wrestling / Columns

The Heel Report: 03.23.13: Dead Man’s Hand

March 23, 2013 | Posted by James Wright

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: Bully Ray

The President of Aces & 8s and TNA World Heavyweight champion stands tall on the heel chart again this week, despite what you might call a somewhat weak explanation of how things went down. It is still clear that Bully Ray is the most dastardly bastard in TNA and that him and his group of biker thugs are all but running things in the company now, as Taz said, it was a good week to be a bad guy. What’s more we finally heard the return of the now Immortal phrase; ‘Do you know who I am?’, which takes on much greater meaning now that Bully’s true identity has been revealed.

2nd Place: The Greatest ‘IT’ Factors

The tag team champions weren’t able to defend their titles this week thanks to the Aces & 8s and yet still the heel team proved themselves to be a cut above the rest when through their various smack talk and put-downs they managed to ignite the ire of Sting and after Bobby Roode volunteered Aries, while Aries himself was volunteering Roode, to fight the Stinger, Aries showed that he had absolutely no respect for the Icon in their first meeting. Aries ran circles around the old man until his head spun, and he mocked the legend at every opportunity while doing so. Dolph Ziggler may call himself the Show-Off, but he really doesn’t hold a candle to Aries once he gets going.

3rd Place: Jack Swagger

The rivalry for the world title just got amped up a notch, and I’m not talking about Del Rio’s slightly new theme song. Swagger breaking Ricardo’s ankle worked a treat as they have been really playing up the relationship between him and Del Rio and with this new twist (pardon the pun) things have gotten even more personal, going beyond the political theme that was being drawn out until now. It should not be ignored that Swagger also beat a game Chris Jericho on Smackdown, something that still holds some weight in the business, despite Jericho seemingly only coming back to job to rising stars at this point, not that this is a bad thing of course.

4th Place: Aces & 8s

The collective group outside of Bully Ray acted as one this week and now that they are all unmasked I can group them all together, safe in the knowledge that the right men will be rewarded with the points they earn. Despite losing in Lethal Lockdown last week the group seemed stronger than ever, taking out Kurt Angle just for fun, beating down Sting, and then taking out most every good guy on the TNA roster at the end of the show, also apparently Hulk Hogan can’t fire them under the orders of Sting, or some such other rubbish, whatever the case they looked untouchable on Impact.

5th Place: The Shield

Speaking of untouchable, that is how the Shield looked on Friday Night Smackdown, taking it to all three men they thought would be squaring off against them in the six-man tag at Wrestlemania. One thing they didn’t count on though was the arbitrary booking change for the biggest show of the year that saw Ryback taken out of the match and the Big Show all but put in. With this change on Raw the group seemed to be put at a disadvantage, although I still wouldn’t be surprised to see the group pull off another victory as a team at the Showcase of the Immortals.

6th Place: Mark Henry

The World’s Strongest Man got his Wrestlemania match, and not only that he already proved that he would not be just another victim of The Ryback’s insatiable hunger. Henry delivered three World’s Strongest Slams to Ryback on Smackdown and proved that he could man-handle Big Hungry.

7th Place: Bad Influence

The Legion of Boom rides again! Daniels and Kazarian continue to entertain each week, even in their losing ways. I honestly can’t wait for the inevitable feud between them and the Greatest ‘IT’ Factors, I just hope the returning AJ Styles doesn’t get in the way of it.

8th Place: C.M. Punk

Recently I stated that Punk’s treatment of the passing of Paul Bearer wasn’t all that tasteless, at least he wasn’t pretending to be him, talking from beyond the grave…well that line has been crossed, already. Now I am still not exactly offended by this route that they are going, but it does make you wonder what they would have done if they didn’t have this real life death to work with.

9th Place: Wade Barrett

The Intercontinental champion cheekily retained his title this week in a triple threat match on Raw. It was a decent affair and hopefully made up for the men involved’s segment last week that was universally panned, although mostly due to a presumption that it would be such before it happened.

10th Place: Dolph Ziggler

Two wins for the Show-Off! Also a loss if you watch Saturday Morning Slam, but who has time for that? Maybe the WWE are finally realising that they should have the guy win at least a little if he is going to be the world champion soon, more likely though that they are just setting him up for another fall at Wrestlemania.

