In what was once a heavily protected thing to keep feuding Superstars away from each other in order to maintain heat in the feud and to maintain kayfabe (storylines) has now pretty much disappeared from pro wrestling making it much harder for fans to even buy into a lot of the storylines. The dynamics of being a face and a heel have changed severely due to the reasons mentioned above and in a way, it’s good for the growth of the business as it brings a sense of realism into storylines and forces the company to think outside the box in a way that they can intrigue fans.
The Kliq changed the face of wrestling forever in that one night in Madison Square Garden when the curtain call happened and even though it was a live event, some people in the audience managed to get video of it and put it on the internet showing the whole world wrestling is scripted. Most people by this time already knew how wrestling was run but I think the curtain call confirmed it for those that were unsure about wrestlers playing characters and the storylines being written.
It was a blessing in disguise for the business as the times had changed and a lot of the generic babyfaces were being booed constantly throughout the time it happened in the mid-’90s. The heel Superstars were becoming the faces in retrospect because the fans had changed what they liked and no longer saw it as necessary to cheer for somebody that they weren’t really behind.
When the NWO was formed in WCW, they definitely made being a heel look cool and shortly afterwards WWE upped their ante and produced a great group of their own in D-Generation X to counter the NWO. These two groups would revolutionize the industry and change the way we look at wrestling forever and how we perceived it. No longer did we have to sit there and support things like Hulkamania that was already on the way out saying our prayers and eating our vitamins.
Hogan himself changed his character and became a good bad guy while in the WWE you had guys like DX, The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin and many others pushing it in terms of the normal status quo in pro wrestling. The Attitude Era was born and it was the hottest time in wrestling with the best gimmicks and some of the most insane things that you will ever see in pro wrestling that will probably never be repeated again.
Now we are in the new era having been through many eras’s since the end of the Attitude and now things have changed so much over the last couple of decades that kayfabe could nearly be considered dead in the WWE right now and pretty much all of pro wrestling as everybody knows what goes on behind the scenes and pretty much how the company’s run including what the storylines are going to be before they even come up. The internet ruins a lot of WWE’s plans by revealing what the plans are before even the superstars know not to mention spoilers of taped shows and finding out things like who is joining the company/ leaving the company.
Having reality shows on TV such as Total Divas and Total Bellas as well as Miz and Mrs shows to us that a lot of what goes on in the company is scripted as well is basically how it’s going to play out which kind of ruins the fun for people or the element of surprise. In some ways, it’s good that we get to know what the Superstars are like in real life as it is something that really intrigues me personally but to some other wrestling purists, it may not be the case. We know that most of the people that feud with each other are actually good friends in real life or at least they respect each other. The exception to that would probably be the Feud between Alexa Bliss and Sasha Banks who have a genuine disdain for each other dating back to NXT.
WWE has seriously in many ways been forced to watered down it’s product due to demands from television stations and not really having anybody to compete with to make them feel threatened in any way with what products they’re putting out. They have still been putting on some good things while other things can be classed as very bad or at least questionable mainly with how creative seems to book things. NXT is probably the hottest show in the whole WWE right now as it has a little bit of something for everybody on it and doesn’t drag out for too long and it has one of the greatest minds in this business in charge of it in Triple H who has done an excellent job with building it. You could definitely consider NXT a third brand now as well as being the developmental Territory.The main roster shows have been very laxidasical in particular Monday Night Raw with the lacking any real direction. Also creative booking Decisions are very questionable on the flagship show as well as a lot of filler content. SmackDown live however has fared lot better with some good matches and great storytelling yet the ratings don’t seem to show this which is something of a surprise given that SmackDown is only two hours and not as hard to sit through.
The heel run of Dean Ambrose has been lackluster so far due to him being more of a generic heel which doesn’t really work in this day and age in the business as the audience see right through it. Insulting sports teams and telling the people of the city that you’re in that they suck is very old and very boring these days and it just doesn’t come across as authentic anymore because we have heard it basically since the beginning of heels and faces. If your a heel in the business you need to do it the way Tommaso Ciampa has done it and be a ruthless heel or with somebody like the Miz who we all know as a cocky and arrogant attitude and he’s full of himself with his character then it works and it’s over with the crowd as the crowd love to hate them people because they bring their own special touch to it and don’t rely on generic heat.
Some people might consider the WWE has too many of the Superstars as heels at the moment and that would be a fair assessment to make but it wasn’t so long ago this year that a lot of people were demanding that WWE turn certain Superstars heel as they thought there was too many baby faces so it goes to show that the company can’t please everybody and that they will always have their critics. They do however need to probably balance it out a little bit more and make a couple of the Superstars turned face just to balance out the roster a bit but with the Superstars set to return or make their debut on the main roster then hopefully that will start to see things even out a little bit. It would be good for WWE to try maybe giving someone like Kevin Owens on his return a run as a face as we have never seen that yet and maybe even let’s Sami Zayn be a face aswell.
Then you look at somebody like the Big Show Who has turned face and heel more times in his career then he has wrestled over the last two years. WWE seem to have noticed that the audience have acknowledge the constant turns that he makes and have turned it into a running joke within the company as several Superstars have commented on it with the most recent being the New Day after he turned heel at SmackDown 1000. At the end of the day though it is probably something that has tarnished Big Show’s reputation and Legacy in the business because of creative constantly turning him.
As we all know that a lot of the modern-day stars who are supposed to be heels in the business like Becky Lynch and even Daniel Bryan get cheers as it seems to be the that the audience prefer ability in the ring rather than what allegiance their favourite wrestler is with. The WWE don’t appear to be that concerned about faces and heels anymore because they know that they can’t change the audience’s mind on who their favourite wrestler is and they can’t force them to cheer people that they want them to cheer for. They are just happy to get people showing a reaction rather than having the reaction that they want. I think things started to change that way when Daniel Bryan was being constantly held down by the authority and they were trying to push the Batista vs Randy Orton match but we’re forced to add Daniel Bryan to it as well due to the audience. That and how the audience has perceived people like John Cena and Roman Reigns probably 2 of the most polarising figures in the company because the audience understands that they were supposed to be the faces of the company.
To say that the WWE is finally evolving with the times is something that can still be questionable at times mainly due to the booking of certain things but it looks like they have definitely evolved over the years and even though 2018 was a rough year for the company things look promising for 2019 and hopefully they can push the right superstars that the crowd want pushed. The landscape of wrestling is forever changing and it can only be onwards and upwards from here for the company if they continue listening to the majority of the audience and fans over the world. Here’s to remaining optimistic in the WWE and hope that 2019 can produce better results. Leave your thoughts below on what you think about kayfabe existing in the company and the heel and face dynamic.
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