Welcome to the Heel Report, a weekly breakdown of the best heels in professional wrestling right now. Each week the heels will be ranked out of ten and then those numbers will go on to form the rolling chart that continues each week. This is a place to evaluate and praise the ‘baddies’ of wrestling in their efforts to make us boo them mercilessly so let’s show them some love and get on with the report!
Weekly Top Ten:
10: The Miz
He might have been abandoned this week in a tag match but before that he got in a couple of good shots on Miz TV and had a good match with Zach Ryder, which he was victorious in, could an intercontinental title shot be in his near future?
9: The New Day
Things are starting to get murky in terms of the New Day and their heel status. Sure they successfully defended their tag team titles twice this week, and with some shenanigans involved. But the thing is that it was against the League of Nations and in my book that positions them as at least semi-faces, cheating or no. They are on the cusp of falling off the chart for good, booty!
8: Bobby Lashley
Lashley found the right place between dominance and douche-baggery on Impact, and also got a win over Kurt Angle in his last match for the company before spearing half the faces on the roster. Lashley has always had potential but has been far too casual in TNA to really realise any of it, although perhaps now, entering into an apparent feud with EC3, he will actually have a decent program with someone.
7: Mil Muertes
The Lucha Underground champion looked strong this week, defending his title against two of his top challengers in a triple threat match. The problem with being such a dominant champion is that he sometimes has no need to cheat and instead wins clean, hence why he did not place further up the chart despite his successful defence. Next week he’ll have to handle another defence from his even fiercer rival; Phoenix, so maybe he will have to step up the heel antics to keep hold of the richest prize in the temple.
6: Dash & Dawson
First time on the chart and first time on semi-main product WWE. I think that this was great exposure for the duo as they are a solid pair of heels and all the criticism that they could have gotten for any lack of charisma was covered up by the team of Enzo and Cass. I get that in general the WWE is all about personality, but there is something to be said for playing the straight man, especially in the tag team division, and these guys have that down in spades. At the same time I worry that if they are called up now they will be lost in the shuffle since the WWE seems to have no idea how to book multiple threads of a division at the moment.
5: Kevin Owens
Even without a Roadblock match it is hard to deny Kevin Owens a place on the second half of the charts due to his walking out on the Miz on Smackdown. The Miz looked so hurt that Owens left him and it adds to the theory that there will be a multi-man match for the IC title at Wrestlemania rather than it being simply one-on-one between Zayn and Owens.
Personally I am alright with this because hopefully Owens can retain, without Sami getting pinned, and then the two can go into a long rivalry coming out of Mania. This way we can see the two face off on the grand stage, but also the rivalry doesn’t feel so rushed, instead with the two building to a big blow-off match at Summerslam or something.
4: Naomi & Tamina
Among title retentions and the best heels in the business, Naomi and Tamina reach fourth place on the chart because of the heel clinic they put on in their match on Main Event. It is this type of heel action that makes me wish that the WWE would take a page out of Lucha Underground’s book and have more Inter-gender matches, because at this point the separation between the two is pointless.
The duo also won their match on Raw, a regular occurrence as of late, which has me wondering if they will be involved at Wrestlemania. From the backstage stuff on Raw after the match it looks like we might be getting a six-woman tag match with Paige and the remainder of Team Bella versus Lana and the remainder of Team BAD. The only problem with this is that in terms of stakes it probably belongs on the pre-show, but at the same time if that happens then there will definitely be complaints.
3: Charlotte
Seeing this rematch get adequate time was great after that terrible Raw match that lasted all of a couple of minutes, if that juxtaposition isn’t enough to show that Vince McMahon doesn’t know what the audience wants anymore then nothing is. As it was the two women were able to truly show their stuff on the network special and despite this being yet another conclusion that doesn’t affect the shape of the main product at all, there is certainly an argument for quality over impact.
This was the story of the whole PPV; the outcomes might not have had a lasting impression, but the matches themselves were quality and enjoyable. I’m still not sure why we can’t have both and hopefully the triple threat match at Mania will deliver big time and make this whole divas revolution worth the hype. This whole thing would have been a lot better if the three had come in as one team, or else leaders of three separate teams, instead it looks like the three women were simply able to overcome a terrible gimmick rather than it being the design all along.