(Week 85):

1. Robert Roode (300)

2. Alberto Del Rio (281)

3. Dolph Ziggler (278)

4. Daniel Bryan (274)

5. Cody Rhodes (267)

6. The Big Show (266)

7. C.M. Punk (265)

8. Mark Henry (215)

9. Austin Aries (197)

10. Bully Ray (190)

The Wright View:

Flustered Sting

Maybe it was being in a different city for once, maybe it was the fact that he has been betrayed by everyone he has ever trusted at least twice, or maybe he is just too old for this shit but whatever the case I have to say that Sting’s reaction to Bully’s proclamation that he had betrayed him was a little lacklustre. I mean he threw a water bottle for Christ’s sake, and that was about the extent of it, then he decided to wrestle Austin Aries and was made a fool of for the most part, I know Sting is old and foolish but if they are going to portray him as such then surely he shouldn’t be at the front of this movement defending TNA? Also after his big win at Lockdown, where the hell was Eric Young to capitalise on his momentum? I suppose this was Aces & 8s week but it would have been nice to see him get a win over someone, or even acknowledge his estranged wife and Knockouts tag title belt, that’s right we didn’t forget, something!

Sheamus & Orton

Arbitrary Big Show-Ryback debacle aside what is really nice to see in the build to the six-man tag match at Wrestlemania is that somehow Randy Orton and Sheamus have been getting on the same page. The Shield work as a unit and the only way to beat them is for another well-knit unit to go against them, failing that some singles stars have to get on the same page and actually work together to defeat the group. Week by week Orton and Sheamus have been getting better as a team and on Raw they were starting to look like a proper tag unit, the only problem is that they have to factor in the Big Show somewhere to this, and that is the window for the Shield to actually win at Wrestlemania. What’s more there is Orton’s requested heel turn to consider, while it seems like the furthest thing away from happening at the moment that is what makes it all the more imminent. I personally would hate to see Orton turn heel by joining the Shield as I think that would spoil the group dynamic, but I wouldn’t mind him turning on his team simply to be a dick, although they’d better then have a damn good explanation for it afterwards.

Fandango

I don’t care what you say I am a Fan…dang…go! Sure the gimmick is getting pretty stale, but I enjoyed seeing Curtis challenge Khali to say his name and then saucing up Natalya on Raw like the creepy ladies man he is, yes he can be both, he is Johnny Curtis. I have faith that Curtis will make this gimmick work and if he actually gets a Wrestlemania match out of it, against Chris Jericho no less then so much the better. He deserves something for winning NXT season 4 and then getting screwed out of any real main roster appearances, what’s more since it is Jericho he is going up against he has a 90% chance of going over on the Grandest Stage of them All, new streak everybody, Fandango is going 1-0 at Wrestlemania!

Prime Time Player Pointlessness

That is exactly what this segment was, pointless. It was just an opportunity for Cena to showcase another new shirt before his match at Wrestlemania. We have heard it all before and there is no need to go over it all again, we get it, this time it is for the title, you lost last time and because you are John Cena if you lose a match clean then the world is coming to an end and you have to go on a massive redemption quest to get back to where you ‘belong’ as the WWE champion. But in all this why did Cena have to get fed the Prime Time Players? Also that whole ‘Pancake’ thing was just weird and about as pointless as the segment and match itself. Cena is at the point in his career where we really don’t need to see his squash anyone, he should be above all that, we know he is going to win against most anyone on the current roster, with the exception of C.M. Punk, who still holds a pretty impressive record against Cena, especially in big match situations. Why did we need to see him take out his brother from another mother, Darren Young?

Cheap Pops:

Steve Cook hosts anotherFact or Fiction

Sean Kelly keeps us up to date in the Thursday Sports Entertainment News Report

Mike Gorman discusses the best Bill Murray films in Ten Deep

Joseph Lee is close to the end of his supporting characters rankings in A Bloody Good Time

Ryan Byers fills you in, in Ask 411

The Greatest ‘IT’ Factors on Impact – I know they took the second top spot on the chart but what kind of man would I be if I ignored the fact that they were wearing ‘Dirty Heels’ vests on the show, that is just straight up awesome. Another note has to be that Aries couldn’t figure out how to do the Scorpion Death Lock on Sting and proceeded to shout ‘How do you do this crap?!’ to the downed Sting before being kicked in the face, and I agree, I know it should be a simple step over but in my mind’s eye I can’t picture how exactly to do it, so a nice little nod to that there.

That’s all for this week, there are still a few of weeks until Wrestlemania and things can still change, what’s more TNA seems to actually be giving the WWE a run for its money in terms of heel quality, what with Aces & 8s running wild, Bully Ray back on form as their President, and two, two amazing heel tag teams running around like they own the place, honestly don’t expect the heels of TNA to go off quietly into the night during this Wrestlemania season and fallout, even if they don’t have another PPV to bolster their weekly appearances for another few months. This is James Wright signing off.

article topics

James Wright