The Heel Report: 11.22.13: Feeling a lot Faint

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: AJ Lee

The Divas champion finally managed to find her way to the first place again after a pretty lengthy absence. There wasn’t much heel domination this week and the tough geek chick had to contend with passing out and then being mocked mercilessly for it on the following Raw, but all that didn’t hurt her heel points none and with a title victory and a tap out win under her belt she managed to out-perform anyone else appearing this week.
It has now been months since her ‘pipe-bombshell’ against the Total Divas and yet somehow miss Lee has still managed to hold onto her divas title despite having each and every cast member with any actual ring acumen thrown at her on more than one occasion.
Now she finds herself at the head of the team of anti-Total Divas in one of the traditional Survivor Series matches on Sunday. I have a feeling that if this wasn’t a divas match there would be a bit of an uproar in terms of poorly and inconsistently this angle has been booked, what with the divas supporting AJ, then all of a sudden not supporting her, and now finding themselves teaming with her but no one really spoke out against it, but seeing as how this is a woman’s match it just seems par for the course right now.

2nd Place: The Wyatt Family

If there is one thing that the Wyatt Family has proven over the past couple of weeks it is that they are willing to brawl with everyone and anyone that even slightly gets in their way. If they were indeed placed in a traditional Survivor Series match then that wouldn’t bode well for those in their company. However since that does not seem to be the case, for whatever reason, we won’t have to worry about that exciting outcome.
At least we got a taste of what could have been on Monday night when the two rumoured teams faced off in 12-man tag action, and as great as the finishing sequence of that was I can’t help but think that if it had been an elimination tag then things before that sequence would have been a bit more lively.
Still there is some explanation for the match not taking place, mainly that it might be overegging things a little if the plan is in fact to have the Shield face the Wyatts at Wrestlemania. If they teamed together on Sunday and things went tit up it would be hard to explain how both factions, who are known for their random attacks on people, wouldn’t just start ripping each other apart week in and week out, and as entertaining as these teams can be I would think they would be hard pressed to make things interesting and maintain a big match feel at Mania itself. Whereas this way they had their interaction, have seemingly sorted things out and perhaps could have another butting of heads in the Royal Rumble to create some memorable interactions. Of course you could ask why the teams have to have their first match at Mania, but if it isn’t then it wouldn’t be as much of an attraction.

3rd Place: Dixie Carter

As per usual we have already come to this; the heel authority figure starts to act like they have to book any important aspect of the show themselves, in the ring, taking away a lot of time from any other heel presence that might have an opportunity on the show.
Sure Bully Ray is still getting some airtime but apart from that there wasn’t all that much of a real heel presence this week. Instead we got a pretty lengthy segment where Dixie introduced wrestlers who will be competing in next week’s No Surrender, and sure they got to talk for a little bit, but the whole thing seemed a little unnecessary.
What’s more Dixie’s shtick seems to be getting a little old as she just seems to come out every week, act like everyone should love her, and then either pay someone a backhanded compliment or a veiled threat and then go back to being all pleasant. Sure if it was done better then it might work, but as it is the whole ‘heel Dixie’ thing is starting to lose any vague appeal it once had.

4th Place: Bully Ray

Speaking of the one heel still getting any real airtime in TNA, the Bully continues to keep a hold of his tenuous grasp on relevance and his once…together group; the Aces & 8s. After coming out at the top of the show and gloating how he was the puppet master after he managed to fool Anderson and all of us into thinking that his dwindling group was splitting up for good, it turned out that it may indeed be the case since certainly Garrett Bischoff has said bye-bye since he took a pile-driver on the stage.
To be honest I think Bully would do quite well for himself if he lost Knux as well, just so long as he gets to keep Brooke by his side, thus keeping her in leather and keeping me happy. Still you have to think that it will be Anderson who comes out on top in this feud so where does Bully Ray go from here?
It is a shame that TNA seems to have no plans on expanding their roster any time soon as he really could use some new blood to inject some life into his stable. If the company had played it a little smarter maybe they could have not wasted so much money on random talent that never got any real push or went anywhere and instead hired a couple of decent indy guys and made Aces & 8s a kind of Shield-knockoff, but a good one. Ah, too late now really but ah well.

