The Heel Report: 02.15.12: Selfish Role-Model

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: Robert Roode

This one was a no-brainer. Once again Roode schemes and claws until he manages to keep the TNA title around his waist. The longer that it takes for Roode to lose the title, the more the belt will mean to the man who actually takes it from him. Title swapping is all well and good when you have two top guys who are feuding over the belt in a massive rivalry, but if you don’t have that then you need a solid champion to keep the belt and make each defense mean something. Against All Odds wasn’t exactly an amazing PPV, but it wasn’t terrible, and Roode managing to get the pinfall on Hardy, forcing Sting to make the count, was a nice piece of justice. You have to give TNA props here for having the good sense to keep the title off of Hardy, especially when Roode is doing such a solid job as champion.

2nd Place: Daniel Bryan

Forcing his way into second place is the Vegan role model; Daniel Bryan. Something I have never understood, at least in this PG era anyway, is why the WWE makes out guys who have healthy lifestyles to be villains. I know in terms of character and story it works as there is nothing more annoying than a preachy do-gooder, who is actually a two-faced hypocrite. But when you are aiming your product at kids, or more precisely, at the parents who decide to let their kids watch the show, why wouldn’t you want to promote ‘good moral values’. This is something that bothers me about PG, do you really think that parents who care about not exposing their kids to sex, language and violence, would let them watch wrestling, no matter how ‘PG’ it is? Why not just keep the rating at TV-14 and release more merchandise for kids to buy, I guarantee that there were just as many kids into wrestling when it was for people above the age of 14, probably for precisely that reason. The thinking just doesn’t make sense to me. Anyway, Daniel Bryan does good this week, avoiding a pinfall and clocking two of his main challengers in the Chamber with his championship belt.

3rd Place: Austin Aries

Another man who claims to be the best in the world, something that he backs up quite well, take this past Sunday at Against All Odds where he took out Alex Shelley in what was unsurprisingly a great match, although one that could have certainly gone on longer. I was pretty surprised to see Aries retain, although I suppose it just means that he will work a short program with Zema Ion before going onto some other challenger, the same way that he did with Kid Kash a few months ago. So much for Alex Shelley’s great return, maybe they are just getting us ready for the full return of the Motor City Machineguns, or it could be that TNA is trying to bring back its faltering X-Division since it was one of the major points to TNA that always made it stand out, who knows.

4th Place: Samoa Joe & Magnus

A questionable placing for the new tag team champs as it is clear by the audience reaction that the two have been coming across as the faces of this feud. Still they are being booked as heels, and while they are booked that way, I will remain to count them as heels. And in this light they earned some big points in defeating the current team of Crimson and Matt Morgan to lay claim to the TNA tag team titles. I’m hoping that the pair will do good things as tag team champs, although they are unfortunate in that they have become champions at a time where there are no real teams in the company to challenge them. I suppose for now they can just go against random pairings until TNA can actually find some decent tag team talent for them to go up against. Hopefully things will work out for the guys as they have succeeded in becoming an actual team in a short space of time, something that is hard to do when you look at other teams who have tried to do the same and failed.

5th Place: Gail Kim

The Knock-Outs champion retains her title in a decent match against Tara. While I didn’t really buy her attack on Impact (who gets taken out by being thrown into a set of double doors?), I am glad that Gail retained, once again she is an example of a champion who is adding prestige to her title simply by defending the belt and holding onto it yet again. The only real question is who TNA will get to go after the title next?

6th Place: Bully Ray

Close but no cigar for the bully, but really who expected Bully Ray to win the big one here? That would have made no sense from any which way you look at it. It’s nice that he was included in the main event, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him go after the title again, but Roode makes much more sense as heel champion, what with his history with James Storm and recent rivalry with Hardy. Maybe next time eh? He certainly gave a good promo during the night, before the match, a nice mixture of conviction and sexism.

7th Place: Robbie E

Another guy who is a long-stay champion in TNA (although arguably not in such a good way as Aries, Kim or Roode) got his own win at Against All Odds against Shannon Moore in the ‘Robbie E Invitational’. This match summed up the TV title perfectly; little more than an add-on with not much thought and zero build. Don’t get me wrong, there have been a couple of decent champions, AJ Styles and Eric Young in his World Elite days in particular, but aside from that this title is mostly negligible, that’s why Robbie E has to invite people to try to take his title, because no one is clamoring to take the belt away from him without some prompting.

