The Heel Report: 12.21.11: Roode Disaster

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.

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: Cody Rhodes

Surprise, surprise it’s the only heel who managed to win the majority of his matches this week. Not only did Rhodes get a clean win on Bryan on Smackdown, proving in a roundabout way that he is better than the current World Champion, but he also smacked up his TLC opponent, Booker T, twice before their match, beat him and then went on to crush Santino on Monday Night Raw. Of course we didn’t know it at the time but Rhodes’s victory on Smackdown is a pretty big deal, sure beating an announcer and the joke that is Santino aren’t anywhere near as big, however what is significant is that he beat both of them with his speciality moves, I.e. The Beautiful Disaster and the Alabama Slam. Being able to beat an opponent with moves that are usually supposed to score a quick two-count is something to take note of, it means that he company are really trying to show Rhodes as a strong competitor, who can beat his opponents in multiple ways. Rhodes seems to be going from strength to strength and with Mark Henry out of action for at least a month and Barrett still engaged in his feud with Randy Orton, I think Rhodes might be seeing himself in the title picture in the near future.

2nd Place: Robert Roode

Guess who’s back, back again; Bobby Roode’s back, tell a friend. The most successful heel of the week besides Rhodes by far, and all in one night. First we saw him resume his Iron Man match with AJ Styles, which while the concept is stupid did serve to give Roode yet another chance to take out his former Fortune running buddy. He went the five minutes and then capitalised in extra time by locking the already injured AJ in the half-boston crab and making him submit for a sudden death victory. Then with his former challenger dealt with he moved onto the new No. 1 contender; Jeff Hardy! Yes I know, the travesty! What can I say, Robert Roode is a shinning diamond in a sea of shit. Here he pulled the old trick of sitting in on commentary for his opponent’s match and then laying him out in a post-match beat down, before then delivering a title belt shot to Sting to stop him from getting involved, finishing off the night by mocking Hardy and berating him while holding his World Heavyweight title.

3rd Place: Alberto Del Rio

Del Rio like many of the other heels who will be appearing on this list actually lost all of his matches this week, the difference is that he was like a man on fire in his triple threat, main event TLC match for the WWE title. First he had his personal ring announcer running around, handcuffing Punk to a ladder and falling basically to his death off another ladder and through a table on the floor. Then he went mental half-way through the match by beating the Miz down with a ladder and locking in the Cross Armbreaker through the same ladder, before then wearing an already tabled Punk out with two steel chairs and slapping the Armbreaker on him through one of those chairs. While Del Rio might not have held up too well as champion he certainly knows how to look like a B.A.M.F. during speciality matches. At Hell in a Cell he schooled Cena and Punk by locking one out of the cell and destroying the other with a steel pipe, with the help of Ricardo of course, and now he gives this performance. There is something of an MVP about Del Rio, a cock heel who comes across as quite soft but actually ends up wrestling far more brutal matches than anyone else and looking surprisingly good in them. The Mexican Aristocrat’s performance at TLC gets him third place on the chart.

4th Place: Wade Barrett

The Barrett Barrage was derailed slightly this week, a double count out at Tribute to the Troops, on the losing end of a tag match on Smackdown, and being put through a table at TLC. But what is important here is that the Distinguished English Gent managed to finish on top by putting the Viper through a table after their match on Raw. Not only did Barrett manage to get revenge on Orton after their match at TLC, but in their actual match Barrett looked like the more dominant one until the very end. You could chalk this up to another great match by Randy Orton, but there are two sides to the Orton coin, he brings the status and the opponent has to answer with the talent, Barrett did just that and now to me he is a solidified upper-mid-carder. I still think that Barrett has a way to go before he is back in the main event, but this continuing feud with Orton is definitely a start.

5th Place: Mark Henry

The World’s Strongest (former) Champion comes in at number five after being all talk for the most part of the week and earning points that way. Henry managed to hobble his way through a groin injury and pass on the title he so rightfully earned in the ring rather than giving it up unceremoniously. It’s a shame Henry had to bow out of his title run early, but at least he had one and really at his age with his size it was only a matter of time before he did himself an injury, at least now he has the chance to rest up and didn’t become stale or lose too much heat as a heel champion. Chairing Swagger before his match with the Big Show was good and the shot to the camera man was a nice reminder that while under the World’s Strongest Man’s reign of terror, no one was safe from being inducted into the Hall of Pain, and of course we can’t forget that it was Henry’s chair DDT to the Big Show after the match that enabled Daniel Bryan to come out and cash in his MitB briefcase and become the new World Heavyweight Champion!

