The Heel Report – Week Thirty Six (Alexa Bliss, Chris Jericho, Dana Brooke, Kevin Owens, Maria)

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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: Alexa Bliss

wwe-harley-alexa-bliss

Bliss managed to pull off a surprise victory on Smackdown to become the number one contender for the woman’s title.

 

9: Braun Stroman

braun-stroman

Braun managed to quite easily beat Sin Cara twice this week. He is graduating from no-name jobbers to known jobbers, pretty soon he’ll actually be going against real competition.

 

8: Dean Ambrose

Is Dean Ambrose Vs AJ Styles Next

This is a tentative placement as it is hard these days to really know when someone has a heel turn. Still his hitting a Dirty Deeds on John Cena after their tag match, no matter how popular, indicates that Ambrose might be turning a new corner in his career.

 

7: Chris Jericho

Chris Jericho

The list of Jericho was a nice reference to his list of holds, and a match with Sami Zayn should be a good addition to the Clash of Champions card. It looks like any slight rivalry with his best friend Kevin Owens will be a slow burn, which in this day and age isn’t a bad thing potentially.

 

6: Kevin Owens

kevin-owens-champ

Speaking of Jericho’s besty, the Universal champion ended up losing to Roman Reigns this week in a steel cage match. While there could be at least some debate over whether a champion should lose before a PPV title defence it is of note that despite whatever de-push he is going through, Reigns is still the chosen one of the WWE and he was only allowed to beat Owens by millimetres. I believe had this been a year ago the champ would have been destroyed and pinned clean, no matter what the circumstance.

 

5: AJ Styles

a-j-styles-as-wwe-world-champion

Apparently the sky is green, and the two main champions of the WWE were once key faces in Ring of Honor and TNA in 2016, it is a crazy world we live in! I know I say this every week but I continue to be pleasantly surprised by just how good Styles’ promo skills have gotten since he was on Impact. His merchandise sales must be doing amazingly since they seem to be trying to attach Cena’s ‘Never Give Up’ slogan to him as well, which is not a bad idea really. Styles is legitimately the first guy to completely overrule the duelling “Let’s go Cena! Cena sucks!” chants that have haunted the WWE for the last decade, so it’s no wonder they have been placing so much faith in him.

 

4: Charlotte & Dana Brooke

Charlotte & Dana

The whole program they seem to be running with Dana Brooke and Charlotte has me a little confused. Are they trying to set Brooke up as the next babyface competitor against Charlotte despite the bringing up of Bayley to the main roster, or are they simply using this as a reason for her to drop the title to either Bayley or Sasha on Sunday? Either way I don’t really get it. Brooke is doing alright but is probably not ready to be put in that spot yet, and having Charlotte not lose the title clean would seem to diminish both her opponents at a time where they need to remain strong considering that these four women are the only ones getting any real attention on Raw right now. I am also still a little confused that on a show run by Stephanie McMahon and Mick Foley that they seem to have a better division in the cruiserweights than their women, who made that decision?

 

3: The Miz & Maryse

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It’s good to see that this whole thing with the Miz and Daniel Bryan actually seems to be translating into another push for the Miz, although I doubt it will actually lead him to the world title any time soon. Both Raw and Smackdown are seeming to make an effort to have their secondary champions more involved with the main event scene, which is good, but having their own important feuds for the title would probably work a lot better to restore the belts to some semblance of their former glory. Still it is better than them just being ignored completely so that is something I suppose, it is also good to see Maryse get more involved in her husband’s matches, maybe it might even lead to another go around in the ring at some point. Just so long as this doesn’t turn into another Bennett & Maria situation where the whole division seems to revolve around her despite her not being a full time competitor.

 

2: Bobby Lashley

Lashley

The TNA champion has been positioned seemingly in a league on his own at this point. While I think that EC3 is a better overall competitor, and Moose is being pushed as a potential rival, I just can’t see TNA taking the belt off of Lashley after they have put so much work into building him up to this degree. He has basically been shown to be able to do whatever he wants on Impact without facing any real consequences, and while I may disagree with this decision it is hard to argue with his deserved place on the chart this week. I just hope that somehow someone can bring him down at some point, and arguably that is exactly how people should feel about a heel champion, so job well done I guess.

 

1: Maria

Maria

The Knockouts champion appears without her husband in tow this week. While, like with Lashley, I might not agree with the overall emphasis on her on the show, it is hard to argue that she was the biggest heel on television this week. They have found the perfect foil for her in Allie, someone she can abuse for as long as they want before her inevitable rebellion and face turn. This is also a much better version of the Charlotte-Brooke storyline taking place right now on Raw. Unfortunately it also overshadows arguably better competitors who are in the Knockouts division right now. Then again the division hasn’t been what it used to be for a few years now so it is hard to be truly down on the current state of things when it has been so shoddy for so long. It is strange to think that as it stands you could easily argue that TNA has the worst women’s division (in terms of story and overall importance) in popular wrestling at the moment. They used to be so ahead of the game and now when women are given a bigger role than ever in the WWE and Lucha Underground, as well as several major independents, the main female player in TNA isn’t even strictly an in-ring competitor, no matter how much of a massive heel she is.

 

Rolling Chart – Week Thirty-Six

1st Place:              Kevin Owens                     (258) (-)

2nd Place:             Chris Jericho                       (163) (-)

3rd Place:              The Miz & Maryse           (121) (+1)

4th Place:              Charlotte                             (117) (+1)

5th Place:              Maria & Mike Bennett   (114) (-2)

6th Place:              Matt Hardy                         (101) (-)

7th Place:              AJ Styles                              (83) (+1)

8th Place:              Seth Rollins                         (81) (-1)

9th Place:              Bobby Lashley                   (74) (+1)

10th Place:            The Club                              (74) (-1)

 

That’s all for this week, it was a pretty slow time for heels but somehow those who managed to gain a footing shook up the Rolling Chart quite a bit. Seth Rollins and Matt Hardy are now pretty much screwed for the foreseeable future since they have turned face and will probably slip off the chart in a few weeks. There is still a long way to go before someone reaches the heights to challenge Owens or Jericho, but if anyone can do it, it is AJ Styles, who is currently storming his way up the rankings after only a few weeks. He’ll have a time making major headway next week though as Clash of Champions will probably help the Raw heels to take over the chart, at least in the short term.

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.