The Heel Report: 08.30.12: The Biker Gang and the Steel Cage

This is the Heel Report. A weekly chart spanning from Tuesday’s NXT to the Raw Super Show, ranking the heels in professional wrestling based on their actions, wins and losses.

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 wrestling 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: C.M. Punk

If anyone was still clambering onto the claim that Punk is a practicing Tweener I think they will have to abandon that claim now that he went full Kaufman on everybody, complete with a little (slightly) musical number. This is the type of work that shows Punk to be truly worthy of his spot on top, sure he can play the face and get all the fans to rally behind him in the face of adversity with a few rye comments and the skill in the ring to back them up, but it’s when he gets petty, nasty and downright unpleasant that he truly shines. He is great at playing that arrogant son of a bitch that tells you what he is going to do and then backs it up, and there is nothing that Cena, Lawler or any of the fans can do about it. Of course now that Punk has crossed that line it is really only a question of who will get to shut him up; Rock or Cena? While I’d be tempted to say Cena at this point, if we are to assume that Rock-Cena 2 is occurring at Mania it makes more sense for it to be the Rock who takes the title and then Cena finally gets his redemption on the grandest stage and once again becomes the WWE champion, I might not like it, but it makes perfect sense from an overarching storyline perspective.

2nd Place: Alberto Del Rio

Messing up in a tag match cannot erase the fact that Del Rio got over clean against the Viper on Smackdown. Then he let his heel flair shine by clobbering Sheamus with a shoe and getting revenge for what happened at Summerslam. I’m starting to think that the WWE should put the title on Del Rio at Night of Champions, not because he needs the belt but because the reason this feud between him and Sheamus has been so boring is that no one expects the guy to win the title at any point so it all just seems like filler. Have him win the belt and then have Ziggler cash in to protect Sheamus and to give Ziggler a run with the belt. At the moment another match between Del Rio and Sheamus seems dire if he is just going to walk in and take yet another Brogue Kick and Sheamus walks out with the title intact.

3rd Place: Dolph Ziggler

If it weren’t for the multiple Brogue Kicks that Ziggler has suffered over the past few months I would say that Dolph was starting to look like the new Edge, always looking for an opportunity. The only difference so far is that more often than not Ziggler comes up empty handed when he tries his luck, but that can only be the case for so long. As long as when he actually cashes in the MitB case he is successful then he really could start being known as a cerebral competitor and that is always good. You have to love how he baited the fans with Jericho’s entrance and stealing his catchphrase, but I think it didn’t have anywhere near enough build to have all that big an impact, let’s just hope that the emerging feud with Orton will serve to add to Ziggler’s momentum and not just land him in the Christian position, and without even a title win to show for it.

4th Place: Cody Rhodes

In terms of match time Rhodes hasn’t really had much to speak of, you’d almost think he were injured what with him not competing at Summerslam or on Smackdown and barely being in the ring on Raw. Still though Rhodes has shown himself to be great on commentary, and turning around Sin Cara’s mask to cause him to lose to Heath Slater was a great move. He focused on the mask but yet didn’t concentrate on taking it off and that paid off for him. The possible problem with Rhodes is that he seems to naturally lend himself to tag team wrestling. I remember when he teamed with Hardcore Holly I thought it was great, then Ted DiBiase, then Drew McIntyre, and his various tag matches with Ziggler and Miz, and now Sandow, there is just something about him that makes him seem more like one half of an exciting tag team rather than a presence complete by himself. Maybe I’m just barking up the wrong tree but I’d really like to see him teaming with Sandow while the two have little to do, it will at least prevent them from slipping from the mid card level while other guys are getting shots at the main event.

5th Place: Damien Sandow

While it was his tag team partner that ate the pin on Raw, he still comes ahead of Sandow because he was able to showcase his stuff just a little bit more this week. Sandow himself kept up his usual standard, but at this point I am hoping to see a little more from him as he is almost becoming one-dimensional, he really needs to take more from his feud with Brodus Clay, or just have Matt Striker as a manager all the time because that man sold him so hard on Superstars for the past two weeks that he really should be paid more for it, or at least be allowed to commentate on the main shows again.

6th Place: Daniels & Kazarian

The TNA tag team champions, although you wouldn’t know it from the past two weeks, were scrambling to gain something out of this Claire Lynch situation as it crumbled down around them in a rather abrupt fashion. Of course we are all glad that the angle is over and maybe now the duo can go on to actually having a rivalry where they are against another team, albeit almost certainly another thrown together one. TNA really needs to keep an eye on their divisions at the moment as they really don’t want to get into the situation that the WWE are just barely getting out of where they only have a couple of guys in the whole company to sell a card and all of them are at the main event level. The undercard women’s, cruiserweights and tag team matches are all important to make a card really strong and TNA is seemingly devoid of having any real major focus on that undercard right now.

7th Place: Robbie E

This had to have been one of the biggest upsets in TNA history as Robbie E got the pinfall victory in a BFG Series match against AJ Styles and RVD. The Jersey Shore reject got a surprise victory and it is certainly remarkable, but I do have to question TNA’s decision since his victory won’t mean anything to him but it holds back both RVD and AJ from being solidly in the top four, which I suppose could have been the point, but if so then TNA are cutting it quite fine to reveal who the final four are.