5th Place: Vickie Guerrero

It might have been painful but it technically pissed a lot of people off, and after all isn’t that part of a heel’s job? So Vickie’s fainting spells in aid of mocking AJ for her real incident gets her into the upper end of the chart this week.
Of course you could argue that such heel antics would make more sense against an actual face of the company, but then again if you look at the face divas on the main roster none of them really deserve the attention given to said segment.
Brie is only slightly improved from before, Nikki is like Brie-lite (although not so much in the chest department) Eva Marie and JoJo definitely couldn’t have been seen as a real ‘punishment’ for Vickie, nor the Funkadactyls since neither one has been given a personality outside of the Total Divas reality show, and at this point Natalya is a near parody of herself. Still it seems strange that there were so many blurred lines this week, with heels being punished by facing heels and everyone seemingly arguing with each other despite being the same alignment. Although having said that everyone getting on for the same reason is also off putting, so what is a company to do? I know that I was pretty bothered by seeing C.M. Punk embrace Rey Mysterio upon his return considering their past. Sure it was several years ago but that was a pretty intense rivalry with one of the creepiest renditions of ‘Happy Birthday’ I have ever seen, so you think the memories would still linger you know.

6th Place: Alberto Del Rio

Can this feud be over soon please? Yes I am glad that Cena isn’t in the position to dominate a better and more entertaining wrestler, but watching these two rehash generic heel-face feud 101 is already grating pretty bad.
The problem is I can’t really see who the WWE is putting in position to feud with Cena next. At first I thought it was Damien Sandow, but his match with Ziggler this week seemed to suggest otherwise. Oh god what if it is the Miz?!
Sure their feud last time was actually pretty good, but I am not sure that either man has actually gotten any better since then in terms of promos and coming up with interesting and entertaining aspects to bring to a renewed rivalry. Having said that, I’ll take Miz over Del Rio any day.

7th Place: Randy Orton

The WWE champion had a hard time of things this Monday. He is still one of the main focuses of Raw at this point but really he is being outshined by all around him, even Brad Maddox seemed to get a louder reaction than Orton.
What’s more his sneak attack failed big time in the form of a Big Show spear, and on top of that he is apparently getting no backup at Survivor Series. I would imagine that some type of swerve will be involved as I see no reason why the WWE would really want Big Show as WWE champion. Then again maybe those backstage are legitimately concerned about Orton’s perceived credibility after not being able to go over Bryan clean and so now Big Show will be doing the job, although that also makes little sense so who knows what those crazy bastards are thinking.

8th Place: The Shield

Speaking of having no idea what is going on, I really have no idea what the WWE are thinking when it comes to the Shield. Are they turning them face? Or just Reigns? Or are the Wyatts going face after nearly attacking Axel and Ryback on Smackdown?
I figure with the Survivor Series team they are against they have a semi-decent chance of actually winning the match on Sunday, however Rey Mysterio might cause a bit of a problem as I can’t really see him losing his first match back. Also I would imagine that he will be going into a feud with the Real Americans after Sunday so that could either mean that the Shield will be fed to him in preparation for that, or they will escape taking another loss due to some shenanigans by the other team to ignite that rivalry. Just so long as we eventually get Shield vs. Wyatts I am happy.

9th Place: Gail Kim

The Knockouts champ had her first invitational against Hannah Blossom, not the most challenging of opponents and not even one from outside of TNA, but hell they have to start somewhere. Of course if TNA are planning to only use women from some area of their roster then they are going to be hard pressed to make this angle last more than a couple of weeks.
On the other hand you know who could benefit from this same angle? AJ Lee. Imagine if after this whole Total Divas feud blows over she still has the Divas title and then goes onto claim (rightly) that she has no competition on the main roster, although I wouldn’t mind seeing Summer Rae get a shot at some point, and instead challenges women from NXT to come and have a go. That would be some great exposure for the pool of talent there and could provide us with some great matches, even if they would be treated as just filler for the male matches.

10th Place: Aiden English

Why Aiden English? Because he is brilliant! Although I must admit that it is getting hard to tell whether he is supposed to be a heel or a face at this point since all he does is sing well and get cheered to all buggery in whatever he does.
I suppose you could claim that he is still pretty arrogant, but since when did that necessarily make you a heel in the *massive intake of air* W, W….EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

(Week 019)

1. Randy Orton (99)

2. Bully Ray (97)

3. HHH (82)

4. Alberto Del Rio (71)

5. AJ Lee (66)

6. Damien Sandow (51)

7. Dixie Carter (49)

8. Dean Ambrose (47)

9. Paul Heymam (46)

10. Ryback (40)

Heel Centurions: