[Carlos Petrus]

Not in definitive faces and heels as it has traditionally been, but in characters that are only faces to those who agree with them, and characters that are only heels to those who disagree with them.

These days, and ever since the attitude era really, it is very hard to predict exactly who the fans will support and who they will hate. Take Stone Cold Steve Austin for example. Stone Cold was meant to be a heel, but everyone cheered him so he was pushed as a face. DX committed similar acts to Stone Cold at the time, and yet they were booed.

Now if you look at wrestling recently, you have the number one face John Cena getting booed at Wrestlemania against top heels like HHH, you have Randy Orton being half booed and half cheered depending on who you listen to.

Then take someone like CM Punk and the Straight Edge Society. They were heels but I seriously loved them and wanted them to convert everyone on the roster.

Also, just from a practical stand point, if all of your wrestlers are likeable to at least one demographic, then you will appeal to a much wider audience. Personally, I haven't watched wrestling regularly since about Wrestlemania 18, but when CM Punk and the Straight Edge Society were around I watched it every week and got all of the PPVs too. If I tune in and the WWE is pushing a violent beer drinker with a foul mouth as their number one face, while at the same time ridiculing more conservative characters as heels, then I am unlikely to keep watching. However, if they give credibility to both types of characters, then I will keep watching to see my guys take down the guys I percieve to be bad. Then, even if my guys lose I would still keep watching in the hope that they would eventually over come the bad guys and win, just like I did keep watching during the attitude era hoping that Vince McMahon and his corporate team would beat Stone Cold and DX.


Therefore, I believe that the future of professional wrestling lies with characters that are both loved and hated at the same time by different demographics. It would give the WWE writers more freedom to make 3D characters and it would attract a much larger and much more emotionally invested audience.

 

[Carlos Petrus]

Agreed.

However, this pro wrestling convention needs to change. If we had really 3D characters who only appealed to certain demographics it would be much more interesting and would appeal to a much larger audience.

Think about how huge Wrestlemania 6's main event was, think about how excited and emotionally invested all the fans were in it. That was because both Hulk and the Warrior were faces and both were prefered by one half of the crowd or the other. Same as at WM 17 with Austin and the Rock.

 

[Carlos Petrus]

Very interesting discussion, I'm glad I started this thread.

Obviously this idea is just my opinion, I obviously have no idea if it would actually work or not.

I know that most (if not all) of the biggest wrestling stars have been totally 2D characters, and I know that wrestling has always been the way it is now. However, wrestling had always been run in the territory system as well until the WWE expanded and became national and international, so things can and do change in wrestling, sometimes very significantly too.

In the current climate, with the way the fans are cheering and booing whoever they want, and with such intense emotional investment in politics and ethics in the US right now, I think that this idea could, and should take off.

Shirley Crabtree III, you are so right about an indie promotion doing it first though. If they did it and it worked big time, then the others may get on the band wagon.