wrestling / Columns
High Road/Low Road 03.02.07: Turning AJ Styles Heel
Welcome back to the High Road/Low Road! A brief explanation of the column: Uncle Trunx takes the Low Road (negative view) on angles, gimmicks, and other wrestling related “stuff” while Sat takes the High Road (positive view).
The Results for the Placement of No Way Out:
High Road: 33%
Low Road: 49%
Both Roads: 18%
E-Mails:
These are all of the e-mails that we received this week. We do not respond to the actual e-mail, but the reply to your e-mail will be below.
Adam Radomske Writes:
I am very split on this topic. On one case you have awesome lead in matches like Eddie and Brock. But you also have thrown together tag matches every SmackDown pay per view. I would keep No Way Out, but make it a SmackDown only pay per view. Raw promotes itself, thus SmackDown needs that extra push. That was really hard because I am a big hater of the brand extension. No Way Out is a perfect lead in to WM, and it is not just there to have another PPV. It can actually have a legitimate purpose.
Sat: No Way Out should be a SmackDown pay per view and the only reason a RAW or ECW guy should be coming to this pay per view is if they are going to be used to build a match at WrestleMania. I think that your sentence, it can actually have a legitimate purpose describes No Way Out perfectly.
Uncle Trunx: No Way Out can have a legitimate purpose, but that is somewhat idealistic. No Way Out has a purpose all right; it gets more money out of wrestling fans and allows WWE to do road crash booking with Wrestlemania.
Chris Grissom Writes:
The Low Road is the only way to go on this one. NWO serves no purpose other than to get PPV money. Surely the WWE still knows how to go a couple months without doing a PPV. There used to be just 4, though that does seem like forever ago. Anyhow, imagine how much more cooler the moment with Benoit and Eddie would have been if they had BOTH had just won their titles that night. Also I think the buy rate would be much higher for WrestleMania if they did away with NWO. And if they took away NWO from SmackDown, I do not believe anyone would be sad if they took away Cyber Sunday/Taboo Tuesday from Raw. It would probably have the same effect on Survivor Series.
Sat: No Way Out can serve a purpose, but that never seems to happen. If No Way Out was eliminated than I do not think that it would have that big of an impact on the WrestleMania buy rate because No Way Out is probably only bought by the hardcore WWE fans.
Eliminating No Way Out and Cyber Sunday is an even trade, but it puts to big of a gap between the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania. But, this suggestion could help draw interest in Saturday Night’s Main Event.
Uncle Trunx: A longer gap between the Rumble and WrestleMania would help both; it would make both feel like epic events. I agree that Cyber Sunday / Taboo Tuesday could go; it also feels like something that exists to draw money and nothing else.
John Nelson
Greetings,
I took the high road and agreed that there needs to be a PPV between Royal Rumble and WrestleMania for the following reasons:
1. With the lack of actual wrestling on some episodes of Raw and SmackDown they need to use a PPV to actually do some wrestling.
2. For those that think that there are too many PPVs during the year, why don’t they get rid of one of the many PPVs that WWE has between Survivor Series and Royal Rumble? There are way too many between those two major PPVs. I would think that the buy rate is better for Now Way Out that for those PPVs anyway with people spending money for the holidays.
3. Where I do believe that many feuds today are way too short and built with poor foundations, if done right a feud could get hotter at Now Way Out and be more viable at WrestleMania.I have never order a PPV and probably never will, but since they started adding the smaller ones with In Your House it would make no sense to not have this one.
Sat: All of your points are valid. No Way Out had some pretty good wrestling matches. It would make sense to get rid of some pay per view between the Survivor Series and the Royal Rumble because there are too many pay per view at that time. The only problem I have with that is that it gives one brand more pay per views than the other. And for your third point, I think that the Batista/Undertaker feud is hotter now because of No Way Out.
Uncle Trunx:
1. Here’s a revolutionary thought; they could do wrestling on the wrestling TV shows! I can’t be the only person who would prefer to see that than diva searches; dance offs, talking for 30 minutes and all that stuff, can I?
2. I’d personally get rid of a lot of the superfluous PPV events, not just those between Survivor Series and the Rumble. Perhaps a total of 6 a year would do.
3. It is true that a feud could get hotter at No Way Out. But a well booked feud could get hotter on TV if the angle was played correctly.
This week’s High Road/Low Road featuring…
High Road:
AJ Styles needed a change of character. He had been playing the baby face for a long time and it was getting stale. When you start seeing the same thing over and over, you start to get bored of that character. Since the heel turn, AJ Styles has become interesting again and the character has gotten very interesting. AJ Styles desperately needed a heel turn and the heel turn as made him relevant again in TNA.
