The Heel Report: 12.22.12: Giant Chairs & Hidden Affairs

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 wrestling 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: The Big Show

In a surprising turn of events the Big Show remained the champion at TLC and was saved from a MitB cash-in on Raw by John Cena. I would say in my opinion that Ziggler and The Shield outshone the World Champion this week in terms of match performance, but Show was the biggest douchebag by far. Not only was he a bad winner but before their match at TLC, Show spent the entire time first trying to weasel his way out of the match, and then second trying to bait Sheamus into hitting him so he could weasel his way out of the match. He even sunk so low as to drag out William Regal by the scruff of his neck and smash him with a chair right in front of the Celtic Warrior. Show was not only successful in his match at TLC, but also a slime bag while doing it, and so he takes first place this week.

2nd Place: The Shield

I think most people would agree that The Shield had the match of the night at TLC and gave us what I would tentatively claim to be a better match than Punk vs. Ryback would have been at the event, which we will see in a couple of Raws time anyway. The Shield continue to be lucky as well as talented as they are handed guys to take out, including Randy Orton on Smackdown, and beating down on Ric Flair and Tommy Dreamer on Raw. Has a group of guys ever gotten this much of a chance to make a lasting impression in such a short time? Honestly though so far they have been backing up their opportunities with some intense promos and one damn fine match, so far, and I hope they continue to keep on making a good impression and a big impact because this could be the sleeper movement that the Nexus was always meant to be, and with Big E. Langston seemingly taking away Cena’s attention from the group they might be safe from a Cena squashing for at least a little while.

3rd Place: Dolph Ziggler

The Show Stealer had a tough job this week of living up to his moniker, despite his main event slot at TLC. Still he did a pretty fine job along with Cena and hit a sweet super kick with the help of AJ and retained his MitB briefcase. Obviously if Cena hadn’t played spoiler on Raw he would have stolen the top spot on the chart as well as the World Heavyweight championship, but damned if he wasn’t over for the Philly crowd. Hopefully the WWE will take real notice and push him to the moon in the coming year, Ziggler has all the tools to be a permanent main eventer, certainly over the Miz, and he has had more time to earn his spot as champion than Miz and Swagger combined so hopefully when he finally gets his hands on the gold (again) he will get a great run out of it.

4th Place: The Rhodes Scholars

Reunited and again your number one contenders for the tag team titles, the Rhodes Scholars tabled Sin Cara and Mysterio to reclaim their rightful place in the tag division. The team is stronger than ever what with Cody’s Moustache making the fans even more engaged with them and now gives them something to target the fans on for their simplistic and sophomoric humour. I’d think they would win the titles on their next attempt since Team Hell No really don’t seem to need the titles anymore. Honestly my one fear for the tag division is that the three top teams will have broken up by the time Wrestlemania has been and gone, and I’m not sure if the rest of the division is up to the challenge of taking over at this point. Still the Scholars are on the path to success and hopefully a holding pattern until both men are ready to hold the major titles.

5th Place: Antonio Cesaro

The man with the steadiest build this year has to be Antonio Cesaro, he had a decent winning streak before picking up the US title, and since then he has gotten at least one generic foreigner promo each week and a successful title defence every couple of weeks. Cesaro won by count-out against Sheamus, then retained against Truth, and finally protected himself against Ryback and didn’t end up pinned in the middle of the ring, which is pretty much the best you can hope for at this point against Big Hungry. Honestly the two facing off was a match I tipped last week for Wrestlemania and this taste we got this week only made me want it more. The two men could put on a great show and if it ended up with Ryback taking the US title it wouldn’t be the worst thing. Sure Ryback vs. Lesnar would be much bigger for the guy, but he has more chance of going over this way and it’s more than likely that we will simply get Triple H vs. Lesnar 2 at Mania so this is perhaps the best both men could hope for.

6th Place: 3MB

The 3MB have divided fans on the IWC as to whether they are great or terrible and I have to say that I have fallen on the side of liking the three non-starters, who have actually been picking up more wins than you might expect. What’s more the group got a PPV match and a spot on Miz TV, which made no real sense. I think the problem is partly that their pre-taped segments each week keep getting cut, which could have put them far more over than they have been, as it is having them interviewed on a PPV seems like it makes no sense, but maybe if they had more exposure beforehand it might have seemed like a better move…Or perhaps the WWE is just crazy. They put on a great PPV and then had Miz TV in the middle of it, surely they should be trying to distinguish their PPVs from the 3-hour Raws, not make it look just like them. 3MB rock to an extent, but I don’t think they deserved such a focus at TLC, and certainly not the longest match on Raw, I suppose it just goes to show how far a pair of leather trousers and some eye makeup can get you in the eyes of Vince McMahon, my girlfriend seems to like it at least, but then again she is a very disturbed woman.

7th Place: C.M. Punk

That damn dastardly Punk managed to sneak his way onto the chart this week after he dissed Brooklyn to their faces and then crutched Ric Flair on Raw. It’s a shame that Punk’s latest heel turn hasn’t been more explosive as while he has just broken onto the Rolling Chart there is no way that he, or anyone else for that matter, can knock off Del Rio before the end of the year, even with his impromptu face turn, which would have been a Christmas miracle if Bryan had turned at the same time. As it stands Del Rio will no doubt be reigning in the New Year as the head of the heel crop, and he might not even be a heel at all at that point! Punk might be the longest reigning champion for over a quarter of a decade, but he has left me down significantly in his heel point-accumulating ability.

