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When will "the stupid foreign heel" thing stop?

3K views 46 replies 38 participants last post by  ChiTownExtreme 
#1 ·
I am wondering why WWE turns a lot of foreign talent into dumb and stupid heels.

I mean there are two things that it does,

1- It brings a lot of limitations on the talent, he has to look like this idiot foreigner who has to make a fool out of himself by speaking some rubbish against America and getting absolutely thrashed by the face. Even if the guy is talented, he has to stick to something very limited and below his potential.

2- It puts off the people of that country. Why would you want the fans from a particular to hate your product? Everyone knows its scripted, foreign stars getting poor booking will simply turn fans away unless the guy gets genuinely strong booking like Khali got.

I was thinking about how polished Rusev is, both in the ring and on the mic. He is right up there even it comes to in-ring presence, there were so many things that the creative could have done with him, but they turned him into this corny foreign heel. Rusev would have looked menacing even with a mask and Kane-like attire(the 2002 one) because of his large frame.

I wonder when this "stupid foreign heel" thing end, it serves no purpose. It does get you a bit of heat, but overall it does more bad than good. What do you guys think about this?
 
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#26 ·
This. /thread
 
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#30 ·
2- It puts off the people of that country. Why would you want the fans from a particular to hate your product? Everyone knows its scripted, foreign stars getting poor booking will simply turn fans away unless the guy gets genuinely strong booking like Khali got.
In some cases perhaps, but I don't think this is a problem really. Would you count Ludvig Borga as a stupid foreign heel? I personally have never heard that a Finnish person had been upset about the character, everybody were/are happy that a Finn actually had a run in WWF/E, even if it wasn't anything significant. Sure he was booked pretty well I guess, but nevertheless.

What bugs me in case Rusev is that at first he was Russian and now he is Bulgarian. Those countries have very little to do with each other so I don't really get why and who actually came up with that s*it. Whats next, a Swedish Rusev (he might actually pull off the viking look, lol)? Same with Kofi, wasn't he from Jamaica, then Ghana or was it other way around, I don't even remember.

Slightly off topic, I apologize.
 
#11 ·
Never, WWE's only ever had three archetypes for foreign wrestlers generally, either 1. Generic angry man who hates Americans, 2. Dancing babyface or 3. Overly stereotypical gimmick related to their nationality.

It's a shame because guys like Rusev are really good all round performers who are limited by a lack of any real creativity.
 
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#14 ·
Hello I agree that having people from different countries as heel's is quick and easy cheap heat.

When Neville was in NXT he was booked as face and was at the top of his game [/Ubut on RAW he was poorly booked as face and had to turn heel.

I also disliked the Muhammad Hassan thing as it made religious prejudice tolerable!

What you need which is difficult to do is to have a foreign wrestler put over as babyfaces and get a big push.

Furthermore have a face wrestler who is open about his religion as part of act as aFace not do the Muhammad Hassan / Iron Sheik thing.

Yours

Farhan
 
#22 · (Edited)
It's a staple of wrestling, it's never going to stop and quite frankly nor should it.
It's cheap heat. It's an indelible part of pro wrestling that appears in nearly every promotion ever.

How can people on these forums be such huge wrestling fans and at the same time be the biggest marks??
Like the points that I made in my first post, it limits the talent if the "foreign heel" thing doesn't suit them.

But apart from that, I was talking about how it is a failure from a business point of view. WWE is not mainly limited to one country or hardcore fans. Casuals all around the world follow it, the following has reduced right now, but still, these kinds of things will actually put off such fans.

These dumb foreign heels might work well for local promotions or promotions that are aimed at only hardcore fans, but casuals wouldn't really enjoy it. Khali(is an exception and) worked because he looked like a freak and there was a lot of buzz of him beating Taker, it helped WWE get more viewers in India.
 
#21 ·
Is this just a Vince/American thing though? Isn't NJPW similar with their love of American monster heels? Don't they usually shy away from making the American talent too important.

How about TV for the international posters. How do Americans get treated on TV in your country typically. Are we fully fleshed out characters or stereotypes of certain areas (Rude New Yorkers, Texas ********, ignorant Yanks etc)

Sent from my Z981 using Tapatalk
 
#25 ·
When will Authority figures stop? Never. Got your answer.
 
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#5 ·
I think Rusev is GR8!!! Maybe needs to get a little haircut but his act is hilarious and he makes people lol out loud! Why h8 on a very good character and talent that pulls it off so well?
That is my main problem, Rusev is not a comedy jobber.

I think there was a lot more potential in Rusev, he could have easily been a ME level talent. He should have had a better gimmick.
 
#6 ·
Neville was much better before they turned him heel and he says we didn't respect him yada yada yada. We all respected him and most still do even though his gimmick is a lie. He always was respected and our country embraced him. As far as bashing America and saying our Country sucks, well, we know that not to be true.
 
#15 · (Edited)
It won't stop as long as Vince draws breath.. I would have thought this question really has already been answered. As for after that day passes, well I guess we'll just have to see.
 
#18 ·
Yeah, I've never been a fan of these storylines. Rusev seems to be doing surprisingly well and has lasted a long time compared to the other similar characters. I'm actually a fan of his work.

But I always cringed with the whole Jack Swagger/John Cena/Hulk Hogan/Jim Duggan "I Love America! The land of the free! These troops in our audience! USA! USA! USA!" Vs Rusev/Muhammad Hassan/Daivari/Jinder Mahal "You Americans are stupid. Watch me speak I'm another language to get heat."
 
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