Greatest Heels

[Cyrus Riddle]

I was thinking on this earlier, and I wanted to get everyone's thoughts. Who do you think are the greatest heels (or greatest heel period) in professional wrestling past or present? You can give reasons if you would like.

 

[Gentleman Jake]

Ted Dibiase perfect character and execution

 

[Cyrus Riddle]

Very much so...I think any heel that has a "rich" gimmick has the potential to really get over...Dibiase is a prime example as well as JBL.

 

[Lover Boy]

Roddy Piper, he could get more heat by just getting in the ring than most people can now when making a promo.

 

[Horrorfan_1986]

There's two answer for this. There's old school heel (The "Holy shit...this guy is being shot at~!" sort of heat) and the modern heel ("We're only going to boo you since we know you're just playing a dick!"). I'm not sure when the change happened, but my guess is around the time of McMahon buying the WWF.

Speaking of which, I don't believe there's a single heel in the modern era that was a better heel than Mr. McMahon. Think about all of those popular heels in the last...25 years. How many of them also received some cheers? Ric Flair did. Steve Austin in 2001 did as well. Hell, practically every new heel not named Icarus in the last 10 years has as well. In an era where everyone knew it was fake and people were playing characters, people bought into the Mr. McMahon character. Granted, it probably greatly helped that Vince McMahon and Mr. McMahon are pretty similar! : Knowing what McMahon did in the Montreal Screw Job made people feel as if he was truly the asshole boss that everyone hates. Thanks to society changing and hating work and wanting to rebel (IE. Love of "Office Space" in that era comes to mind), every face that went up against McMahon was relateble, easy to cheer for and you'd gladly pay to see McMahon get his ass kicked. And to top it off, McMahon was an amazing talker who could add heat in any program he was in at the time.

 

[Halfbreed]

The only problem with Mr. McMahon (and there was a problem) was that as a spokesman / authority figure, you were always going to be deprived of the big, classic showdown between him and Steve Austin (or Rock, or whoever else he was feuding with at the time). Yes, there was the cage match at St. Valentine's Day Massacre, but do people remember that match in the same vein as an Austin/Rock, Rock/Hogan, Hogan/Warrior, Warrior/Savage or Savage/Steamboat? No, and that's kinda the point: by putting half the focus on someone who can't live up to the billing of 'wrestler', I think it started the gradual descent into what wrestling is today—entertainment with wrestling as an ancillary component sometimes. Would I trade the Attitude Era now? No, considering how huge wrestling was for me back in the day. But it's worth noting, I think.

If we're looking at greatest heels, we must consider two categories: those who were either lifers (or spend significant chunks of their careers as heels) and those who had spectacular heel turns that basically solidified them in the club. In the former, you've got three guys ready-made in Randy Savage, Ric Flair and Roddy Piper. Those three guys in the 1980s were larger than life without being the jacked up superhuman that Hulk Hogan was. Into the 1990s, Vader was a pretty great heel with some great matches. In the other category, there are two that immediately come to mind: Hulk Hogan's turn by joining the nWo, and Bret Hart's turn by regrouping the Hart Foundation.

 

[Horrorfan_1986]

Yes, there was the cage match at St. Valentine's Day Massacre, but do people remember that match in the same vein as an Austin/Rock, Rock/Hogan, Hogan/Warrior, Warrior/Savage or Savage/Steamboat? No, and that's kinda the point

*Taps finger against chin, in deep thought*

I wonder what Austin/Rock, Rock/Hogan, Hogan/Warrior and Warrior/Savage has in common that the Austin/McMahon steel cage match doesn't.

*Continues to ponder*

Welcome to the magic that is Wrestlemania. The one event of the year that can help any major match be remembered for years to come. For as memorable as Rock/Austin from WM 17 is, do people remember their following night's cage match on Raw nearly as well? What about Ricky Steamboat/Savage? They even had another PPV match at the Wrestling Classic. Does anyone even mention that? Warrior/Savage had a rather good follow-up at Summerslam 1992, but people only talk about their Retirement Match. And of course, there was the Montreal Screw Job sequel, where Rock faced Hogan for the second time with people not remembering it well compared to their Wrestlemania classic.

Had the Austin/McMahon cage match have happened at Wrestlemania 15 (Let's say Rock vs Foley in some sort of gimmick match is for the belt) for just the second time in history (First match on Raw in 1998 where Dude Love returned as a heel), it would have been huge and still remembered today.

