main event but are hesitant to have him legitimately get the win over guys like Sheamus and Cena, so lord knows how he has a chance of beating Orton for the title.

3rd Place: Bully Ray

This is where the rub begins, despite having a couple of promos and winning the main event on Impact, Bully Ray just can’t get the points to succeed over guys who are appearing and wrestling twice a week. Then again it’s not like Bully Ray is a heel genius who is being robbed of his rightful place as king of the heels. To be honest I’m not sure who the top heel in wrestling is at the moment, if you look at the rolling chart you will see it is Mark Henry, but once his recent push ends I’m not so sure that he will stay there. I think it’s going to be up to the mid-card heels in the WWE and TNA to step up to fill the void, but the question is whether they will get the right booking to allow them to do that.

4th Place: Kid Kash

One guy who looked impressive in the mid-card of Impact this week was Kid Kash. Despite only just being re-signed with the company for a couple of weeks Kash looks to be a great acquisition along with Austin Aries. He had a great match with Jesse Sorensen and then cut a promo that fleshed out his character and gain him heat from the crowd. Kash may be no kid anymore but he certainly knows what he’s doing in the ring so hopefully he will continue to make waves in the X-Divison for at least the foreseeable future.

5th Place: Kevin Nash

The tool that is Kevin Nash finds himself employed by the WWE but out of the match at Night of Champions. This move makes little sense unless things have changed for the potential Punk vs. Triple H feud. Perhaps the WWE had this planned all along and Nash was just a red herring, but it seems a bit pointless if that is the case. Instead I think it’s more likely that the WWE has managed to ensure a Punk vs. Austin match at Wrestlemania and they want to build for it by feuding Punk with Triple H until then. This would be great news as Punk vs. Austin right now would be equal to Rock vs. Cena and would make this year’s Wrestlemania the must-see event that it should be. Nash gets his spot by beating down Punk, Jack-knifing him and then celebrating like the douche he is.

6th Place: The Miz

One member of the Awesome Truth that helped Nash in his attack of Punk was the man that lost to him on Raw. The Miz gave a good showing along with Punk but the crowd seemed a little bit subdued, probably due to the fact that most guys are behind both Miz and Punk at the moment and legitimately didn’t know who to cheer for, while all the little kids are still confused as to why the bad man is being cheered. Perhaps after this three man beat down Punk will actually be over with the younger fans, but I’m not so sure. It could even be that Punk needs to commit the ultimate sin and actually team up with John Cena to get the kids to actually like him, whether or not it’s worth it is something else entirely.

7th Place: Samoa Joe

The supposed Nation of Violence continues his strange storyline of destroying the Bound For Glory series competitors. Now sure the gimmick plays into Joe’s character of being a hell raiser that destroys everyone, but I don’t know where exactly TNA are going with this, and I doubt TNA do either. Either Joe succeeds in taking out all the guys in the series, negating everything that has already happened, or he doesn’t, thus negating all his own efforts as of late. Basically while the whole thing might look good in the short term it is most likely going to turn into nothing but TNA let down, unless of course Matt Morgan comes back and we get Morgan vs. Joe at Bound For Glory, which is a possibility.

8th Place: Cody Rhodes

The formerly Dashing One proves why he is good enough to get into the chart without even having a match this week. Rhodes only got a small promo before DiBiase and Orton’s match but he made the most of it and his distraction on the apron and actions after the match mean that he makes his way into eighth place on the chart. Also with a possibly rivalry with DiBiase brewing, if he is allowed a face turn, Rhodes looks set to be tided over until Orton is done with the World’s Strongest Man and will then be clear to step it up to main event level.

9th Place: Kurt Angle

The TNA heavyweight champion just barely makes it onto the chart after having a hard-fought match with Crimson in TNA’s main event. Letting Joe do his dirty work for him paints out Angle as a lazy champion in my book. Sure it’s not like he could beat Crimson legitimately because of his undefeated streak but it just seems to me like Angle is phoning it in a lot of the time recently. I expect to see more from the Olympic gold medallist when he is the champion and potentially TNA’s top heel. More awesome promos and matches required please.

10th Place: Wade Barrett

Speaking of awesome promos, this week Wade Barrett made one hell of a statement by getting into the ring to have a squash match on Smackdown and then refusing it because it was beneath him. This is a good angle for his character and sets him apart from guys like Brotus Clay who are content to waste their time against opponents who don’t even fight back and aren’t allowed to offer any kind of offense or make it an interesting match. Aside from that Barrett also managed to insult the crowd and his opponent by walking away, so good for him.

Rolling Chart:

1. Mark Henry (30)

2. Christian (21)

3. The Miz (20)

4. Alberto Del Rio (19)

5. Cody Rhodes (18)

6. Kevin Nash (15)

7. Bully Ray (14)

8. R-Truth (12)

9. Austin Aries (12)

10. Wade Barrett (10)

The Wright View

The Face-Off *Where Faces are criticised* – Mr. Anderson – Against Immortal again, never could this have been planned.