Low Road:
AJ Styles baby face character made sense. To me, his heel turn feels contrived, as if he’s playing a part rather than acting naturally. His character as a face seemed to work, his heel turn less so, to me. Added to that, his move set was far more suited to being a face. As a heel, I notice a lot more rest holds and a lot less of the flashy stuff which got him over in the first place. While this is natural for a heel, I feel it hurts AJ as a wrestler.
High Road:
For most of the fans of TNA (me included), they have only seen one side of AJ Styles. The side that the have seen is the baby face. AJ Styles has played the baby face character perfectly by being humble and letting is ability do the talking. But, his new character has made him very interesting. For example, last week on Impact, AJ Styles gave a great promo which he would never have given when he was a baby face. He said that he was the most decorated star in TNA, he made the X-Division and he made the Ultimate X famous. All of these things are true and you would have never heard the old AJ Styles say this. This character is awesome because now he talks about his accomplishments; something that he never did before.
Low Road:
His heel turn has resulted in better promos from him, that’s true. However personally, I prefer to see better wrestling from him rather than better promos. Also, if he has that ability to cut a promo, he ought to be able to capture the intensity and use it to get the crowd behind him. It’s not only heels who can cut good promos.
High Road:
My initial fear with the heel turn was that the quality of AJ Styles’ matches was going to go down. I am glad that I was wrong because he has had some good matches with Rhino. The last man standing match was good and I expect the Elevation X match to be good as well. When AJ Styles starts to feud with some better athletes, I expect the matches to get really good.
Low Road:
He has had some good matches, but in my opinion the best matches of his career have been when he was in the role of the face. I wait to see what happens in future but I have to base my view on what I’ve seen rather than what might happen, and in that regard his matches were better before his turn.
High Road:
AJ Styles’ heel turn open the door for him because he now has a lot of opponents for him to face. The heel turn has allowed him to face Rhino and it will allow him to face Sting and Kurt Angle. The matches against Sting and Kurt Angle will be dream matches that have the potential to be very good. The heel turn also allows AJ Styles to face some opponents that he has already faced. AJ Styles will also be able to face Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels. The heel turn was a good move by TNA because it gives AJ Styles many opponents that he could potentially feud with.
Low Road:
Is Kurt Angle a face? It seems hard to tell. It is true that if one applies the old booking logic of always featuring matches where a face fights a heel, the turn opens up all sorts of new options. However, my understanding of the X division was that it was a “no limits” division, and that such concepts as face vs. heel applied slightly less. To be honest, I can’t see them pairing him up with the likes of Sting or Angle in the near future.
High Road:
One of the main problems that TNA has had is that they have had a shortage of heels. That is why I believe it was a good idea to have AJ Styles turn heel. The heel turn by AJ Styles gives TNA to top level heels and a third when Jarrett comes back (I do not see his baby face turn working). One of TNA’s main problems has the potential to become one of the strong points.
Low Road:
I see Styles turn working about as well as Jarrett’s. Styles does not seem like a natural heel to me, in the same way that people just don’t want to cheer Jarrett. It seems forced, and I can see them having to try to undo it in the future, to the detriment of the character.
High Road:
The heel turn allows AJ Styles to move up to the main event level. AJ Styles has been stuck in the X-Division and the Tag Team Division. AJ Styles was going to stay stuck in that role if he had remained a baby face. He would have been stuck in the X-Division and the Tag Team Division because he would have been the fourth top baby face behind Sting, Kurt Angle, and Samoa Joe. As a heel, he is either the top or the second best heel.
Low Road:
A heel turn does not automatically mean a step up to the main event. Given that Angle and Joe are feuding and both are supposedly faces, I’m not convinced that AJ will get the big push up to the top line just because of his turn. It may happen, but I don’t think it’s at all automatic.
Are you taking the High Road or the Low Road?
High Road/Low Road Plugs
We are taking the high road on these articles so you should read them…
Andy Clark’s The Shimmy
Ari Berenstein’s Column of Honor
Bayani Domingo’s Truth B Told
Daniel Wilcox’s Schmozzes and Screwjobs
Fact or Fiction
Jordan Linkous’ WWE vs. TNA
Julian Williams The Top Ten
Michael Weyer’s Shining the Spotlight.
O’Dog’s Forgotten Goodness
Phill Feltham’s The Quick Talkdown
Prag-Thomlison’s Hidden Highlights
Ronny Sarnecky’s The Piledriver Report
Samuel Berman’s The Independent Mid Card & Roundtable Preview for ROH Fifth Year Festival
Sforcina-Marsico’s The Fink’s Payload
Steve Cook’s Ask 411
Stuart Carapola’s Friendly Competition & That Was Then
Zac Calhoun’s The Ripple Effect
There are other articles that we didn’t list, so check them out as well.
E-mail us your reasons for taking the High Road or the Low Road and suggestions for future High Road/Low Road at [email protected]. Your reply will be included in next week’s column.
