The Heel Report: 09.20.12: Team Friendship and the Night of Champions

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: Daniel Bryan

This was a tough one considering that at Night of Champions Bryan was being cheered more than almost anyone on the entire roster and is clearly only a short time away from a full face turn. However he is clearly still being booked as the heel of Team Friendship and so for at least this week I think he still qualifies for the chart. And since Bryan is being counted as a heel this week he is clearly also the most successful one, both winning and defending the tag team titles with his partner Kane in the space of twenty-four hours and getting the pin both times. Bryan is a master manipulator and has begun to use his anger management training to help get his way, whether it be by tricking Zack Ryder into hugging him, only to lock in the No! Lock, or hugging it out with Kane to grab at least one of the tag team titles. Basically Bryan has employed the ‘hug’ as a successful offensive move, which for a heel is a damn rare achievement, but one that will no doubt keep him from being a heel for too much longer.

2nd Place: C.M. Punk

The WWE champion was foiled by Bryan this week, despite going full scuzzy heel mode on Raw. While Punk’s actions were all there his success wasn’t and to top this chart you need to be both a winner and a world class heel, not a world class heel who draws in a title match and gets pinned in a tag match, despite any protest of whose foot was on the bottom rope. Now if it had been Cena’s foot on the rope then it would have been a different story. A lot of people seem to be sceptical of why the WWE had Punk lose like this on Raw, but to me it makes sense; now both men have been jipped by referees and can’t trust the officials to make the right call, so in their next title match they’ll have to have it take place in a match where there is no real need for an official; Hell in a Cell! However saying that there could always technically be a double pin in a Hell in a Cell, the only thing stopping it is the brutality of the match, but it could still happen. What they really need to stop shenanigans is a Steel Cage, wait no, a Last Man Standing, wait no, a Buried Alive, wait no, an I Quit match…is there any match in professional wrestling designed to insure a clean finish that hasn’t been marred in some way by manipulation and cheating? You know what I would love though is to see Punk pull another of Rock’s moves out of the bag and fake Cena saying ‘I Quit’ in a match for the title as that would make so much sense with everything that is going on right now and would be yet another example of Punk going into a Cena-favoured match and coming out on top, while keeping Cena looking strong as it of course gets revealed that he didn’t really say the words ‘I Quit’. Book it!

3rd Place: Damien Sandow

Should Damien Sandow come ahead of both Miz and Cesaro who defended their mid-card belts successfully at Night of Champions, while Sandow wasn’t even on the card? Well it is debateable, but I suppose I would say that those belts are all but meaningless and that while both men had winning matches and some talk time on Raw. Sandow was able to do more on NXT and Raw than both men simply through his own heel presence. This is what separates Sandow from the other heels of the WWE, at least for the most part, because he puts more heel-y goodness into every second that he is on screen, rather than the occasional line and cheap shot. Sandow radiates a smarmy charm and distain at all times and that is what earns him the points to place himself above the victorious champs, who can really argue with a man who declares; ‘Cease my music!’ before delivering a promo.

4th Place: The Miz

However it is not like these men are all that far behind Sandow, the Miz surely deserves to come next after winning his IC Fatal-4-Way title match blinded by a mask on his face. I honestly think that the WWE might consider turning Rhodes face and having him feud with the Miz in a couple of months. I reckon they might have him go after Sin Cara and Mysterio for a bit more, while the Miz apparently takes on Ryback, and then he will start clashing with the Miz, turn face, and win back the IC belt, which would actually do some good for the division and once again freshen up the character of Rhodes, who has begun to lose some momentum as of late.

5th Place: Antonio Cesaro

The US champ comes not far behind in fifth place after having a decent PPV match with Zack Ryder, in which he was victorious. Seriously where would the WWE be without guys like Santino and Ryder, when you have all these heels who need victories and you have to put them up against guys who look at least half credible, despite losing week in and week out, who else can they rely on, except perhaps Kane in a pinch? Cesaro clearly has a bright future and might even be on the same kind of rise that Kurt Angle had when he first came into the company if he can continue his winning ways. Although I think for that to be the case he needs to ditch Aksana and his ‘word in five languages’ bit as it is nowhere near catchy or annoying enough like the ‘three ‘I’s’ were to get him over. Still the guy definitely has unlimited potential and could be the break out star of the next year if booked correctly.

