Do heels necessarily have to cheat?

[Epic Reine 0]

Do heels cheat because they need to win or do it just to piss off the fans so they'll be booed?

 

I don't understand how Hogan in the WWF would beat superstar after superstar clean because he was an unstoppable character but when he was a heel in WCW, he needed help to win EVERY match, what happened to him being unstoppable?

 

Brock Lesnar, face in the WWE, and Kurt Angle, the heel. Angle needed to cheat against Lesnar because he was supposed to be unstoppable but when Lesnar was heel and Angle was face, Lesnar all of a sudden became afraid of Angle and had to cheat to beat him, why?

 

And the most recent example of this is JBL, when he was face Bradshaw, he was a tough as nails Texan with a mighty clothesline, never needed help, ever but now he's JBL and he's all of a sudden afraid and cheats to win every single match, whatever happened to the tough ass persona he used to have?

 

So why huge heels feel the need to cheat in their matches when reality shows they could easily win without it?

[Youth N Asia 0]

I don't mind the heels cheating for themselves, but do we need run ins and outside interfierence in every single match. That bothers me more than anything else.

[Slingshot Suplex 0]

I don't mind the heels cheating for themselves, but do we need run ins and outside interfierence in every single match. That bothers me more than anything else.

Amen.

 

Heels don't necessarily NEED to cheat ....wrestlers can be hated simply based on their character. It accentuates the point that they are the heels though.

 

Sometime long ago I heard/ read this quote "It's not what you do, it's who you do it to that matters"

[strummer 0]

Vince McMahon Sr. believed that heels MUST cheat to win, and Vince Jr. continued that tradition. If heels won clean, it would make the big babyfaces look weak, and the WWF was always built around babyfaces.

[Guest Loss]

Heels don't necessarily have to cheat, but they have to be willing to cheat. Winning is more important than ANYTHING to a heel, and that's the one common bond I think they should all share.

[Mystery Eskimo 0]

If heels go over faces clean and strong, they tend to get cheered - for example Brock's initial heel run, Triple H.

[nl5xsk1 0]

Like Loss said, heels don't HAVE to cheat, they CHOOSE to cheat. They take the easy way out, rather than risk having to work for it.

 

I don't understand how Hogan in the WWF would beat superstar after superstar clean because he was an unstoppable character but when he was a heel in WCW, he needed help to win EVERY match, what happened to him being unstoppable?

mark answer: it was the cheers of the fans that made him The Immortal Hulk Hogan; once he lost his fans he lost the pillar of his strength

[Guest Sturgis]

I don't understand how Hogan in the WWF would beat superstar after superstar clean because he was an unstoppable character but when he was a heel in WCW, he needed help to win EVERY match, what happened to him being unstoppable?

mark answer: it was the cheers of the fans that made him The Immortal Hulk Hogan; once he lost his fans he lost the pillar of his strength

That surprisingly makes sense. It's like Sampson, but with fans instead of hair, altough that could work since Hogan did have SOME hair in the 80's.

[Special K 0]

I too don't mind heels cheating for themselves as much as runins and all that crap.

 

Bret Hart didn't cheat much as a heel. He was just more ruthless.

 

Austin as a heel cheated for himself generally. This might have made the stunner look weak, but Austin didn't really look weak himself. (egregious example of the above phenomenon: Austin cannot beat Angle, even with like 4 stunners, then double-turn and one stunner fucking annihilates Angle. I guess he put more stank on it.)

 

Foley looked strong as a heel because while he'd fight dirty, he didn't need help, and the moves were often as painful to himself.

 

Monster heels don't necessarily need to cheat, see Kane, Diesel, Sid at various pointsin their careers.

[Boner Kawanger 0]

I forget who said it, but if Hogan would have Hulked Up on WCW's faces and gone through that whole routine as a heel, he would have been the greatest heel ever.

[Guest John Dub]

HHH pre-quad tear was a great heel. People didn't like him because he was cocky, like all heels are, but he could back it up generally without cheating too bad. He beat Foley twice, and held his own against Taker.

 

Lesnar was a pretty dominant heel too. But on the whole, most heels do cheat.

