Better as Babyface or Heel?

[JaymeFuture]

For this week's podcast, we're taking a look at eight wrestlers and discussing whether or not they were better in their role as a babyface or a heel over the course of their career, considering their work in the ring as well as analysing their characters/personalities/runs, and would love to get your thoughts and feedback on the following individuals and whether you prefer them as faces or heels, and most important, why:

 

1. Randy Savage

 

2. Ric Flair

 

3. The Rock

 

4. Kurt Angle

 

5. Mick Foley

 

6. Shawn Michaels

 

7. Bret Hart

 

8. Daniel Bryan

 

As always the best contributions will be read on the podcast and you'll be credited accordingly. So what do you think?

 

EDIT - The show discussing your comments on who was a better heel or face is now online and available to listen to at the following link: http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/web/s3cvqh/SCGRadio55-BetterAsFaceOrHeel.mp3

[subatomic_elbow]

1. I prefer Savage as a cocky face to Savage as a cocky heel. He's one of the few guys who was able to transition the part of his heel persona that fans reacted to over to his face character.

 

2. Flair is a heel. Always. Face Flair is a fever dream.

 

3. I feel like the Rock as Hollywood Rock was his best run, but he has sort of transcended heel/face, hasn't he?

 

4. Face Angle is killer, but goofy, white bread Angle is the best.

 

5. I barely remember heel Cactus. Face Mankind is more natural for Foley.

 

6. Shawn is always a heel. Every form of him is hatable.

 

7. Bret was always a face.

 

8. Face Bryan is a force of nature.

[JerryvonKramer]

1. Randy Savage - excellent in both roles, but I think his character and skillset work better for babyface. His core skill in the ring is being able to sell and generate sympathy. Most of the best moments in his career came as a face.

 

2. Ric Flair - this appears straight forward right? Ric's a heel right? I actualy think it is more complicated:

 

- Starrcade 83 and Starrcade 93 both demonstrate that he excels in the role of babyface ace.

- Fans in the Carolinas loved him even when he was booked as a heel.

- Even though he was a heel, he had so much charisma that men secretly wanted to be him, and women wanted to shag him.

- Related also, the Horsemen were cool and always had their pockts of fans. They were always over when booked as faces.

- Flair was audibly cheered vs. Garvin in 87 and vs. Steamboat in 89 and even vs. Hogan in 94.

- Realistically since about 1998, it's been difficult to present him as a heel and for him to get over as a heel.

- His best heel runs in terms of actually getting booed and getting over AS A HEEL were probably the 91-2 WWF run and the 95-6 post-retirement WCW run. Both times were Ric as an outright heel. As I've said before Flair was at his most evil in 1996.

 

So because of all of that, I actually vote face for Flair, even though his character is a heel.

 

3. The Rock - so Rock is a similar case to Flair in that the character is ostensibly a heel, but he's so cool and so charismatic that fans could only cheer for him. Rock is face.

 

4. Kurt Angle - Three I's, "It's true" Kurt all the way. He peaked as a heel in his first year or two. Whatever you say about his in-ring work, he played that role to absolute perfection

 

5. Mick Foley - face. Foley is naturally likable and has an everyman charm. After he wrote his books, it was hard for people to take him seriously as a heel too -- they knew he was playing a role and was actually a "nice guy".

 

6. Shawn Michaels - heel. No brainer. Thoroughly dislikable human being. Has "go away" heat with me and has done since 1995/6.

 

7. Bret Hart - face. Taking the shades off and giving it to a kid. He's a classic babyface.

 

8. Daniel Bryan - face. Has an underdog quality. I've not seen him work heel much though, but I find it hard to imagine him as anything but a face.

 

---------------

 

Incidentally, I think there were some *more interesting* ones for this:

 

Sgt. Slaughter

Hulk Hogan

Bob Backlund

Sid

 

I think the podcast would be more interesting if you discussed any of those over Angle / Foley / Shawn / Bret, which all seem like total no-brainers.

[JaymeFuture]

Hogan and Slaughter were on my list of ten that we've cut to eight in the interest of time to do a fair service to the guys listed, but we will likely be revisiting this with another eight guys in the not-too-distant future. Shawn and Foley are less slam-dunks to me in that I think Foley's bumping/character work/promo are almost across the board more suited to a heel role, and Shawn was an absolutely fantastic babyface in the Rockers, and was way more effective in the second half of his character as a babyface than he was in 96.