6th Place: Primo

Well here’s a turn up for the books, five matches this week and the only one Prim didn’t win was the only won worth winning. The team of Primo and Epico wrestled on Superstars, Tribute to the Troops, Smackdown, TLC and on Raw, now that is impressive. They beat Air Boom twice and the Usos twice, but they just couldn’t get the job done on the grand stage and capture the tag team titles. Still this team went from zero to legitimate in the space of a month, which isn’t all that shabby. Add to this the comments made by King and Cole on Monday, the biggest corporate tools, which at least means that you can take their ‘opinions’ to be exactly what the company wants to be put across, and you can see that the WWE hasn’t actually lost interest in renewing their tag team division and wants to keep on pushing it until it is relevant again, so yay.

7th Place: The Miz

Way down from Del Rio on the chart is the Miz, and the reason he is this low down on the chart is because even though he has the same loss record for the week, unlike last week where his promo set him apart, his in-ring presence on Raw, Smackdown, TttT and TLC was generally poor in that he often got his arse handed to him. Sure he had that great moment where he managed to handcuff Punk to the ring-post, but that was only a fleeting second before he got kicked in the head and was taken out. The Miz had a nice main event match and perhaps he will get another one out of Punk at the Rumble, but after that I don’t see the former Chick Magnet as staying in the title picture for too much longer.

8th Place: Epico

So we continue the parade of the second best as Primo’s partner Epico comes in two spaces behind him despite have the same four wins. Epico like the Miz spent a lot of his time this week getting beaten on and took a couple of finishers, despite also getting the win in one of their matches. Still things are definitely on the up for the cousin of Primo, coming in only a few weeks ago and now in a legitimate position to claim himself as one half of one of the best tag teams in the biggest wrestling company in the world. A boast like that just can’t be ignored, then again Heath Slater was once a part of the hottest movements in the WWE in years, then he wasn’t, things change quickly in the wonderful world of wrestling.

9th Place: Beth Phoenix

A mixed bag for the Divas champion this week. Sure she retained her title against Kelly Kelly in a short match at TLC, but she also was pinned by a minor celebrity at Tribute to the Troops and then was taken out by the lame Alicia Fox on Raw. If you just go by PPVs then the Glamazon is still going strong, but if you look at the little shows as well then Phoenix is starting to look consistently weak, losing to every diva under the sun; so Eve, Kelly Kelly and Alicia Fox, boy that is depressing when you look at that list. Sigh.

10th Place: Dolph Ziggler

Finally we have Mr. Ziggles. Dolph Ziggler is still certainly on the rise and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him proclaimed as the winner of the 2011 Royal Rumble, but this week he ate a couple of pins and lost his US title, a necessary step to becoming an established main eventer and it was a nice payoff for Ryder’s wave of momentum, but it does land him at the bottom of the chart this week. Stay tuned for Ziggler’s progressive journey back to the top in the following weeks, I’m calling it now and I would be very surprised if I’m wrong.

Rolling Chart (Week 20):

1. Mark Henry (135)

2. Cody Rhodes (105)

3. Alberto Del Rio (96)

4. The Miz (82)

5. Wade Barrett (62)

6. Christian (59)

7. Robert Roode (56)

8. Dolph Ziggler (49)

9. R-Truth (47)

10. Austin Aries (44)

The Wright View

The Face-Off: Alicia Fox

Well apart from the obvious; she is unsafe in the ring, she is just another in a long list of models who shouldn’t be wrestlers, and she is only getting a shot because there is no one else, this woman deserves to be here because she is just plain awful on the mic. Her promo, if you can call it that, hoping that everybody has a ‘foxy’ holiday was terrible. It didn’t make sense, it was far too short, it didn’t engage the audience, the delivery was just ridiculous and weird, and finally it kind of felt like she was mocking the audience, which is pretty much a Cena-level sin in terms of getting people who are supposed to be cheering for you to turn against you. Bottom line is that this no talent female did not deserve a clean pinfall victory over Beth Phoenix, no way no how. Oh and what’s more she damn near killed the woman, so that bodes well for this angle.