[Guest commie_050]

Foley mentions this is his book, that in his early days he would always run into promoters who believed the chickenshit heel was the only heel. He mentions Apollo Creed and Goliath as examples to the contrary. I'm actually partial to monster heels, guys who are so dominating and evil that everyone just yearns for them to be beaten. Best example I can think of is Vader in WCW. He comes in and just annihilates Sting, the huge fan favorite at the time. Brock should have gotten the same kind of treatment, but ended up having to sell for the likes of the Hardy Boyz. Plus, he was turned face waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too quickly. All he needed to do was keeping destroying people until the fans were begging Angle to turn face and take him down a peg.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

It depends on the character. JBL should cheat, but he shouldn't be as helpless as he is. He should be able to beat all but the top guys clean. Kurt Angle on the other hand is one of the few respected wrestlers out there due to his Olympic experience. He shouldn't need to cheat to win. He can get heel heat just because he's such a dick.

[Guest PlatinumBoy]

I think monster heels work fine. Then when someone beats them it's huge. Also for example cheating works here--Triple H vs. The Rock, for example--they both are "equals" and a match could go either way, even 70/30 Rocky, so Hunter cheats to even the odds/win.

[MillenniumMan831 0]

I forget who said it, but if Hogan would have Hulked Up on WCW's faces and gone through that whole routine as a heel, he would have been the greatest heel ever.

The Giant hulking up on Hogan at Hog Wild 1996 is still surreal to me to this day . . . even though Hogan was heel by then.

[Guest BDC]

I like the idea of a dominant heel myself. Not necessarily the monster, but the vicious, hard to beat heel. I suppose the underdog face really seems to stand out to me, but I like the "just barely pulls it out" face act.

 

Heels can be dominant by means of just tearing up the knee or something, which is what I prefer.

[Special K 0]

Exactly. Watched the Taue v Misawa matches from champions Carny 95 again recently. Now there's good booking in a nutshell. Taue looks like a monster, who can (and does) beat everyone with general badassedness. Then he fights Misawa and jsut about the first thing he does is just CLAW at Misawa's legit broken face. Dean-o machino and Bempot were tremendously adept at crfuelly picking apart opponents in NJPW as well.

 

The weirdest thing to me is, for example Bret Hart's wrestling style. It's actually sort of heelish, because traditionally people seem to like sort of stupid faces who just overcome the odds with strength and sheer force of will (Sting, Hogan, Wohyah) as opposed to faces who can use their intellect and accumen to outsmart opponents (Bret, Steamer). This no longer seems to be the case, though. If they had someone with some creativity in the office, they would have Guerrero cleverly eking out the win ala WMXX in different ways, and the crowd would LOVE it.

[tominator89 0]

I always thought an effective heel should be "no one can beat me" and actually back it up with clean victories. Then, once the babyface who has gone through the big "chase" gets his chance, and wins, it makes them look even stronger. As compared to a face who simply beats a heel who cheats all the time.

[Mrnoitaull 0]

I dont remember Test cheating in al his constant heeldom.

[Placebo Effect 0]

I dont remember Test cheating in al his constant heeldom.

He let Stacy get whacked to avoid losing, and then brilliantly faked that ankle injury to go over Nash.

[Some Guy 0]

The problem with monster heels is that the fans start to cheer them. The nWo were estentially monster heels who dominated so much that th fans cheered them. Goldberg came in as a heel and was turned face, Brock was turned by the fans, the list goes on, Austin too, the list goes on. HHH gets a good face pop when his music hits and doesn't get booed until he starts talking.

 

I think it used to be easier to be a heel than a face and now the oppostie is true. It's hard to get true heel heat now. If you are too dominant the fans will cheer you, if you are too cowardly they won't take you seriously, it's a tough line to walk.

[Guest Loss]

There is also a major reluctance from any of the performers in WWE to truly go balls-to-the-wall and play a great heel, only because so much of their income is based on merchandise sales.

[Guest BDC]

I'm not saying there should be one heel template or another. Some folks are great at the monster role, some are great at the cheating heel.

 

The fact of the matter is, the show is better when you HATE the heel. When you want the face to beat the heel so badly, that's when it pays off.

 

You can't be a monster heel that doesn't do BRUTAL things, it just doesn't work. You can be a dominating heel, but that makes you into a good guy. You have to do things that are downright friggin' CRUEL. The cheating heel needs to be a complete and utter bastard.

 

Like has been said, many guys don't want to go all out b/c of merchandising, but business gets better with heels that people hate. Even a bland face benefits from a great heel.