Coming back as a face again after multiple turns, it’s no wonder the guy is now being questioned as to why he is being pushed as a main eventer. Inconsistency has been the trademark of this guy’s career and while he seems quite charismatic there is only so far being a loudmouth can take you before people start to get bored. The whole ‘asshole’ thing was good for awhile but it is wearing truly thin. Anderson needs some consistency in his career before he becomes another TNA statistic.

It is a sad state of affairs when this guy was formerly in the TNA title picture and now he has no basis there. It wasn’t so long ago that the whole show was about him and how he was needed in Immortal and was taking a tweener stand against them, now look at him, he’s been accepted in, lost the title, kicked out, and now is against them again in a much more low key position. I’m not sure who is more to blame, him or TNA, either way this lack of a sustainable character arc is doing nothing by hurting the world’s biggest asshole.

Face the Facts *Where Faces are praised* – Randy Orton

Ah how the times have changed. It was only a couple of years ago that Ken Anderson was leaving the WWE and everyone was on Orton for costing him his job, and there was some legitimacy to that claim. Now however Anderson is looking like he shouldn’t have been in the WWE in the first place as he can’t seem to back up his various pushes into the main event, and Orton has been having great matches with mid-card talent and making them look good, despite their eventual losses.

Both matches with Ted DiBiase on Smackdown and Dolph Ziggler on Raw were well worked and showed both men to be worthy of their airime. His booking this week shows Orton to be a worthy champion as he is maintaining his momentum while still making his opponents look good. A champion who goes around burying everyone isn’t good for the business because eventually there will be no one left to put on great matches with, hopefully Orton and the company have realised that and this is why we are getting these nice mid-card competitive matches.

Flat-Footed *Where Heels are criticised* – Alberto Del Rio

What a bad time to have visa issues. It was first reported that Del Rio would be missing a few house shows due to an already booked vacation and would be back for this week’s Raw, but it turns out that he was waiting for a new visa and is having trouble with the paperwork, enough so that he had to miss Raw completely and will almost certainly be missing this Tuesday’s Super Smackdown as well. I bet the WWE are kicking themselves for choosing this week to move Smackdown to Tuesday nights, not that he could have made the TV taping anyway, but they could have pulled a Sin Cara-Slater and taped his match with Sin Cara before Smackdown aired, if it was in its original slot. I, like many others, am starting to think that the Sin Cara mask is cursed, will someone please give the mask to Mysterio so that he can stay gone!

It’s doubtful that this little hiccup will make the WWE take the strap off of Del Rio but it might leave a bitter taste in their mouth about letting him wear it again once he inevitably loses it to John Cena.

Flat-Footed 2 *Where Heels are criticised* – Main Show Announcers

Now I know this is kind of obvious, JR and King haven’t been good for years, Matthews is too Green, Booker T is insane and Cole is just a tool. The problem is that I think people under estimate the key role that announcers play in telling the story that is wrestling. I honestly believe that a big part in the decline of interest in the product is down to the announcers losing interest themselves.

How are fans supposed to get excited for a match or a show in general if the guys who are telling you about it clearly don’t care themselves. More often than not when a match is going on, both Raw and Smackdown’s announce team are either trying to put each other over or talking about another storyline entirely, and let’s not even go into TNA and their problems.

Take this week’s Raw, there was some good matches and yet all the announce team could think about doing was going on about Emily Post and comment on JR’s speaking ability. The whole thing just seemed retarded as it wasn’t funny and distracted from the story of the match that was going on. An announcer’s role should be to put across what is going on in the ring and highlight its implications, perhaps referring back to past events or events outside of the match that relate to its overall story.

I think the old announcers of the WWE have lost sight of this in general and we need to look to the new generation to carry on things. Clearly the best announcer on the main shows is Josh Matthews, and that’s only because the rest are just so terrible. Matt Striker has some appeal, mainly in that he is a smart guy and clearly still has some passion for the business, unlike the older guys who sound either bored or sarcastic most of the time while they are trying to put something over aside from themselves. The problem with Striker is sometimes he tries to be too original and quirky to stand out and it works to his detriment by alienating some of the fans or not making sense. Scott Stanford is just your generic sports announcer and Todd Grisham just left. The one guy I really think could have some talent is Jack Korpela, he’s new but already he seems to ‘get it’. While only getting the chance to call matches on Superstars he has put over guys well and seems to have a good head on his shoulders.

If I were to pick my own three man announce team for Raw and Smackdown it would definitely be Korpela, Striker and Regal, simply because I think they could actually have some chemistry, comedy, and actually put the wrestlers and matches over at the right time with the right amount of knowledge and enthusiasm for the business. Certainly something has to be done as in a time of waning interest, even when the WWE is getting a lot of things right, having disinterested and boring announcers is really hindering them from making any sort of comeback. A final thought would be that another Rated-R wrestler who has recently had to retire wouldn’t make a bad new edition to the announce team on either Raw or Smackdown.