The Heel Report: 01.03.14: Turning Your Back

This is the Heel Report. A weekly chart spanning from Tuesday’s NXT to next Monday’s Raw, 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, after 100 weeks naming the reigning wrestler a ‘Heel Centurion’.

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 (or in other words the smarkiest chart of smarkdom ever to smark), so without further ado let’s get on with the report…

1st Place: The Wyatt Family

While many see the events of Raw as yet another boon for Daniel Bryan, getting so much airtime and the main event slot yet again, but it is of even more significance to the Wyatts. The relatively new team were centre stage on Raw in the last hour and ended up getting their way, having apparently completely broken Bryan and managed to initiate him into the family.

It is difficult to truly trust that this is a proper turn from Bryan and instead more like a Cena-into-Nexus type of deal where he is going to break up the group from the inside. Honestly I am not sure what I want from this move, or even what to really expect. It is hard to even say whether or not the Wyatts will remain heels or not with Bryan in tow. In the coming weeks if they are going to remain a heel unit they will have to not only ‘covertly’ do the Authority’s bidding, but also attack guys like C.M. Punk, which will be interesting to see with Daniel Bryan’s involvement.

Certainly at this point the group is only growing stronger and their continuing evolution as the Shield at the same time seems to be on the verge of breaking apart gives the WWE a nice secondary storyline to run with while they continue their not so inspiring title picture where Cena and Orton continue to feud over the newly unified championship, although with the addition of Brock Lesnar as a potential next opponent for either Cena or Orton things could get interesting pretty quickly, but will Bryan actually get another shot any time soon?

2nd Place: Daniel Bryan

I’m going to answer that question with a resounding ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ If anyone has proven that they can take any storyline they are given and get even more over with it, it is Daniel Bryan. Heel or face he will remain to be over and if Cena gets hold of the title before, or hell after Bryan gets out of any heeldom he works himself into then he might be next in line after Wrestlemania to get a shot.

The way I see it Bryan joining the Wyatts isn’t a step down right now. As much as many of us would love to see Bryan with the title, or at least in the title picture, right now it is pretty unlikely what with Brock and Batista returning, not to mention all the other potential returns from legends for the thirtieth edition of Wrestlemania. Of course this does not mean that you can’t rule out a surprise Royal Rumble win, in fact Bryan could even double cross Bray to do it. If Bryan and Bray are left with Brock and Batista in the Rumble match final four say, and both of those behemoths take each other out, which could easily happen, maybe Bray will look to Bryan to take himself out for the Family, only to have him turn on his apparent leader, becoming an even bigger face in the process.

Sure in this case the Bryan-Wyatt joining will have only lasted for a few weeks, but that’s about as long as Cena lasted with the Nexus so why not? This would also give Bryan something to do before and at the Elimination Chamber by re-feuding with the Wyatts. All in all there are a bunch of possibilities for Bryan now that he has turned his back on the audience and knowing Bryan it will only land him in a place above where he was before, so keep the faith.

3rd Place: Randy Orton

The champ might not have been on Raw but he left enough of an impression on Smackdown with his post-match attack on Dolph Ziggler to get into the higher end of the chart. It is tempting to think that Orton will retain the title going into Wrestlemania to make the first run with the new WWE World Heavyweight Championship, however never underestimate the WWE’s need to give the title back to Cena for the big show.

The only problem is that if that happens we might see a rematch at Mania and I don’t think all that many people are actually all that interested in that, so hopefully Orton will retain, or at least be out of the title picture after the Elimination Chamber. Then we have the interesting situation of Orton’s remark about entering the Rumble match itself, which hopefully he won’t win because that could actually be one of the worse, believable, outcomes of the match.

Still I wouldn’t mind seeing Orton actually enter the match as it could set up any number of matches for him at the Granddaddy of them all. There is even a part of me that wouldn’t mind seeing Orton vs. Batista, for the title or not, since I still remember the beef they never really settled from nearly a decade ago, and who knows, maybe Orton would raise his game for that rivalry and Batista would come back with some fire, although in this case a heel Batista has way more appeal than his face side so who knows how that one would go down. Would Orton turn face so soon after his much requested heel turn? Well since it hasn’t exactly made him all that much better I certainly wouldn’t mind it.

4th Place: Ethan Carter

The continued push of the former Derrick Bateman is still on the rise as he managed to get a sneaky pinfall over Sting, which is still a pretty big deal no matter how he did it. Sure it was a four on two handicap tag match but against Sting and Jeff Hardy, and when your partners are Rockstar Spud and the BroMans, nothing is really guaranteed.