8th Place: Antonio Cesaro

The US champ used his moxie this week, by employing his foxy girlfriend, distracting Santino’s poxy cobra, who by proxy caused him to get his ass kicked. Rhyming is fun!

9th Place: Heath Slater

Slater picked up a big win against Sin Cara on Smackdown and continues to solidify himself as a jokey guy who is good to pull out when you want a throw away match, think Santino a few years ago. Speaking of which Santino managed to stop Slater’s win streak dead in its tracks, which was interesting because the WWE were certainly teasing that he would pick up the win what with Aksana coming out and distracting Santino, or rather his cobra, oh the phallic imagery!

10th Place: Bully Ray

Final place goes to the Bully, who had a great match with Ken Anderson, even if it was in a losing effort. He did also save the TNA champion from Aces & 8s, which was a strange decision. Maybe TNA just don’t care anymore as it seems like the Bully isn’t long for the TNA world. I just wonder if it will be ROH or WWE that snaps up the world’s most decorated tag team, and will they get to go back to being solo acts at any point in either company?

(Week 56):

1. Daniel Bryan (246)

2. Cody Rhodes (222)

3. Alberto Del Rio (218)

4. Robert Roode (218)

5. Mark Henry (181)

6. Dolph Ziggler (153)

7. The Miz (146)

8. Bully Ray (142)

9. Chris Jericho (125)

10. Big Show (107)

The Wright View:

The Purring Hogan

I almost can’t be bothered to mention Triple H’s shameless pleading for the fans to care about the fact that he might possibly be stepping away from the ring for a couple of months, the whole thing is just sad, so instead I’m going to focus on the strangest thing that happened this week; The Purring Hogan. I know that Hogan was coming back looking for payback against Aces & 8s and that he has apparently become ‘Hollywood Hogan’ once again, despite that not really making too much sense but whatever, but why was he purring all the way though Impact? Maybe he was trying to denote fury or outrage or something but it really did just come across like he had a breathing disorder. I just don’t get why the Impact crowd were clamouring for this guy, their ignorant need for a nostalgia kick is going to send this guy to an early grave as he steps into the ring over and over again when he really shouldn’t.

Kane Monologue

How could it not be? After receiving basically universal praise from reviewers, columnists and even a wrestling God you have to know it was one of the best segments that the WWE have done for a while, at least in terms of comedy, which is something that is greatly undervalued in wrestling right now. The WWE is such a colourful company with a rich history and diverse roster and there really is the ability to make some great skits and stories out of that, but instead for the most part they ignore all that and just bring out Hornswaggle for no reason or mock an announcer because of their medical condition. Kane simply sat down in a setting that made complete sense and recited various events of his career, nothing fancy, nothing fabricated or tailored for the segment for hilarity to ensue, and yet it did, because the WWE is ludicrous, and when you put that into a serious setting and a real world environment it is naturally funny and it should be done more. Of course it doesn’t hurt that Kane himself has a rich character and Glen Jacobs is actually a fantastic deliverer of monologues, as has been seen since he began to talk after ironically being cast as a monster who never said a word.

The End of Claire Lynch

Ding Dong the witch is dead, the witch is dead…well she quit, but that’s good enough for me!

Vickie’s Sex Noises

Now maybe I was just too sensitive to noises this week but I swear on Smackdown Vicky Guerrero was making the most god-awful sex noises while on commentary. I think she might have been trying to denote disappointment at Dolph getting lamped by Sheamus over and over again but instead she just sounded like she was enjoying it way too much, it was just plain weird.

Matt Striker On Superstars – Yes this is exactly the same person as last time, on the exact same show and for the exact same reason, but really have you been watching Superstars? Matt Striker is seriously taking things to the next level, especially when Damien Sandow comes out. Striker clearly loves the guy and he uses his quest to educate the masses to emphasise how just how important education is, what with him being a former teacher you could see why this would be something dear to his heart. This week not only did Striker work to put the heels on the show over, but he also managed to work in an Austin Powers quote in there at some point, basically he is awesome.

Cheap Pops:

Michael Weyer runs down the history of Summerslam in Shining a Spotlight

Yours truly goes head to head with Michael Ornelas in Fact or Fiction

Jack McGee goes through the Worst Movie Sequels in The 411 Top 10

Shawn S. Lealos highlights a few potential superhero movie story arcs in Alternate Takes

Finally as always the 411 staff rate ‘em up in The Wrestler of the Week

That’s all for this week, I’m really hoping that Punk can come out on top at Night of Champions because even if he does just go on to lose to the Rock it really will mean a lot if we finally see someone go over Cena properly and for an extended period of time and if Punk loses it will almost seem like the whole years’ worth of storyline surrounding the WWE title will have been for nothing. But who knows what the WWE will decide to do, all I know is that it can’t be all about Cena forever, hell it has been far too long already. For now this is James Wright signing off.