The Heel Report 23: Top 10 Heels in Wrestling for June 23, 2016 (Baron Corbin, Seth Rollins, Chris Jericho, Decay)

Columns, Top Story

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: Matt Hardy

matthardy

I’m still a little confused as to whether or not Matt Hardy is supposed to not be using his name or not but either way he continues on with this new ‘character’, which is basically just a stupid accent. The whole thing is so hammy that it reminds me of 60s Batman, as well as the general use of a woman to spring a track on our daring, if retarded, hero. Hey, at least he is modest…whatever that is supposed to mean coming from a guy who designed his own title belt and is possibly the most pretentious person I have seen on television.

 

9: Decay

decayabysstna

Good or bad, the ‘Death Dealers’ continue to be pushed and retained their titles in a week where every champion had to defend  their title just after a PPV, something which seems a little odd. There is probably some kind of agreement with Pop that TNA has to honour but it definitely devalues the only PPV that TNA have had this year to then see the matches again on tv. I’m not necessarily down on this group as they really are the only thing going in the TNA tag division at the moment, I just wish they had more to do and beating everyone isn’t exactly helping build other teams up.

 

8: Baron Corbin

paybackbaroncorbin

Like it or not Corbin seems like he is here to stay, beating guys that don’t really mean anything to the WWE landscape anymore over and over again until he has been around long enough that people won’t care if he wins a title or two. Corbin is just another Reigns waiting to happen, and so is Big Cass for that matter; physical guys who have a certain presence but not when it comes to delivering a promo. This would be fine if WWE would just use managers or tag partners all the time to cover for their weaknesses, but there seems to be a need to show that they can stand on their own, when they can’t, but we are told that they are, so we call bullshit, and then the whole cycle begins again.

 

7: Kevin Owens

Disney Owens

This one is just like when Ambrose beat Owens for the IC title; while I am happy for Ambrose I can’t help but wish that Owens had got the win instead, even though Ambrose may deserve it more. I am glad that the WWE are doing what I have been saying for ages and carrying on the Zayn vs. Owens rivalry until at least Summerslam, but I will also say that I do hope that it ends there. While they two are great rivals and the WWE have been clever to diversify the types of matches they have had and have inserted other distractions several times, I still kind of want to see them move onto other things, possibly meeting up again at Wrestlemania. I think I just won’t be happy until KO is champion so just ignore me.

 

6: Bobby Lashley

Bobby Lashley

The new TNA champ remains that way. Lashley is working pretty well this time as a heel champion and I honestly don’t think that he needs a mouthpiece since he has managed to harness his own arrogance to project a decent heel character of a guy who knows he can kick your ass and isn’t shy about saying so. I will say that it is going to be hard for Lashley to hold onto the title when going up against the force that is EC3 in TNA right now. At least he is a heel, that way if he goes over then the boos will just and to the gimmick, rather than going down the Reigns path.

 

5: Seth Rollins

sethrollinss

I know this is difficult because the WWE seem to have given up on traditional heel-face relationships in its main event scene, but I am going to still classify Rollins as a heel for the report, at least for now.

Whoever is booed and whoever is cheered it is a remarkable thing that Rollins managed to beat and pin Roman Reigns clean to regain his title, even if he was set to lose it a couple of minutes later. Of course that loss knocked him down in the standings, but more important than that it is hard to assign too many points to Rollins this week because his actual heel-ness has been overall lacking. It’s great that the WWE are trying something different, but I just wish they had let him come back as a face since he could have easily been the most over guy on the roster going into Money in the Bank, and that would have made the end mean a lot more too.

 

4: Charlotte & Dana

Charlotte & Dana

The women’s champion Charlotte had two successful matches this week, one was a tag match on PPV and the other was a title match on Raw. I kind of feel bad for Paige as she was just fed to Charlotte and then had to promote Sasha Banks as being the next big thing, which seemed completely out of character for her.

At least we are finally getting the matchup that has been being teased for over half a year now. Banks vs. Charlotte should be good and it really should lead to Banks walking out of Summerslam with the title, most likely with a match where Dana helps Charlotte win at Battleground beforehand. At this point though I am just waiting for Bailey to be called up as there is little else she can do on NXT and with the brand split and multiple injuries the Women’s division really could use some new blood right about now.

 

3: Rusev & Lana

rusevlana

The best part of Rusev’s matches are still Lana’s introductions, but the end of his successful defence against Titus where he mocked his children on Father’s Day was pretty fun.

I was actually quite surprised that Rusev retained here and I’m not exactly sure what the WWE are planning going forward. Honestly it seems like Battleground is just an inconvenience at this point as all the blow-off feuds would work a lot better at Summerslam. Then again it is a nice bookmark to the brand extension since that will probably change the landscape quite a bit, hence why booking for Summerslam now would be kind of pointless. I think I’d prefer someone like Cesaro to wear the title since at least one of the secondary titles should be on someone who is capable of producing four-to-five star matches when required, also it would at least slightly salvage his momentum from his return.

 

2: Chris Jericho

jerichojacket

Somehow the gift of Jericho has managed to rise to the second spot on the chart despite coming up short yet again in the match that he created (as the WWE won’t let us forget). It probably has something to do with calling people stupid idiots all the time and not apologising for it.

Sometimes Jericho rubs me the wrong way and I am not the biggest Jericho fan ever, but you have to admire how good he is at making people boo him despite his veteran status. He knows how to work his arrogance to be either entertaining or infuriating and will play with the audience to achieve the effect he wants. The best part of the week had to be when he was talking to Owens and Del Rio about how they were getting on and Owens says that he doesn’t like Jericho, Y2J looked legitimately saddened by Owens’ reply and it showed the insecurities of his character that make them such a hypocrite, because for all they claim they really always just want to be liked.

 

1: The Club

The Club

It really is hard to keep these guys away from the top spot on the chart when they are doing big things in the tag and singles division and yet are counted as one unit.

As a unit they managed to get AJ the victory over Cena at Money in the Bank in what will no doubt mark the first in a series of three matches that winds up with Styles losing the last two. It would be great if somehow Styles was able to win out and get a big victory, say at Summerslam, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

First of all there is the brand split, which could part these two before they are able to finish their feud, although it could also be a cross-brand match to finish things on the August PPV. Then there is the idea that a TNA guy could go over the face of the WWE more than once, which can be claimed to be a fluke. Instead it will probably be Cena winning at Battleground and then winning once again decisively at Summerslam, probably with some rubbish stipulation that the Club have to disband or AJ can no longer be their leader or some such, although this could also clear the way for Finn Balor to come in as AJ’s replacement, so that wouldn’t be all bad.

 

Rolling Chart – Week Twenty-Three

1st Place:              Kevin Owens                     (177) (-)

2nd Place:             Chris Jericho                       (106) (-)

3rd Place:              Charlotte                             (88) (-)

4th Place:              The Miz & Maryse           (67) (-)

5th Place:              Maria & Co.                        (62) (-)

6th Place:              Matt Hardy                         (62) (-)

7th Place:              The New Day                     (49) (-)

8th Place:              The Club                              (44) (New Entry)

9th Place:              The Wyatt Family             (43) (-1)

10th Place:            The Dudley Boyz              (42) (-1)

 

That’s all for this week, I am still a little shocked that they actually went there and gave Ambrose the title, but it makes some sense considering Reigns’ wellness suspension (if the WWE knew about it before hand) as well as possibly needing to get rid of the MitB case before the brand split to avoid confusion. I do think it’s quite bold for WWE to get rid of their insurance policy however so who knows what they are thinking. Whatever is going on I am interested to see where they go from here.

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.