2: Chris Jericho
This week the old school took the new school to school on how to be real heels. Jericho walked into Canada having freshly fully turned on WWE newcomer AJ Styles and proceeded to turn cheers into boos, despite being paired against the odd choice of Jack Swagger. Jericho renounced his short-lived tag partnership, his own country and even the decisions of the referee on Monday night when he took Charles Robinson to task for not ending his match with Neville early after a clear injury. Luckily this move led to a DQ finish itself and Y2J was able to cut an impromptu promo to work the whole thing into his own storyline, still that heated exchange just beforehand was legitimately worrying.
Jericho has a habit of walking a fine line between heel antics and real inflammatory behaviour, you only have to think back to the flag incident in Brazil to recognise this. As well as his ref confrontation, which has been said to be legit, he also ripped a fan’s sign in half, which was a get well message to the recovering Bret Hart. I’m all for committing to the role, but I don’t want to see the guy get suspended just before Wrestlemania, if it can happen to Titus it can happen to anyone!
1: HHH
It’s hard to have any real beef with HHH holding the title despite how little he actually needs the belt since he is putting so much damned effort into being champion. His match with Ambrose at Roadblock was great and could easily be regarded as another step in Dean’s journey to being a solidified main eventer. Then you have his promos, which have gotten so much better since holding the title. Instead of the overblown Authority promos where they just act smug and say the same thing over and over again, the Game now seems to have more invested in making the crowd truly despise him.
It’s one thing to talk about respecting authority and another to preach about the falseness of hope and how weak everyone watching and in the arena are in their lives while deconstructing why they cheer for certain people (although of course when he tried to work in Roman the whole thing turned to boos). The scary thing is that he makes you believe it and it’s quite possible that HHH, while providing one of the best products in NXT, still dislikes and looks down on most fans, which makes me scared for the future.
Then again this dislike is almost a good thing as I think it fuels him to be better. He wants, at least as a character if not the man himself, to be THE MAN, not only in the ring, but also behind the scenes as well. Hopefully that will translate to putting on the best product possible for fans so that we all have to take back anything negative we have said and it all ends in gift baskets and thanks. The only problem now is that no matter how much of a good heel game he plays in the lead up to Wrestlemania, there is no way that Reigns will go in as the face and receive anything but boos if coming out victorious.
Rolling Chart – Week Nine
1st Place: Kevin Owens (65) (-)
2nd Place: The New Day (49) (-)
3rd Place: The Wyatt Family (42) (+1)
4th Place: Charlotte (38) (+1)
5th Place: Matt Hardy (36) (-1)
6th Place: HHH (27) (+2)
7th Place: The Dudley Boyz (26) (-1)
8th Place: Team BAD (23) (+1)
9th Place: The Social Outcasts (21) (-2)
10th Place: Chris Jericho (20) (New Entry)
The Wright View (Extra segment of honourable mentions based on heel puns)
*On the Rise*
Tyler Breeze
While Prince Pretty might not have made the chart this week he gave a great performance in his low profile match. Tyler Breeze is a solid heel and really deserves to be getting more recognition than he has been. At this point he will probably only get to enter the Andre the Giant Battle Royal, which is better than some, but for someone who was such a big fish in NXT it is sad to see what has become of him already on the main roster. Then again look at Xavier Woods, he looked done for and now is at one of the best positions on the card, so who knows.
*Flat-Footed*
The Wyatts
Wow, I was pretty sure going in that Brock would beat Bray, but to have a two-on-one handicap match where Bray is too scared to get in the ring and isn’t even smart enough to bring Rowan and Stroman as backup, it just boggles the mind. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Wyatt look more weak, and here we are a few weeks before Wrestlemania, and these guys don’t even have a match yet, it is terrible! Maybe the WWE thought that since Bray didn’t get in the ring he could still save some face, but Bray is not, and has never been, a coward, so the fact that he clearly feared Lesnar really hurt him. The only way the WWE could salvage this now is if Wyatt runs the Andre Battle Royal the way that he was supposed to rule the Rumble and then goes onto win the thing, that could work.
That’s all for this week, no casual fan view this time as there was too much to show her with Roadblock and Raw and her attention was so split that it mostly just involved her asking what the point in most of it was, she did like the Ambrose-HHH match though, as well as HHH’s promo on Raw. I think she is starting to see HHH as her favourite, which is probably helped by the fact that she saw Max Landis’ Wrestling Isn’t Wrestling and really liked it, someone should really make more of those. Hopefully next time there will be more to say and less to watch, if not then I’ll definitely try to get things together for a Wrestlemania special, for now it’s just all about the game baby! This is James Wright signing off.
Agree with the rankings? Disagree? Who was your favourite heel of the week? Whatever the case, leave comment down below and come back next week for another dose of heel-ly goodness and for now this is James Wright signing off.