At least the guy doesn’t have the Ryback syndrome where he has just been crushing jobbers every week for several months. Sure he did it with the same two guys for a few weeks but luckily that has gone away now, and it was nice to see Shark Boy and Curry Man back for a tussle.

Working a program with Sting actually could be good for Carter since I think the Stinger is on the way out, and generally is willing to put guys even if that wasn’t the case. Will he end up triumphing ovber the Icon? Only time will tell.

5th Place: Rockstar Spud

Like Ethan Carter, Spud has benefitted greatly from being around at a time where a lot of the bigger names in TNA are jumping ship. Plus since Dixie Carter is seemingly determined to impersonate the current Authority storyline in the WWE by having her very own Brad Maddox, Spud has been appearing throughout each show, gaining more and more points as he goes.

Not only that but he also did play a part in the Impact main event this week on the winning team against Sting and Jeff Hardy, so technically he has beaten two former world champions, which is nice for him.

6th Place: Dixie Carter

The chairwoman of the imaginary board was clucking like a proud hen this week about her new champion. I’m still not sure what point the Dixie Carter character becomes obsolete, probably once AJ Styles gives up his belt, which is pretty likely since he will be cropping up in ROH sometime soon.

Once AJ has left, even if it is just all a work, she will need a new enemy to go against and I’m not sure that there is anyone to fill that role right now, or at least not well. Even if Style’s leaving is a work, and with Hardy not being able to go on the UK tour, there will be a gap where the ‘Authority-lite’ has no one to go against it, what the hell are they going to do?

7th Place: Bully Ray

A much more intriguing situation is what does Bully Ray have planned for the TNA roster? The menace that the Bully is emitting is palpable, and his promo with Brooke was great, saying just enough to put the point across that he means business.

Although here again is the question of who exactly is he going to go against? Anderson is away right now and unless he is planning on turning face he can’t go against Magnus. Angle is busy with Roode, Aries wouldn’t make much sense, and Joe? Joe isn’t doing anything of importance now so who would care? Bad times man, bad times.

8th Place: Antonio Cesaro

It seems like the WWE are beginning to position Cesaro for another push, perhaps outside of the Real Americans. I say this because he got big mid-card wins against both Ziggler and Cody Rhodes this week, as well as William Regal on NXT, and yet his partner Jack Swagger couldn’t catch a break.

Cesaro finally has something that the WWE can seemingly get behind in the Giant Swing, despite for the most part ignoring his natural good look and talent. Although here it is likely that any real push will come after Wrestlemania since there is a pretty long line already for guys getting pushes, so Cesaro will have to wait his turn.

9th Place: The Shield

It was a bit of a mixed bag for the Shield this week; they lost some and won some. However in that it was clear that Dean Ambrose was the loser of the group, Roman Reigns was the winner, and Rollins lost twice but also managed to put on two good showings for himself against the main event talents of C.M. Punk and John Cena.

While Roman Reigns seems set to get the big push once the group breaks up, the future also looks bring for Ambrose and Rollins, both men having enough talent to keep them afloat in the inevitable loss of momentum from the end of their amazingly successful teaming. Will they remain as a tag team or go their separate ways? Who knows?

10th Place: Brock Lesnar

The return of Brock Lesnar means big things for the WWE going into the Royal Rumble, but his attack on Mark Henry was only enough to get him the smallest amount of points on the chart.

While the F-5 on the floor looked good, it wasn’t exactly brutal, and his primal scream is pretty ridiculous when compared to the monster of a man it is attached to.

(Week 025)

1. Randy Orton (140)

2. Bully Ray (105)

3. HHH (85)

4. AJ Lee (79)

5. Alberto Del Rio (76)

6. Dixie Carter (76)

7. Damien Sandow (61)

8. Bray Wyatt (61)

9. Dean Ambrose (61)

10. Robert Roode (55)

Heel Centurions:

That’s all for this week, I’m excited for the Royal Rumble as there is so much that could take place there. Usually you have maybe two or three guys that have a legitimate shot at winning the match to go on to Wrestlemania, this year there are a number of options and there is no way to truly predict who will take it. From Daniel Bryan, to Batista, to Brock Lesnar, Punk, Bray Wyatt, Roman Reigns, a potentially unwelcome HHH win, another surprise return, or even Cena or Orton themselves. No matter what though the match is set to be awesome because it always is, at least in my opinion, and for now this is James Wright signing off.