[DarkSide256]

It is so hard to be a heel in today's WWE. For the most part, if you are a heel and doing despicable things the fans cheer you. A heel only gets true heat only if it's X-Pac heat. So I ask, how can you be a good heel and have people legitimately hate you?

Right now HHH is the only heel that truly gets real heat. Randy still gets pops, the Shield gets pops, ADR gets heat, but as I said before, its X-Pac heat. What can you do to make people really hate you?

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[Ungratefulness]

Shield got zero reaction last episode, wonder if that'll continue. Also, Vickie gets heat.

 

[Rugrat]

You've got to be up against a genuinely appreciated face, for instance, any heel will get cheered v Cena.

 

[Emotion Blur]

A good heel needs a good face to oppose. Heels get good pops mostly because they show 1000x more personality and tend to go against the cheesy, stale, Cena-like babyfaces. Orton for instance, who in their right mind would dislike him for beating the piss out of The Miz every week? Or showing an aggressive side that is rarely seen in WWE these days? Yeah, he's been against DB for the past 2342342 months, but 99% of the heel work in that feud comes from HHH, not Orton.

...And ADR gets heat?

 

[Billion Dollar Man]

It is so hard to be a heel in today's WWE. For the most part, if you are a heel and doing despicable things the fans cheer you. A heel only gets true heat only if it's X-Pac heat. So I ask, how can you be a good heel and have people legitimately hate you?

Right now HHH is the only heel that truly gets real heat. Randy still gets pops, the Shield gets pops, ADR gets heat, but as I said before, its X-Pac heat. What can you do to make people really hate you?

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The fuck? What the hell is X-Pac heat?

Did Flair, Piper, Million Dollar Man get X-Pac heat too?

 

[Showstopper]

Heels that believe what they are saying and that are extensions of themselves in real life. Examples: Bret Hart and HBK in 1997. Bret really believed what he was saying, as he has said many times. And that's pretty much who HBK was in 1997. I don't think those two things are a coincidence.

You can add Flair, too. In the 80s, that's pretty much who he was in real life.

 

[Rugrat]

The fuck? What the hell is X-Pac heat?

Did Flair, Piper, Million Dollar Man get X-Pac heat too?

It's different nowadays tbh.

 

[HouseofPunk]

I think that in this day and age it's a good idea to blur the lines a bit and instead of sticking with the good guy vs bad guy formula that Vince loves, make it seem less cartoonish, in real life the people that are defined as 'bad guys' by society mostly don't see themselves as being that way. When heels get cheered it's usually because they have the better character development and for some reason the faces have gone back to being 2-dimensional, allow everyone to develop their characters. When fans started cheering for Ziggler the WWE saw that as a sign that he needed a face turn but it caused him to lose a lot of momentum along the way and they got rid of a lot of the elements to his character that the fans cheered for in the first place. Imagine if in 97 they decided that Austin was being cheered and so needed to solidify himself as a face by stopping the swearing, cutting out the bad attitude and hugging children..

 

[Y2J_Says]

We shouldnt be worrying about heels atm, Heel's are always developed while faces are generic cereal box heros. Once there are more legit faces like Bryan in a match with heel Ziggler for example you can tell the difference.

 

[Bonaire]

Muhammad Hassan was an incredible heel, the reaction he got was insane. Crowds became rabid when his music hit, it's a shame that things ended the way it did.

 

[Guy LeDouche]

Chris Jericho is a great example of a good heel. He knows how to draw heat from the fans but it's how he draws heat which makes him one of the best heels of the last decade. Jericho's WCW conspiracy victim gimmick was amazing in how well he was able to piss off fans every week on Nitro with his whining. Then you have the stuff where Jericho mocks Dean Malenko's dead father Boris Malenko along with the list of 1,004 holds segment which pissed off fans even more. His best heel work in the WWE was during his feud with Shawn Michaels in 2008. Jericho's just a natural when it comes to being a great heel because he gets the idea of what it takes to be a great heel which is something other wrestlers could learn a lot from. I watched an interview he did with Sam Roberts and his philosophy on how to draw great heat is pretty much on the money.

Here's the interview if you haven't seen it (start at the 14:42 mark).

 

[Billion Dollar Man]

It's different nowadays tbh.

So what you're saying is if you are doing your job and getting people to hate you in this day and age, you're not a great heel?

I seriously confused.

 

[RDEvans]

It is so hard to be a heel in today's WWE. For the most part, if you are a heel and doing despicable things the fans cheer you. A heel only gets true heat only if it's X-Pac heat. So I ask, how can you be a good heel and have people legitimately hate you?

