The Heel Report: 02.08.12: Vegan Saviour

This is the Heel Report. A weekly chart spanning from Thursday’s Impact to the Raw Super Show, ranking the heels in TNA and the WWE based on their actions, wins and loses.

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 TNA and the WWE 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: Daniel Bryan

The runaway winner for top heel of the week goes to Daniel Bryan, who has crossed firmly over to the dark side, and if you can’t see it you are blind. Turning his vegan ways into a way to show that he is better than everyone else is very Punk-esque and it gives me an idea for a Punk vs. Jericho vs. Bryan match that should happen, the winner being allowed to use all the self-righteous heel gimmicks and the other two having to find a brand new bag. As much as I have enjoyed Bryan’s run as World Champion I am starting to get a little bored of his rivalry with the Big Show as it is pretty predictable, I just hope that after the Elimination Chamber it is Bryan and Sheamus feuding, rather than the WWE pulling a switch and giving the title to Orton or something, although I certainly wouldn’t put that past them.

2nd Place: Chris Jericho

Finally Chris Jericho steps up and admits that he was trolling everyone, only to then get trolled himself by the Best in the World; C.M. Punk. Still Jericho got his own back on Punk by tossing him over the announce table and stealing the victory in the six-pack challenge to secure his place as the last entrant in the Elimination Chamber, a great advantage in a brutal match like that. I’m interested to see how the WWE will handle Jericho and Punk in the Elimination Chamber as it could be that they will have Jericho win the title so that Punk is chasing the win going into Wrestlemania, which would certainly make the match more compelling. Otherwise Jericho will have to pull a fast one to justify why he should have a one-on-one match with Punk if he loses to him in the Chamber. This will sound strange but one thing that’s good about the WWE’s track record of taking a good thing and driving it into the ground for no real reason is that we cannot presume that things will go the way that logic dictates, meaning that we could actually be surprised in the lead up to Wrestlemania, and sure these might not be good surprises, but at least everything is not a foregone conclusion.

3rd Place: Robert Roode

TNA’s heel world champion just misses out on second place behind Jericho. He did manage to win his match with James Storm thanks to a little help from his pal Bully Ray, and while it was a nice cowardly move, if he had just returned the favour and helped Bully destroy Storm to end the UK Impact taping then he probably would be above Chris Jericho in the chart. Having said that Roode isn’t exactly lacking in momentum, being seemingly untouchable right now and capable of escaping from any challenge thrown at him, we will just have to see how long he can keep this dizzying pace up, hopefully for quite a while. What’s more he also garnered some nice praise from the Rock, which is always a good sign. While I doubt that at this point in his career Roode could cross over to WWE, it’s nice to know that at least someone associated with the company has noticed his efforts.

4th Place: Bully Ray

Coming up next is the man with the largest calves in the world, although the Rock might have something to say about that. Bully Ray has finally made his way into the title picture in TNA and I think it is happening at just the right time for the guy. It might have taken a long time but Bully Ray is at the top of his game in terms of his singles career, and while I don’t think any of us can see a title run in Ray’s near future, acting as Roode’s second is a pretty sweet position for a guy who has had about one world title match in his whole career.

5th Place: Beth Phoenix

The Phoenix has fallen rather far this week, going from winning a PPV and retaining in a title match to only winning one of two tag team matches. The WWE are running with a nice idea at the moment, which is that Beth is the most dominant diva in the division, something that will most likely be called into question when Kharma decides to grace us with her presence again. I kind of feel bad for Natalya in all of this because before Kharma was ready to come back it seemed like there might be a Divas of Doom split and it would be Beth vs. Natalya for the title at ‘Mania, whereas now she is just left with this terrible fart gimmick where she gets splashed by Tamina every week for no reason, now that seems like a pretty raw deal to me.

6th Place: Samoa Joe & Magnus

This newly formed team keeps picking up speed, this time by beating the tag team champions in a Buckingham Brawl match. Manipulating the tornado tag stipulation on their side to great effect and laying a beat down on the two powerhouse champions. It is interesting to see the crowd’s reactions to the teams as Morgan and Crimson seem to be getting a lot of heat, whereas Magnus, and especially Joe, are getting more than their fair share of support. The question is whether TNA will pay attention to this and pulls a double turn, or if they will ignore the fans’ opinions as usual and just keep on pumping in fake cheers and boos to their heart’s content.