 

Similarly, Bret to me is an all-time great babyface, but there are those who feel strongly that his heel run was so fantastic it makes it a debate. Should be interesting to track people's opinions on this.

 

Absolutely love your take on Flair, btw.

[Laz]

1. I'm actually split on Savage. If we're talking heel then we can't ignore the IC title run or his flying under the nWo banner, but we also can't ignore how little he added post- nWo. As a face he never set the box office on fire but some of the best moments of his career - Mega Powers, the snake bite, reuniting with Liz, and the wild antihero stuff pre-nWo - happened. He's a toss up to me. He played both equally well but the face turns wouldn't matter without the heel runs.

 

2. Ric Flair may be a god but he's a vengeful, spiteful, shitheel of a god. He's a heel more because you know you will never achieve what he has no matter how hard you work, he knows it too, and he won't stop reminding you.

 

3. His most entertaining stuff has all been from his heel runs - Nation, Hollywood - but subatomic's right: he's transcended. I guess I'm torn on him like I am Savage.

 

4. Angle plays heel much better than he does face, but it's hard to root against him because of how talented he is (at least to the casual fan, lest I be drawn and quartered for admitting I still love his work). '08 Angle in the build to LockDown and goofball trolling bastard for the first half of his WWF/WWE run were so effective that I can't vote for anything but him as a heel.

 

5. Foley walked that line between "smark" favorite and classic worker so well that he could turn from beloved face to psychotic heel on a dime during his peak in the '90s, but his ultimate legacy is defined by what he did post-KOTR '98 as a face. You can dislike him for being a whore for the business all you want but it's hard to fault the man or his passion or his results.

 

6. While I'm still high on his comeback years, much higher than most here, original DX HBK is something else. He's easy to hate.

 

7. Pro-Canada/anti-US Bret is some GOAT territory, and he had a few brief sparks of greatness in WCW (yes, I'm including the El Dandy promo). I've never been much a fan of his, truth be told, and I find him much easier to hate than I do Shawn because at least Shawn admits he was a piece of shit. Bret still plays the moral high ground when much of what he did was no better. I know this is based more off his real life persona than his one in the ring, but I can't separate the two when he seems delusional enough to think he was the character more than he was himself.

 

8. Bryan is a face through and through. Even his heel run in ROH just led to an epic face run against Morishima. It's really hard to boo somebody his size with that much skill who just comes across so genuinely likable outside the ring, even if he takes shortcuts and abuses the rules.

[thebrainfollower]

Is there anybody at this point who'd argue for heel Foley or Bryan? Those two picks seem like slam dunks to me.

[NotJayTabb]

The thing with heel Bret is that for most of the world he never turned heel following the WM13 match with Austin. The Hart Foundation's anti-USA rhetoric kept them face with the rest of the world. You can see how popular they were in Canada at Canadian Stampede, and they were still getting cheered in Europe in mid-late 97 (helped by being paired against a natural heel in Michaels). For someone like myself, who didn't watch WCW in 97/98, and started watching again in 99, Bret didn't turn heel until NWO 2000, and that lasted 3 weeks before he retired.

[peachchaos]

I'm gonna break it down by what I feel is each worker's peak run:

 

1. Randy Savage - My favorite Savage performances are part of his 1984-1987 WWF heel run, where he's abusive and controlling to Liz and cheats to win the IC title. For my money, the Santana and Steamboat feuds are some of the best the Fed ever put on, and career highlights for Savage.

2. Ric Flair - Well, he sort of defied "peaks". Flair is both James Bond AND the Bond Villain, and everything he ever did was pretty great, but I like him best as the heel NWA touring champion.

3. The Rock - Corporate Champ in 98/99 was his best work all-around. He was sort of the updated Flair character in many ways, with the added twist that maybe he was completely full of shit.

4. Kurt Angle - Debut gimmick.

5. Mick Foley - Anti-hardcore heel 1995 ECW

6. Shawn Michaels - I like his heel run with Diesel in the mid 90's the best. DX were annoying, but were effective heels as well.

7. Bret Hart - 1997 heel run was by far his best work, but it only worked because he had been a face for so long

8. Daniel Bryan - "I HAVE TIL FIVE!"

[thebrainfollower]

This response sort of strikes me as how deep down a lot of smart fans feel, wrestling would be better off if everyone was a heel. Except maybe one guy who would lose to the heels 52 weeks a year Which just sort of makes me laugh. It's a pretty obvious psychological reaction to the way smart wrestling fans are treated by wrestling fans and the general public.

