The Heel Report: 02.21.14: Ashamed to be English

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: Cesaro

Cesaro did so many things this week, it is kind of ridiculous. Not only did he beat Randy Orton clean in the main event of Smackdown, something which I don’t think anyone saw coming, especially since Orton is the WWE World Champ, even if he is being overshadowed by several other superstars at this point, but he had what was arguably the best TV match of the year thus far on Raw against John Cena, and looked damn good doing it.

But aside from all that I have to remark on his appearance on NXT, which was a thing of beauty in and of itself. Not only did he look like a big time player and kick Sami Zayn in his injured knee like a dick, but we almost got to see what had to have been WWE’s first pinky promise. Cesaro showed this week that he has the tools to deliver not only in the ring, but also at delivering a damn entertaining promo segment as well.

Not only that but along with Big E. he received a name change this week, which shows that the WWE are thinking about his character and its future going forward in the company. While I don’t expect Cesaro to come all that close to winning the WWE title in the Elimination Chamber, I am now excited to see his performance in the match as it is likely that he will be given free rein to do some remarkable things in the match and I can see him taking out at least one participant in the match before being eliminated.

It is strange to think that Cesaro has had all the tools since coming to the WWE, and in his career before the company as well, but it was really his use of the Big Swing that really started this momentum going. I highly doubt that was something the WWE gave him to do, more likely it started as a throwaway spot and when the people in the back saw the reaction it got he was encouraged to keep doing it and now it has become something of a phenomenon. Although the downside is that something like that doesn’t make his opponents look too good, so I couldn’t imagine him being allowed to do it against someone like Brock Lesnar or Undertaker for example. Then again a few days ago I would have said that about Cena and look what happened on Monday night Raw. Whatever the case it looks like Cesaro will go from strength to strength in the WWE, he has the look and the attitude, and certainly all the credentials to become a big star in the near future, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens for the guy.

2nd Place: The Shield

The Hounds of Justice continue to look strong heading into Elimination Chamber, not just in their winning ways but also in terms of storyline involvement. Not only are they still acting as the Authorities hired guns, as shown on Raw, interrupting the main event, but also in the tease of their breakup and in their feud with the Wyatts. No non-faction group has gotten this much attention from the WWE in a long time and all three men are building up a significant career in the company, especially for a bunch of relative new comers to the main roster.

It may sound silly with all the rumors flying around about the potential Wrestlemania card and the general tradition of this, but I would still like to see the Shield vs. the Undertaker at the event. I talked about this when the Shield took out the Deadman ages ago and I think it would be cool, especially if you are like me and you are in the camp of ‘the Streak should end’ and ‘be used to put over a younger guy’. What more believable way to end the Streak than by having the Shield do it, sure Undertaker can beat any one man at Wrestlemania, but can he defeat a tight three-man unit? Also this way you could easily put over Reigns by getting the pin and that could lead to the breakup of the group the next night on Raw due to an explosion of jealousy and in-fighting. In my opinion that would be better than any type of usual team breakdown where miscommunication leads to a bunch of losses before one guy breaks away, I just don’t think that will work for the Shield.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no illusions that this will actually happen, but it is what I would like to see. To me such a thing would be much better than the inevitable dysfunction of the group in a loss to the Wyatts at Elimination Chamber, leading to a three-way match between the members at Wrestlemania. I remember how that went with the Legacy and it wasn’t too great. This whole time the group has been together I never found myself wondering who would win out of a match between them, their strength is as a unit and their match with the Wyatts, or with the Undertaker, seems much more interesting than a match between themselves.

3rd Place: The Wyatt Family

Speaking of the Wyatts, they were handed a number of easy tag team wins this week leading up to their showdown with the Shield. Honestly on Raw I was expecting a little more to do with John Cena on Raw when they appeared at the end of the main event. I get that their main beef is with the Shield right now but if the rumors are true about Wyatt vs. Cena at Mania then surely it would have made sense to make him a victim in the crossfire between the two groups, so as to add to the issues between Cena and the group going on from the Elimination Chamber.

As with the Shield-Taker match I have little hope that we will see an actual match inside an Elimination Chamber between the two groups at this point as surely it would have been announced already, but it sure would have been interesting to see.

It is cool that the WWE have spaced out the confrontation between the groups in the lead up to their match since it shows that it is actually a big deal and they know as such, despite the match not actually being booked for Wrestlemania as many of us thought it would be. Either way though it should be a great match and hopefully all men involved will get their chance to shine against each other.

4th Place: Jack Swagger

Cesaro’s Real American partner got his own surprising amount of success this week, although lower down the chain, in winning a Fatal-4-Way to become the new number one contender for the Intercontinental champion with a match at Elimination Chamber, and he then made Kofi Kingston tap out on Raw to give him momentum heading into the PPV.

Swagger has had a couple of chances at the main event scene and both times it didn’t end up going so well, but that is not to say that he can’t do well in the mid-card, and with Cesaro seemingly heading to bigger and better things it is good that Swagger is being put into a good position to shine as a single competitor on his own, although having Zeb Coulter in tow definitely helps him get his message across, no matter how distasteful it may be.