Face the Facts: Daniel Bryan

This one again is obvious, but there is more here than just Daniel Bryan shocking us all by first of all not waiting until Wrestlemania and second of all actually being successful when he cashed in his briefcase. Bryan winning the title says something about the state of the WWE at the moment, like it or not the company is starting to take notice of what the IWC in general wants, it doesn’t mean they have to give us everything, but they have realised that by giving us some things they can make a load of money. I think for so long they were besides themselves with the merchandise sales that Cena was generating from the kids that they forgot that adults will actually buy more from you if you give them a good enough reason, C.M. Punk provided them with that reason and now his t-shirts are flying off the shelves. You have to believe that this is why they have pushed Ryder, along with whoring him out with a ridiculous amount of merchandised crap, and you’d better expect the same for Bryan if he remains champion for more than five minutes. But to this I say; why not? If we are getting what we want and the WWE is making money then who cares if at the heart of it all there is pure capitalist greed? Isn’t that at the heart of nearly everything that exists in our modern world? The fact is that Ryder, Punk and Bryan are our major champions and this was being celebrated on Raw, sure it might not last for very long, but then again if the sales are good enough then why wouldn’t it? Do you think that Cena was planned to be pushed as much as he was before the WWE realised that he could sell merchandise like a bastard? Speaking of Cena’s merchandise that is further proof that the WWE has woken up and realised that the IWC is a great source of income by releasing anti-Cena t-shirts. This is probably one of the smartest moves the WWE has pulled in a long time, now not only are they catering to the little kids and taking their money, but also they are going to get loads of money from the males too. The only problem with this is that it either means that there is no Cena heel-turn upcoming, or they have realised far too late that they are sitting on a gold mine. Either way this situation is at least better than before when fan’s signs were being confiscated if they had anti-Cena slogans on them, if you ask me that was the real low point of the WWE, telling your fans what to like is one thing, but not listening to them when they tell you they hate something and trying to cover it up is just stupid and short-sighted. Does Bryan’s win represent a shift in the balance? Will it last for more than a week? Only time will tell, sure it happened due to an injury of another, but that doesn’t change the fact that Bryan is the man right now. I think I will sum things up by saying; thank god it wasn’t the Big Show that ended up with the title, who would have wanted to see that?

On the Rise: Ricardo Rodriguez

For the obvious reason; he took a plate of sauce to the face and didn’t change his shirt for the rest of the night! Seriously though it’s been said before but this guy takes some insane bumps for a manager and he seems to do it all willingly. I could see Rodriguez lasting a long time in the WWE, he will probably never be a legitimate wrestler but he certainly can look at least plausible in the ring, more so than someone like Teddie Long or Michael Cole anyway and that is a skill that will take you far as a manager. What’s more the guy is still really young and as a manager there isn’t really an age restriction, so in theory he could carry on for a good few decades as long as he expands his character and talent roster along with the times. For now he is well suited to Del Rio, but who knows who he could be helping in the future. One thing is for sure, he has already given us several memorable moments as a manager and I don’t see him slowing down any time soon.

Flat-Footed: Kevin Nash

A lot of people have been complaining about how long the match between Triple H and Kevin Nash was at TLC. Do you know why it took 18 minutes? Because Nash moves in slow motion that’s why. This whole angle with Nash has been a train wreck from start to finish, still at least this appears to have been his final match, and to be fair he did look to be in shape, build wise anyway, despite his hobbling old man bones. Breaking kayfabe on twitter was probably a big no-no so I do wonder if he will get in some hot water for that, probably not because despite all appearances the click is clearly alive and well. I am really hoping that after Nash has been put out to pasture, Triple H will now have his match with the Undertaker ala Shawn Michaels and put his career on the line to bow out gracefully(ish) and become an actual onscreen figure of authority, rather than a guy who claims to be such and then is wrestling a week later. Then all we need is Cena vs. Undertaker next year for the old coot to go out on and then all the old guard will have left the WWE and the Attitude era can be left in peace.