The Heel Report: 10.31.13: No Show

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, after 100 weeks naming the reigning wrestler a ‘Heel Centurion’.

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 (or in other words the smarkiest chart of smarkdom ever to smark), so without further ado let’s get on with the report…

1st Place: Randy Orton

No matter how wrong I think that the decision is, at least in the short term anyway, it is hard not to give Orton the top spot after actually managing to win the title inside of Hell in a Cell on Sunday. Whether people like it or not, Orton seems to be once again a permanent fixture of the WWE title picture, just like last time Cena was put on the shelf.
But wait, Cena is back you say?! Well then should he take back the place from Orton? Oh, don’t make me choose! Honestly right up until the end of Hell in a Cell I was pretty much all still pro-WWE in this storyline, faithful that they really were going to give Bryan ‘the ball’ while Cena was away, or at least now that he was coming back give Bryan the ball and hand Cena another in the form of the world title. Now that Orton has the WWE title though, hell why not have Cena as the face of the company again, since calling Orton the face and having Cena back makes no sense at all when the whole question came from his absence.
It really seems like the WWE are building towards a ‘Who is the face of the WWE?’ title unification match at Wrestlemania XXX between Orton and Cena, and here’s the thing; I get it, the two have had an on-and-off rivalry for years now, and there was a time where a younger me saw these two as the next incarnation of the Rock and Austin, if nowhere near as good. But right now I’m not even sure if these two men are the guys to go to. Of course this is all seen through IWC-tinted lenses and maybe the mainstream audience really does see these two as the be-all and end-all over Daniel Bryan and C.M. Punk, but if I were judging by overall crowd reaction I would say otherwise. Even after coming back from injury and against one of the most universally unliked champions in Alberto Del Rio, Cena still got a loud chorus of boos, and as for Orton, well he seemed to get crickets from his title win at Hell in a Cell, which is pretty bad considering he is supposed to be the top heel in the company. I wonder what type of reaction Daniel Bryan would have gotten winning the belt?

2nd Place: Damien Sandow

The Intellectual Saviour of the Unwashed Masses managed to get his way into the second-top spot this week despite losing his MitB briefcase to John Cena, mostly because of the believable beat down he gave to said Cena before actually cashing in. To me this attack really helped to show how Sandow could be a credible challenger for the belt, even after his usual amount of losses while being ‘Mr. Money in the Bank’.
It also helps that due to Curtis Axel’s untimely injury he managed to also get a win over Kofi Kingston on the pre-show and that for a couple of weeks now he has actually been winning matches. Still you have to wonder where the character is going to go from here. My hope is that he will actually get to feud with Cena for the belt after Del Rio gets his obligatory rematch, even if he doesn’t actually end up beating the man who they are now officially referring to as Superman.
The thing that does urk me about all this however is just how unnecessary it all felt, sure Sandow looked pretty good for the most part against Cena, ignoring the fact that he essentially couldn’t even beat a one-armed man. However while many see the MitB briefcase as the new IC title, as in being a stepping stone before a world title run, and before now it was indeed used in this way, I have always seen it primarily as a ‘Get out of jail free card’ in terms of injuries or even movie shooting dates. Having a MitB winner around for most of the year gives the WWE a sure-fire way of switching who holds the belt without any messy explanations or story shuffling, and with Cena only just coming back from surgery, no matter how healed up he thinks he is, Sandow keeping the case would have been the best way to ensure that somebody gets the belt in decent fashion if everything goes to pot. Now that has been completely wasted and if Cena has indeed come back too soon there is now no magical briefcase to use in that emergency. Sandow himself will most likely bounce back from this loss and honestly I think his stock actually raised while cashing said briefcase in, but the exact same effect could have been achieved by pulling a Dolph and having Sandow beat the holy hell out of Cena, only for Cena to deliver an AA before Sandow managed to cash in the case. But ah well, Cena’s back so might as well get abandon all your other safety nets and guys you have been building up for the past two months right?

3rd Place: Dixie Carter

In the battle of controlling yet often passive-aggressively nice authority figures Dixie Carter once again came out on top this week, despite the fact that the Game’s plans all seemed to come together and hers are falling apart. The thing here is that while HHH is playing the long game and trying to be understated somewhat, safe in the knowledge that he can insert himself into the show at any time, Dixie seems desperate to grasp and forge a legacy for herself before her company gets sold out from under her.
Dixie as the bad guy should have happened years ago since while she is still having trouble being more than just a plastic mannequin in her delivery she has nailed the idea of an ignorant southern debutant who looks down while simultaneously praising all those around her. Watching the promos between her and AJ Styles are like watching a low budget movie with a great script, you just know it would be far more enjoyable if they had enough money to hire some actually decent actors in the roles.
Still wrestling isn’t exactly known for great actors, or even great delivery *cough* Undertaker *cough* and yet we still enjoy the contents because we know what we are watching, and in this premise Dixie delivers. I still kind of wish that she could be a little less unintentionally overtly sexual about her propositions though, at least I think it is unintentional.