5th Place: Zeb Coutler

It was a big ticket week for the Real Americans as Zeb himself got his time to shine in his consistent mocking of Big E. in his match against two members of the 3MB on Raw. The trash talking of Zeb was great and it was nice to see him apply his rhetoric to someone other than immigrants and foreigners.

The irony here of course is that he was cheering on two guys from India and Scotland, who he would usually be dead set against, thus exposing the hypocrisy of real people who hold his character’s viewpoint where they want all immigrants to go home until they need them to do their dirty work for them. The WWE: a deeply satirical and thought provoking product, or at least it could be, if it wanted to.

This week made an interesting change from the relative silence that Coulter has been put under as of late, although his signs were often pretty funny, or at least one side always seemed to be. I’m not sure I want to hear Coulter gab on through matches every week, but it makes a change from the goofbags on commentary.

6th Place: Randy Orton

The champ didn’t fair too well this week, losing to Cesaro in the main event of Smackdown and then clearly about to be on the losing end of things on Raw against Sheamus before the Shield got involved. I find it pretty annoying that his character keeps going back and forth between being ungrateful to the Authority and then kissing up to them. Sure it makes sense that he wants to get on their good side right now, but surely that logic would apply to many of the times when he was moaning like a little bitch about the way they were treating him as well.

Sure these traits make the character more unlikeable, as should be a plus with a heel champion, but when the character’s motivations start to become confused you are more likely to create just ‘go-away’ heat rather than any actual heel hatred. I used to be the biggest Randy Orton fan until about 2009, here we are five years later and I wouldn’t mind if he disappeared from our screens tomorrow, that is how far the character of The Viper has fallen in recent years.

7th Place: Kane

Corporate Kane could be accused of much the same as Randy Orton, week after week he comes out and says one thing and does another. However here Kane has more presence in his just being a complete dick and corrupt in his practices as the director of talent relations, or whatever the hell his title is.

His beef with Bryan seems a little superfluous and has a dangerous threat of becoming so involved that the only logical end will be a match between the two at Wrestlemania, something which would have seemed great about a year ago, but at this point it would be a supreme waste of the momentum Daniel Bryan has right now. Come on WWE, do the right thing!

8th Place: Chris Sabin

The former X-Division champ played the dick-ex-boyfriend role down to a tee this week on Impact. I especially liked how he wore a cup because he knew Velvet would go for the low blow, only to then mock her for it and take another low blow for his trouble.

While his title run wasn’t exactly all that necessary or successful, Sabin could easily transition back to the main event now that the TNA landscape is so bare. The guy certainly has some talent, although I would be worried about his being prone to injury after what has happened to him in his career so far.

9th Place: Magnus

The English TNA champ had some fun in Manchester this week, the cum-bucket of the British Isles. Ah, the North, like the South of North America; terrible (we have fun). Seriously though the North of England is a terrible place, never go there.

I seriously think TNA should consider coming to England full time, they do so much better here than they do in the US, and without a major company here they could easily dominate the market. Plus the WWE Network won’t be available here for a while so they will still have a bigger TV presence being on Challenge, which is a channel available on even the most basic cable package or digital box. Hell they could even tour since there is only about five arenas that they could actually perform in, wrestlers don’t need to see their families, come on!

10th Place: Christian

The newly turned Christian comes in last place. His heel actions against Daniel Bryan were a bit of a surprise on Raw, but honestly beyond that I am not sure what this turn is going to do for his career.

I would be tempted to say that Christian should perhaps go back to TNA since he is much more likely to be on top there for the remainder of his career than in WWE, where he is hugely unlikely to win the title at any point, especially now that there is only one major belt.

(Week 032)

1. Randy Orton (174)

2. Bully Ray (120)

3. Dixie Carter (93)

4. HHH (91)

5. Alberto Del Rio (86)

6. Bray Wyatt (83)

7. AJ Lee (82)

8. Dean Ambrose (80)

9. Roman Reigns (69)

10. Robert Roode (67)

Heel Centurions:

That’s all for this week, the Elimination Chamber is coming up and there will be a lot of interest in the Chamber match itself. I have a horrible feeling that with all the talk that has been going on about Randy Orton never having won a chamber match before that he will end up actually coming out with the title at the end of the night. I honestly would rather see anyone but Orton walk out with the chamber with the title, even Christian, although a match with him against Batista at Wrestlemania would be bemusing at best. Then again anything can be good if it is booked right, although tell that to the Orton-Batista match because that is shaping up real bad already; ‘ooh, Orton dissed Batista as part of Evolution, how deep and personal’, that crap is beef from a decade ago and no one but the people involved still care. I really hope the WWE doesn’t just stubbornly stick to their guns because they want Batista to have the belt when he is promoting Guardians of the Galaxy or whatever. How about actually giving the current fanbase what they want and building up good storytelling and feuds that people are actually interested in to perhaps add some much needed prestige to the new championship? But who knows, maybe they will do the right thing, or Cena will win, either way for now this is James Wright signing off.