7th Place: Austin Aries

The X-Division champ took a break from his newly developing rivalry with Alex Shelley to take on some local talent this week, local talent that nearly killed himself in the middle of the ring. Once again Aries was able to turn back the tide and remain dominant in the X-Division. Circumstances like this is why TNA gets under my skin sometimes, because they have all the tools to make their product great and yet they don’t seem to pull it off most of the time. Air time is being taken up by Bischoff and his son, or Robbie E, or Eric Young and ODB, when we could have a bunch of great X-Division action from guys who are barely used, apart from the returning Alex Shelley there is Brian Kendrick, Douglas Williams, the Pope, not to mention the guys they let go like Jay Lethal, the Young Bucks and Sanjay Dutt. Hell put Jeff Hardy in the X-Division and see what happens, I’m sure everyone would be far less hostile if he was going for a lesser title right now than the world championship. Bottom line is that TNA has the talent, it just often doesn’t know how to book them in a consistent way to keep their divisions looking strong and showcasing their top talent, which is a crying shame because besides the WWE they are really the only game in town for major TV exposure for top young talent.

8th Place: Epico & Primo

The tag team champions were able to turn back the tough test of the team of Santin-Hooooo this week. Again here the WWE is having the same trouble as TNA, a division that could be great right now if the right guys were used at the right time. Do you remember about a year ago when you had the Hart Dynasty and the Usos nearly feuding, whatever happened to that? If they had played that right they could have let that feud fuel the tag team division for the whole year, leading up to now where teams like Air Boom and the Awesome Truth could have come and gone to keep the division fresh but without taking too much limelight away from the two top teams of 2nd generation talent. Still at least Epico and Primo have Rosa Mendez, that should keep them relevant for at least another week, right?

9th Place: Jinder Mahal

Apologies for this man’s appearance on the chart, it was a slow week, what with the upper-mid-card heels getting barely any mic time and losing any matches they were put in. We are lacking Miz, Ziggler, Barrett and Rhodes from the chart this week and they are all sorely missed. Mahal beat Yoshi Tatsu in what was essentially a meaningless match since it will do nothing for Mahal in the long run. The WWE exists in a state right now where guys can be dominant on their lesser shows, but then upon facing anyone on the main roster, including Santino Marella and David Otunga for Christ sake, they are almost certainly destined to lose. As such any win or loss on Superstars or NXT can for the most part be negated.

10th Place: Tyson Kidd

While wins and losses on Superstars should be negated, they should almost count as a minus on NXT. That show has become a running joke, well at least it was, then the joke stopped being funny and people just honestly gave up caring altogether. Now the guys who drift in and out of the show like so much debris from a sinking ship change alignment and allegiances so many times that storyline and character motivations are null and void. The worst thing about all this is that with a smaller roster NXT had a real chance to be something better, you could have gotten developed characters with deeply personal, interlocking feuds, where everyone had some connection to the other guys and it all meant something, as it is they are all just running around like headless chickens, trying not to look like complete amateurs, begging for someone to just put them out of their miseries, except of course for Johnny Curtis, who remains a boss, in a creepy way sure, but a boss nonetheless.

Rolling Chart (Week 27):