 

The Rock, Foley, Bret and Bryan are all clearly better in terms of business as faces. Shawn, Angle and Flair are clearly better off as heels. I feel like Randy Savage is really the only one here where it's even a tough decision. Savage clearly drew more money as a heel, but that was against Hogan and Lawler in Memphis. He did great work against Steamboat, Santana and DDP also as a heel.

 

His matches tended to be slightly less formulaic as a heel as well so I'll go heel but he was great in either role.

[Laz]

I don't think it's that we necessarily want everybody to be a heel as it is most talent are able to show their strengths more as heels. Heels are typically the focal point of an angle and in control of the match so they also are allotted the most time to develop as both performers and characters. How often has a shoot interview included something along the lines of "it's easier to make people hate you than love you"?

[dawho5]

Savage I really love as both. My favorite match of his is the Steamboat match so I guess heel on the tiebreaker.

 

Flair is amazing as both as well. I think he was heel as long as he was because he loved being that guy so much. One of the interesting points about Flair to me is that he did a lot of the same stuff as a face that he did as a heel, just to a positive reaction. And he drew big as both. My preference is babyface Flair, but I got into wrestling on NWO-era WCW so I am biased.

 

The Rock is a slam dunk babyface. He was still great as a heel, but he's just to over to be a heel ever again.

 

Kurt as the complete non-heel heel was great. Only in the WWE cold a guy get booed for a legit athlete gimmick played straight.

 

Foley is a babyface, plain and simple. He had heel runs worth mentioning, but he will never be a heel again. That to me makes the answer simple.

 

Michaels is a strange case. Watching him wrestle as a heel is hard because his skillset doesn't work that way. But he's such a dick that it's hard for me to buy him as a babyface after a certain point. Rockers Shawn was a great babyface, but I'm going with heel.

 

Hart is a very interesting case to me. Even when he was playing the bad guy, Bret was playing the good guy. He was still the exact same Bret Hart he had always been, just the circumstances had changed. It almost makes him a better heel to me in that most "bad guys" in real life would view things very much the same as Bret did. "What is wrong with these people who have such a problem with me? I am doing what's right just like I always have." My personal preference is Bret as a face, but even then he has a lot of arrogance in his wrestling style that kind of heels him out. It's as if he's so convinced that he's the hero that he becomes the asshole. I'm going to say heel.

 

Bryan as a heel is a lot of fun. Bryan as an undersized underdog with a huge heart and a ton of fire was electric. Watch those tags leading up to Bryan's big run where he takes the hot tag against anyone (the Shield matches really shine though) and tell me how that guy is better as a heel. Face all the way.

[drew wardlaw]

The Deranged Mankind is Foley's best work IMO. A shortish man with child-bearing hips and a leather mask ripping out his hair and making hog sounds in the context of 1996 wwf was really affective. Like others have said, Foley's greatest trait is that he's an everyman, and Mankind completely subverts that. The character is really dehumanizing in that regard, and there's some really uncomfortable moments during that run. There's some very sad children in the audience around that time. Unfortunately, the landscape started to change really quickly after he came in and Mankind only works in a more fantasy-based environment, so that didn't last long, but for the time and place I think that's his most affective role.

 

Bret Hart is naturally arrogant with a moral high ground and a victim complex, which is truly the worst of the worst. A heel who doesn't know he's a heel is hard to beat.

 

Hypothetically, if Bryan were to come back clean shaven with a bald head and tried to do that stupid Evolve fake grappling, I wonder how much heat that would get?

[subatomic_elbow]

The Deranged Mankind is Foley's best work IMO. A shortish man with child-bearing hips and a leather mask ripping out his hair and making hog sounds in the context of 1996 wwf was really affective. Like others have said, Foley's greatest trait is that he's an everyman, and Mankind completely subverts that. The character is really dehumanizing in that regard, and there's some really uncomfortable moments during that run. There's some very sad children in the audience around that time. Unfortunately, the landscape started to change really quickly after he came in and Mankind only works in a more fantasy-based environment, so that didn't last long, but for the time and place I think that's his most affective role.

 

Bret Hart is naturally arrogant with a moral high ground and a victim complex, which is truly the worst of the worst. A heel who doesn't know he's a heel is hard to beat.

 

Hypothetically, if Bryan were to come back clean shaven with a bald head and tried to do that stupid Evolve fake grappling, I wonder how much heat that would get?

 

 

Grapplefuck Daniel Bryan with a posse of shaved headed fake grapplers that only indie fans recognize would be amazing. Just be an overbearing, smug asshole who champions "real wrestling" and berates his underlings. Give him a policeman and young boys and you have gold.