Right now HHH is the only heel that truly gets real heat. Randy still gets pops, the Shield gets pops, ADR gets heat, but as I said before, its X-Pac heat. What can you do to make people really hate you?

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Vickie gets a lot of heat OP

 

[DarkSide256]

This is smark 101. When a wrestler has X-Pac heat, it's heat because the fans literally don't want to see the wrestler, it's not heat because they are doing a great job of making fans hate them. ADR has heat because the fans are tired of his stale act, HHH has heat because he has constantly fucked over a guy that the WWE fans are into and is using his position of power to bully the roster who disagrees with his methods. There is a difference.

And Vickie heat is different. It went from X-Pac heat to it just being popular to boo her. Some of her recent actions have been very babyface like.

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[The Definition of Technician]

Chris Jericho in 2008 is the perfect example of an amazing heel , he had no x-pac heat, he was just hated because of the character he played..As was Edge when he was top heel on SD as the cheater/coward dating the GM..

A good heel in my opinion, should not be cheered , at all, no matter how popular he was or how much he had the fans respect ...example HBK in 05 when he turned on Hogan, he was booed pretty loudly on some events leading up to summerslam..

 

[Mountain Rushmore]

I don't believe in that X-PAC heat bullshit. It's a myth, heat is fucking heat.

And anyway, look no further than JBL: he was the perfect heel. He pushed the envelope each and every night on the mic to get a strong reaction, he didn't claim to be a "bad guy", he believed that he was the HERO of the show and worthy of worship. And time after time, despite not being the best technician, or the strongest, or the fastest or even the smartest, JBL retained the title against every. damn. bright young hero thrown at him; sometimes through sheer blind luck. That's a good heel: the punk ass who always wins, offensive in speech and w/o regard for others, confident with no basis for it; these are the makings of my favorite type of heel. This won't work if you're trying to make a monster (see Umaga, my fave monster heel), But those characters can't last. Something like JBL can go on and on and on.

He was one of the last true heels. Most of the guys getting heat in 2013 are babyface guys who the vocal smarks hate. Most of the "heels" get no reaction or get pops for being Internet favorites. It's a crying shame. I don't know what it'll take to be a good heel in 2013. You have to be someone like Ryback: hated by the smarks already but then turned heel on a fan favorite of the young audience too.

 

[Billion Dollar Man]

I don't believe in that X-PAC heat bullshit. It's a myth, heat is fucking heat.

And anyway, look no further than JBL: he was the perfect heel. He pushed the envelope each and every night on the mic to get a strong reaction, he didn't claim to be a "bad guy", he believed that he was the HERO of the show and worthy of worship. And time after time, despite not being the best technician, or the strongest, or the fastest or even the smartest, JBL retained the title against every. damn. bright young hero thrown at him; sometimes through sheer blind luck. That's a good heel: the punk ass who always wins, offensive in speech and w/o regard for others, confident with no basis for it; these are the makings of my favorite type of heel. This won't work if you're trying to make a monster (see Umaga, my fave monster heel), But those characters can't last. Something like JBL can go on and on and on.

He was one of the last true heels. Most of the guys getting heat in 2013 are babyface guys who the vocal smarks hate. Most of the "heels" get no reaction or get pops for being Internet favorites. It's a crying shame. I don't know what it'll take to be a good heel in 2013. You have to be someone like Ryback: hated by the smarks already but then turned heel on a fan favorite of the young audience too.

That's why I always say idiot smarks are ruining wrestling.

 

[Showstopper]

Heels are only as good as their material. That's another important factor. Writers/Creative has to give them something decent to work with.

 

[austin316 G.O.A.T]

Everyone that aligns with the heel is booed and everyone that opposes him is cheered.

During Ruthless Aggression Era,every babyface that HHH faced got cheered a lot louder whe they faced HHH.It wasn't much different during the AE.Rock got his biggest pop when he pinned HHH at Backlash.Chris Jericho's biggest pop was when he "beat" HHH on Raw.It hasn't changed even now.There's a difference in pops for Bryan before Summerslam,now when he's fighting with Orton and when he was involved with HHH for a few weeks.Big Show and Cody are getting their biggest reactions too.


HHH=GOAT heel
Attitude Era,Ruthless Aggression Era and now PG Era

 

[Post-Modern Devil]

Besides the obvious (talent of the performer), I believe the two best traits a heel could have are:

1. The desire to assert their power over people clearly weaker than them.

2. The ability to act out their villainy with some degree of untouchability from those who are a threat to them.

The only heels who have both aspects covered are the authority figures who actually get good heat. Most of the heels who actually wrestle unfortunately don't have either trait.