1. Mark Henry (150)

2. Cody Rhodes (137)

3. Alberto Del Rio (96)

4. Robert Roode (92)

5. Wade Barrett (89)

6. The Miz (89)

7. Dolph Ziggler (81)

8. Bully Ray (70)

9. Christian (59)

10. Beth Phoenix (58)

The Wright View

The Face Off/Face the Facts: The Undertaker & Triple H

This week I was split twice by two segments that were both frustrating and brilliant so I’ve decided to combine both into a ‘two sides of the same coin’ type deals. First let’s deal with the bad, this was when Triple H came out at the start of Raw basically ridiculed and belittled a story that has been the main focus of Raw for the past couple of months, namely John Laurinaitis as the GM of Raw. He basically waved the thing off and said that it will be dealt with later by an outside factor, not even on the main show! Who cares who you have running your main promotion right? Let’s just talk about you and your feud with a guy who is getting too old to lace up his boots and apply his mascara eh?
I’ve been quite clear on my stance on Undertaker vs. Triple H, I don’t see the point and it annoys me that they are going to take up so much time on a feud that doesn’t really need to happen…but then the good happened. Sure Triple H’s speech about how he respected the Undertaker and wouldn’t be the man to expose him and make him look like the decrepit old man that he is (he didn’t say that exactly but it is what he meant), but then the Undertaker took charge, and for all his faults he made me sit up and pay attention. I had been questioning exactly why the Undertaker would want another match with Triple H since he had beat him twice, surely a bit of smack talk couldn’t rouse the Deadman? However I can completely buy the Undertaker’s reason for wanting the match now, who would want to end a legendary streak and career on a down note, on being carried out of a match that you won, making you look like a chump in what should be your finest hour. So now Undertaker is in the Michaels position, albeit in a more vocal sense since he can’t really wrestle all that much in an attempt to get into a match with Triple H at ‘Mania. Of course the match will go ahead and Shawn Michaels will be the special guest referee, hopefully with Triple H putting his wrestling career on the line and Michaels screwing Triple H at the end of it all since if he can’t beat Taker than nobody can. Who knows, what is important is that from a storytelling angle the match actually makes sense now, all that’s left is for Triple H’s motivations to go into the match to be set into motion, which could be a mixture of many things, but easily doable. A match between legends is all very well and good, but without motivation it will never be as good, and now there is at least some motivation for the Undertaker to put the streak on the line. The only question now is whether it will be the last time or if guys like Cena will actually get a shot in the coming years.

On the Rise/Flat-Footed: Daniel Bryan & AJ

In this case I have already said that Bryan’s feud with the Big Show is starting to get stale, having said that though the character of Bryan himself is going from strength to strength. Bryan is not unique in being a heel who hides behind a woman, but what is interesting is how he mostly hides behind her emotions, rather than her 95lbs frame, which has been mentioned ad nauseum. Bryan is manipulating her feelings for him and using them to help him keep his world title around his waist. On top of that Bryan makes himself sound like a self-righteous dick at every given opportunity, proclaiming how proud he is to be a vegan and to be champion, giving off a real air of a guy who is saying ‘I told you so’ to all his doubters, but to the point now where most normal people would have stopped and only an egomaniac would continue to rub everyone’s noses in it.
That is the Bryan half of the partnership, and luckily for the most part Bryan is captivating enough to carry things. However as much as a lot of guys on this site love her, where we are let down here is AJ. She is just terrible, first of all there is that neck brace, which doesn’t look like it is protecting anything. Then there is her muted acting, where she looks like a plank of wood stuffed into a quirky outfit and stood against the outside of the ring, just waiting to be demolished by the Big Show. AJ is trying to come off as frightened but brave in the face of a man who she thinks is her tormenter, whereas in reality she just looks confused and way out of her depth. I understand the geek-on-geek link, but who honestly thought that AJ was ready to take part in a main event storyline, even if she is mostly mute for the whole thing. Hell that would be like giving a supporting role to Eve where she is supposed to look convincingly scared…wait a minute! A word of advice to the WWE would be that if you insist on hiring women based on looks rather than ability, how about you focus on actresses rather than models, as models mostly know how to stand there and look pretty, not interact with people or characters in a story, you might as well employ a bunch of cardboard cut outs, hell at least then you could put them through tables without worrying about breaking your precious PG rating.

That’s all for this week, WWE rolls along to Wrestlemania as TNA tries to get their stuff together and is actually doing a pretty decent job of things. I’m still wondering what roll Sheamus will play in the Elimination Chamber, he is on the poster after all. Even Del Rio had a match with Kofi Kingston last year before he went into Wrestlemania, who is Sheamus going to face, Jinder Mahal? Let’s hope not, for now this is James Wright signing off.