6th Place: Eve

It just goes to show once again that success outside of the WWE holds far more currency in the company than any actual success in the company though wins or achievements. So basically every future WWE wrestler should try to become an actor, musician or reality TV star first before going into the company and instantly they will be the next big thing. As it is Eve didn’t look terrible in her Divas title win at NoC, but she certainly isn’t going to be the one to save the division, that is for sure.

7th Place: Dolph Ziggler

Unfortunately the Show-Off was unsuccessful in his match with Orton on Sunday, but he did put up one hell of a fight and also was able to absolutely humiliate Santino on Raw. It seems like Ziggler and Rhodes are in the same boat where they are so over with the fans and yet are still stunk in the same heel rut that makes them lose more often than not. Of course if you turned both Rhodes and Ziggler face would there really be enough heels to take their places and job out to the faces to keep them looking strong? I suppose there is Tensi, and Slater, and perhaps the Miz, although the WWE can’t seem to decide whether they want him to look strong, or like a complete jobber, changing how they feel from week to week. Then again the same could be said about Ziggler himself right now.

8th Place: Alberto Del Rio

The Mexican Aristocrat once again got a shot at Sheamus and once again came up short, in another match where there was no real stipulation due to the decision reversal on the Brogue Kick. I think somehow Triple H or someone sees this as some epic rivalry that will culminate at Hell in a Cell, but to me and I think to almost every other fan this just seems tired and predictable, and why? Because we’ve all known since the beginning of this thing that Del Rio was never a serious threat to Sheamus and so no one has taken this seriously from the get-go. I personally don’t understand why they didn’t just put Orton against Sheamus once he returned and had that triple threat at Summerslam like it looked like they were going to do before the show, then have Orton have gone one-on-one with Sheamus at NoC, perhaps turning him heel in the process. He is going away so soon that turning him heel wouldn’t have mattered much as they could have always turned him back once he returned from filming. Hell anything would be better than another Del Rio-Sheamus match, even if the last one was the best of the bunch, the two just don’t seem to gel for some reason and everything seems forced, a bit like Cena and Bischoff a few years ago, that whole thing just never really felt right.

9th Place: Zema Ion

Successfully defended his X Division title on Impact against Sonjay Dutt, although after a huge amount of heel work at Destination X he has pretty much been phoning it in since then and it makes me wonder what is going on, perhaps he is just waiting for the division’s inevitable death.

10th Place: Cody Rhodes

Ah the man in constant struggle with Dolph Ziggler to see who can be cheered more and yet still no be turned face. Seriously in his match at Night of Champions I swear Rhodes was getting more cheers than Rey and Cara combined! Rhodes could easily work as a face, you’d just have to hope that his years of being a heel with terrible gimmicks would have taught him how to still be charismatic despite being saddled with the blandness that comes with turning face in this era of professional wrestling. Personally I think the son of the American Dream could give Cena a run for his money if he was pushed right as the All-American babyface, and he could put on a damn site better day in and day out performance as well and not just bring out the goods two or three times a year.

(Week 59):

1. Daniel Bryan (270)

2. Alberto Del Rio (234)

3. Cody Rhodes (225)

4. Robert Roode (219)

5. Mark Henry (181)

6. Dolph Ziggler (161)

7. The Miz (156)

8. Bully Ray (150)

9. Chris Jericho (125)

10. Big Show (107)

That’s all for this week, sorry for the somewhat shorter report than normal this week but I have a big deadline coming up and I’m going to have to start whizzing through these things if I am going to keep doing them and keep up with my work. Overall I’m glad Punk kept the belt, although now people are saying he will drop it to Cena at Hell in a Cell so same speculation different day I suppose. For now this is James Wright signing off.