8th Place: Kazarian

What you might call a step in the right direction for Kaz, at least in so much that he managed to beat the Phenomenal One, with a little help from Christopher Daniels. I don’t know about anyone else but this storyline doesn’t interest me in the slightest. I just feel like we have seen a dozen different variants on this theme before. Styles deserves to be in the title hunt right now, not toiling it out with a couple of his former running buddies in a storyline that will lead him nowhere. Hopefully in a couple of months we will see Roode facing AJ again, but for now he will have to find a way to come back from losing to his former friend and now mysteriously motivated enemy.

9th Place: Kane

With the parade of TNA heels over with, I would be remiss if I didn’t include Kane in the list. The Big Red Machine was a major focus on Raw, driving ambulances and pushing wheelchair-bound quidos off stages, all the while attempting to force Cena to ‘embrace the hate’. Yes I know, this whole storyline has been terrible and nothing has really justified Kane coming back with his mask on yet, but…well I guess there is nothing to say really, apart from that I hope this rivalry is over soon, since at the moment it seems to be going nowhere.

10th Place: Chris Jericho

The final man on the list would have probably come a lot higher if it hadn’t been for it being the week of a TNA PPV. I expect Jericho to be much higher on the chart next week after the Elimination Chamber, but for now he will only scoop up a single point for the rolling chart. Jericho talked a good game this week and after taking two Trouble in Paradises he still managed to hit the Code-breaker on Kofi and get the three count, yeah I’m pretty sure that it will be Jericho vs. Punk at Wrestlemania.

Rolling Chart (Week 28):

1. Mark Henry (150)

2. Cody Rhodes (137)

3. Robert Roode (102)

4. Alberto Del Rio (96)

5. Wade Barrett (89)

6. The Miz (89)

7. Dolph Ziggler (81)

8. Bully Ray (75)

9. Austin Aries (63)

10. Christian (59)

The Wright View

The Face-Off: The Great Khali

Just a short one here; the Great Khali, who I think a lot of people are questioning his involvement in the Elmination Chamber. Not only is Khali lacking in talent, but he also has no connection to any of the men in the match and hasn’t been in the main event scene, or anywhere near it, for a significant amount of time. What I want to know is why the WWE didn’t just put Sheamus in the chamber? Sure he has the Rumble win, but what good is that if he does nothing until Wrestlemania. Sheamus could have easily gone into the chamber, claiming that he will win one title so that his choice is easier and he can unify the titles at Wrestlemania. That way you could have the Celtic Warrior in a place where anything could happen to justify his feud with the Smackdown champ coming out of the Chamber. Bryan could take him out in some devious way, keep him locked in the pod or whatever, and then Sheamus could challenge him the next week. Not only would this make sense but it would also provide us with a much better match since Khali won’t be in it, what are the WWE thinking?

Face the Facts: Triple H

Once again I am here praising the Triple H-Undertaker match at Wrestlemania, or at least its build anyway. I love the idea that Triple H can’t wrestle the Undertaker because of his position, not because it would be frowned upon, but because it would be bad for business. This situation shows that Triple H is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. If he wins then he destroys the streak, killing ‘Taker’s draw power, and if he loses then it will be the third time he has lost to the Deadman on the Grandest Stage of Them All. Both outcomes are undesirable, so what is a man to do? Why agree to take a match that doesn’t benefit you really in any way. No title on the line, already in possession of a Hall of Fame career, Triple H simply does not need to face the Undertaker at Wrestlemania, and so he won’t. Of course he will end up facing Taker in the end anyway, but it is fine for Triple H to build up anticipation until the time that he actually accepts the match, and I’d rather he did it in a believable fashion.

On the Rise: William Regal

Another week of praise for the in-ring veteran who is still trying his hand as a commentator. Regal still gets flustered and trips over lines sometimes, but some of his statements on the announce position are pure gold. I’m pretty sure that most of what he says is planned, but he has a kind of strangeness that I can’t help but think that he is just rifting when he replies with comments about his girlfriends or his two daughters. Having said all that I can kind of understand why WWE hasn’t brought him up to the main shows yet, at least not for good, because the content of his commentary isn’t overtly PG, which is what makes it funny but there it goes, either way Regal needs to be allowed to commentate more!

Flat-Footed: Gunner (vs. Garrett)

Why TNA, just why?