[Hobbes]

1. Randy Savage: HEEL. Good at both, but I think his best work was as the unhinged, jealous man who could snap at any time.

2. Ric Flair: HEEL. But specifically the heel that you'd boo, but deep down you really wish you could be.

3. The Rock: FACE. Tough, because I feel like he's best as a face, but largely his success came as a face who acted like a heel. When he was first pushed as a clean cut third generation blue chip face, fans couldn't stand him. When he started to act like a heel, fans fell in love with him. So even though it's all muddled with Rock, I'm going face.

4. Kurt Angle: HEEL. His first few months/year or two specifically. When he was that guy who acted like a babyface but just tweaked it enough to let you know that he was a cocky asshole. The guy who when he said "I have a lot of retarded fans out there" you had to wonder if his character was oblivious to how that sounded, or really smartly jabbing them.

5. Mick Foley: FACE. Cactus Jack was scary to me when I was young, but looking back, even then his likeability shined through. He was a scary monster heel, but was a lot better at taking beatings than giving them. Even when he was a heel as Mankind, those background pieces with JR humanized him and made him likeable. After his first book came out there was no going back.

6. Shawn Michaels: HEEL. Even when Shawn tried to be a face in his prime he had a natural unlikeability and cockiness to him. His late career face run as the old cowboy gunslinger was good, but it says something when his best face run was when he stopped talking and emoting very much.

7. Bret Hart: FACE. Bret obviously relished being the white hat like few wrestlers ever did. He had a great heel run in WWF in the 90s but even then, he was mostly a heel just to Americans, and you could see some justifications for the way he felt.

8. Daniel Bryan: BOTH AT THE SAME TIME. Bryan's best character was actually as ROH world champion. He was a cocky prick who bragged about being the best wrestler in the world, but you had to respect him because he might have been correct. A spot that perfectly encapsulates his character is when he'd hold an opponent in a submission for four seconds after he reached the ropes, then yell at the ref that he "had five". It's a prick move, but technically not a rule breaking move, making him look like a jerk and a smart wrestler at the same time. He was a face against heels, a heel against faces, all without ever having to change a thing. He was a tweener, but in a completely different way than the edgy "shades of grey" characters of late 90s WWF.

[JaymeFuture]

Just wanted to thank everyone for the contributions - we got to a great number of them on the show, which is now available at the following link:

 

http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/web/s3cvqh/SCGRadio55-BetterAsFaceOrHeel.mp3

Join us as we talk about the eight fantastic talents, and debate whether they were better as faces or heels throughout the course of their careers. Analysing the in-ring work, personalities and runs in various roles, we discuss Randy Savage, Ric Flair, The Rock, Daniel Bryan, Mick Foley, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart and Kurt Angle, and take your comments on if they were better as beloved protagonists or nefarious rudos!! A fun show, check it out and let us know what you think!

[Slasher]

Kurt as the complete non-heel heel was great. Only in the WWE cold a guy get booed for a legit athlete gimmick played straight.

He didn't play it straight. It was obvious he was going for comedy. The milk stuff? Wearing little cowboy hats and having hugging competitions with Austin? That was playing it straight?

[SomethingSavage]

All that stuff was much later, and it actually served him well to necessitate the babyface turn.

 

Kurt was fairly straight-ahead early on. The brief feud with Blackman, the stuff with Jericho, and even the alliance with Edge & Christian saw him *mostly* as the straight man of those programs. Sure. He was geared toward comedy, but the core of his character was mainly built around being a legitimate "real" athlete and preaching the 3 I's.

 

Hell, even if you just go back to his first match, he wasn't doing ANYTHING inherently "evil" or underhanded to elicit a heel reaction. He was just a golly-glad-to-be-here guy - but the crowd responded to his offense with "Boring" chants. So Kurt took to the mic, launched into a tirade, and that was that.

[Slasher]

He was treated as a joke though. Yes the other wrestlers sans the tippy top main eventers respected his abilities but he was portrayed as a goof as early as the Royal Rumble in 2000 (IIRC). Even the three I's thing was done in a hammy fashion...like comedy. And getting people to boo his initial portrayal wasn't anything new. They booed Rocky Maivia too when he was a smiling babyface. In the age of Stone Cold, The Rock, Chris Jericho, etc, of course Kurt was going to get dumped on. I don't find it unique to Kurt. But yeah only in WWE...