8th Place: AJ

Just stop for a second and imagine how you would feel right now if AJ had never pushed that ladder at TLC. She would have been skipping round the ring after hitting a 5-Knucke Shuffle on Vickie Guerrero and we would have watched John Cena take away the Zig Zag man’s MitB briefcase in a needless ploy to put a belt back onto the WWE’s golden boy. So right now I am so damn glad that this chick is so damn crazy! Now judging by the recent crowd reactions you could say that Cena should be the heel here and AJ was really helping out the face in this situation; Ziggler. However being around the heel game as long as I have you get to know that one or two nights in Bizarro World does not equate to a whole new outlook. Cena is still the good guy and anyone who acts against him, even if it is completely the right and deserved thing to do, is a bad guy, or gal in this case, and AJ deserves every one of the heel points coming her way.

9th Place: Eve

I try to stay positive, but honestly I’m debating how much holding a title should mean, even when you successfully defend that title, when your matches and division are nothing but a walking joke. I am patiently waiting for Paige to be called up to the main roster and honestly Eve’s new thing of posing with her defeated opponent is pretty good, but still I’ll be damned if I don’t want Paige’s rise to the top of the Divas division to be rushed. Seriously she should attack Eve next week as part of the Shield, she already wears the right attire, she is definitely ready, and what greater injustice is there out there right now than the womens division in the WWE?

10th Place: Wade Barrett

Wade Barrett takes the final place on the chart and that makes it a clean sweep for the WWE this week. While Barrett wasn’t successful against Kingston on TLC, much to everyone’s surprise, he did score a nasty hit on him on Raw and will probably get another shot at the guy at the Royal Rumble. Whether or not he will actually be successful this time remains to be seen.

(Week 72):

1. Alberto Del Rio (281)

2. Daniel Bryan (274)

3. Robert Roode (255)

4. Cody Rhodes (252)

5. Dolph Ziggler (227)

6. The Big Show (201)

7. The Miz (188)

8. Mark Henry (181)

9. Bully Ray (170)

10. C.M. Punk (163)

The Wright View:

Cena Smiles

Three big problems with Cena this week; 1. He stopped Ziggler from cashing in, basically making himself look like a petty, jealous douche in the process. 2. He won Superstar of the Year when he was pretty much the least deserving of the award, which just goes to show that even in his worst year, Cena is favoured by the fixed politics of the WWE more than anyone else. And 3. He gets completely screwed over at TLC and loses in the main event and yet he ends the night with the camera on him and he is smiling, now I get that it is supposed to be in disbelief but seriously this is why most people who hate Cena, hate him, it is because he makes a mockery out of everything, he takes nothing seriously and it ruins the meaning behind matches and storylines. Cena acts as if wrestling is all one big joke and it really doesn’t go down well as we need these guys to act like being where they are actually means something or we can’t enjoy ourselves and get lost in our own suspension of disbelief. Now sure Cena occasionally does his ‘serious voice’ but because it is such a change that just seems like a mockery as well and the whole time as a fan you feel like you are being laughed at by a guy that has lost his passion for the business. Cena, along with Lawler and Cole, really do the fans a disservice by remaining in their top positions while they clearly don’t care about the product they are presenting, it is all one big joke to them and it comes across in every move they make and every syllable they deliver.

We Want Ryder

This could easily have gone in the previous category as the WWE telling Ryder he could take the night off was surely another sign that they really don’t appreciate what they have with the Woo Woo Woo kid. But let’s focus on the positives, namely that despite a whole year of the WWE trying to keep the guy down, the fans still end up chanting ‘We Want Ryder’ when given the chance, that is real people power right there. Now I’m not saying that Ryder will get back over any time soon, but it is nice to see that the fans haven’t just forgotten about him just because the WWE seems determined to kill any momentum he got himself from his YouTube show all that time ago.

The Shield Promos

Now with these handheld promos the shakiness and random cuts are a little unnecessary and pretentious, but the general theme of the videos works really well, that is to give the sense that the Shield operate outside of the normal confines of the WWE. If they want to say something they record it themselves, and if they want to interrupt a match, they more often than not come through the crowd, not from the back. Sure now they have some entrance music and have actually wrestled in a sanctioned match, but these promos still make them feel like they are an unknown element and that they are ungoverned by the usual rules of the company, and they can do what they want, when they want, and that is always good, from a booking point of view and a fan point of view.

Rhodes Scholars vs. Hell No Main Event

If there is one beef that I have with this matchup it is that the number one contenders for the titles had to fight in a tables match at a PPV to earn a shot on Main Event, not even Raw or Smackdown, but a C-show at best, not exactly high profile. While Main Event is a pretty decent show, it is still no PPV obviously, and what’s more the new audience for the WWE have already seen this match a few weeks ago, so I have no idea why the WWE are staging it again, maybe they finally want a title change on the show and this is the one they want to do it with. It kind of makes sense, but in another way it really, really doesn’t.