4th Place: HHH

While he might have lost to Dixie he did end up coming right behind her (see this is what I mean about Dixie’s delivery). HHH managed to finally get the belt on Orton in a match where no real rules were broken, although why that should matter at this point now that he has stopped pretending to do what’s best for business is beyond me.
It still sticks in my throat that they are calling Orton the new face of the WWE now that Cena is back, but as I said before that is probably intentional and will be addressed by Cena somewhere down the road. What I would like here is to see Cena not really be all that keen in lending a hand to the Big Show considering what happened to him the last time Show was fired, but somehow I can’t see the WWE putting Cena in that position.
I really hope that HHH acts as a roadblock for Big Show getting into the title picture as it isn’t really a given that he will actually let Show get past him and in this case I really don’t care. Maybe this is hypocritical of me since I created a huge stink during the whole Summer of Punk 2 thing, but to me that was different, Punk was a new star being solidified (and his pissing about with the Game really hurt his eventual title run in my opinion) whereas Big Show does not need a push of any kind, also it keeps Bryan and HHH separated and so much the better in that regard.

5th Place: AJ Lee

The Divas champion is somehow still just that. I was honestly all ready to concede her loss to Brie Bella and move on, hoping that with the shallow pool of talent the divas division has that she would be at least chasing the title for the next couple of months.
Somehow though it looks as if the WWE has actually realised that AJ Lee is pretty much the best talent they have right now in that division and have decided to keep the belt on her, at least for now. Hell I wouldn’t be surprised if AJ manages to have one of the more substantial runs with the belt, just so long as no new baby face diva comes into the division any time soon, although with Emma and Paige waiting in the wings there is always a chance of that happening. But then again would I mind seeing an AJ vs. Paige feud? Hell no that would be awesome! Bring it on I say.

6th Place: The Wyatt Family

The two three-man teams are up next and first among them is the Wyatt Family, who took out both Daniel Bryan and C.M. Punk this week on Raw. I’m pretty interested to see where the WWE are going with this since a Punk and Bryan team would be something worth seeing, even though both men should really be in the title picture instead.
While Hell in a Cell left me pretty cold on the WWE I have to say that Raw at least got me intrigued as to where things will go from here. Of course the whole thing could be a crap shoot with nothing but main event feuds from Cena and Del Rio, and Orton and Big Show for the next few months, but who knows, either way hopefully the Wyatt’s will end up being as involved in everything as the Shield are.

7th Place: The Shield

The second group did not have so much success this week, losing out on their tag team titles shot and Dean Ambrose barely escaping with the US title on two occasions. Still they are the Authority’s go-to guys and as always for a group of three relatively rookies they are doing pretty well for themselves in terms of feuds and their position in the roster.
Since the debut of the Wyatt Family I have been looking forward to a feud between the two groups and with seemingly both groups now working for the Authority I could see such a clash occurring by the time Wrestlemania rolls around, which could be awesome, but who would be the good guys in this scenario?

8th Place: Bully Ray

The former TNA champion once again was denied by AJ Styles but he still made his presence felt and as long as the company can keep its head above water he should be a main event fixture for some time to come.
In fact he might be champion again sooner than we think as with AJ pulling another Punk and leaving with the belt, TNA are holding a tournament to crown a new champion, and the Bully has to be one of the favourites in taking the gold.

9th Place: Shawn Michaels

God damn you HBK, you broke my heart! Still though his clear turn on Bryan went what could be claimed to be better than expected as you would think that in the choice between Bryan and Michaels it would be hard for the crowd to side with the real underdog of the WWE, but they did.
For this I give credit to both men for being just believable enough for Michaels sudden snapping at the overly-moral Daniel Bryan for being so damn stuck up, while simultaneously not simply presto-chango towing the company line. For Michaels this was a more personal issue of respect from the man he mentored, and if he was going to come out of retirement, a match with Bryan at Wrestlemania wouldn’t be a bad way to go about it.

10th Place: Fandango & Summer Rae

Who would have thought that the WWE would choose this week to have the in-ring debut of Summer Rae, who really did do a decent job of showing herself to be a worthwhile addition to the female roster. Of course if you had been watching NXT you would know this by now.
I would even argue that she did a better job than Fandango in his first match with Jericho at Wrestlemania, although I’m not sure exactly how much of that was his own fault.

(Week 016)

1. Randy Orton (83)

2. Bully Ray (77)

3. HHH (76)

4. Alberto Del Rio (56)

5. AJ Lee (56)

6. Paul Heyman (46)

7. Dean Ambrose (43)

8. Damien Sandow (43)

9. Ryback (38)

10. Dixie Carter (36)

Heel Centurions:

That’s all for this week, Hell in a Cell was a big let down for me, and now I am pretty disheartened with both major companies at this point. However this feeling seems to change on a weekly basis so come back next week to find me in hopefully a better mood. For now though this is James Wright signing off.