In some ways, McMahon wrestling so little is a positive. It meant there were less matches, each one feeling more important and would be remembered easier. Just because McMahon wasn't a full time wrestler meant we had to be depraved of that big final showdown.

 

[Halfbreed]

*Taps finger against chin, in deep thought*

I wonder what Austin/Rock, Rock/Hogan, Hogan/Warrior and Warrior/Savage has in common that the Austin/McMahon steel cage match doesn't.

*Continues to ponder*

Welcome to the magic that is Wrestlemania. The one event of the year that can help any major match be remembered for years to come. For as memorable as Rock/Austin from WM 17 is, do people remember their following night's cage match on Raw nearly as well? What about Ricky Steamboat/Savage? They even had another PPV match at the Wrestling Classic. Does anyone even mention that? Warrior/Savage had a rather good follow-up at Summerslam 1992, but people only talk about their Retirement Match. And of course, there was the Montreal Screw Job sequel, where Rock faced Hogan for the second time with people not remembering it well compared to their Wrestlemania classic.

Had the Austin/McMahon cage match have happened at Wrestlemania 15 (Let's say Rock vs Foley in some sort of gimmick match is for the belt) for just the second time in history (First match on Raw in 1998 where Dude Love returned as a heel), it would have been huge and still remembered today.

In some ways, McMahon wrestling so little is a positive. It meant there were less matches, each one feeling more important and would be remembered easier. Just because McMahon wasn't a full time wrestler meant we had to be depraved of that big final showdown.

Yeah, but that's kinda my point though. The biggest matches of all time are almost invariably occurring at WrestleMania, because that's the touchstone for each and every year. It's the measuring stick by which other matches are judged, and because of McMahon's limits as an in-ring performer, you never truly got a blow-off for the feud. It just kinda dwindled into nothingness until WrestleMania X-7 and the disastrous turn.

Also, the Savage/Steamboat match at the Wrestling Classic was held about sixteen months before the WrestleMania III match. It's only natural that people remember the superior match that came after, you know?

 

[Horrorfan_1986]

Yeah, but that's kinda my point though. The biggest matches of all time are almost invariably occurring at WrestleMania, because that's the touchstone for each and every year. It's the measuring stick by which other matches are judged, and because of McMahon's limits as an in-ring performer, you never truly got a blow-off for the feud. It just kinda dwindled into nothingness until WrestleMania X-7 and the disastrous turn.

The only reason McMahon/Austin never happened at Wrestlemania was because they wanted Austin in title matches so he could walk away as champion. McMahon may have a gigantic ego, but he knows he shouldn't be in title matches at Wrestlemania. Whether it happened at WM or not, that was a huge match. If you look back at the buyrate for St. Valentine's Day Massacre, it was huge. With a buyrate of 1.21, it had more buys than every other WWE PPV from 1999 except Rumble, Wrestlemania and Summerslam (It did, however; beat Survivor Series). There's a very good chance that it's the second most bought non-Big 4 PPV behind Invasion.

I'll even go as far to say that there was not a bigger match in US wrestling that year than Austin/McMahon. Granted, over time, it does lose some of the word of mouth because it didn't happen at Wrestlemania, but fuck, who even talks about Austin/Rock from that year's Wrestlemania?

Also, the Savage/Steamboat match at the Wrestling Classic was held about sixteen months before the WrestleMania III match. It's only natural that people remember the superior match that came after, you know?

There's also been plenty of house show matches that were shown on TV. Especially nowadays when every house show can be found online, people rarely talk about their other matches. They even have a killer match at Maple Leaf Gardens the month before that doesn't get talked up enough.

But really, out of the various matches you boasted about, it's kind of pointless talking up Savage/Steamboat since they didn't have many other PPV matches from around that time period. Like I said though, Hogan/Rock, Rock/Austin, Savage/Warrior and you can include Hunter/Cena (Night of Champions...2008?), Austin/Hart (IYH 14), Austin/Michaels (KOTR 97) and Benoit/Hunter/Michaels (Backlash) are all examples of follow-ups (Or prequels for Michaels/Austin) that aren't as well known as their Wrestlemania counterpart. As the years pass, Wrestlemania matches are remembered so much easier than other matches.

The fact that we never got to see Austin/McMahon at Wrestlemania, doesn't take away any of McMahon's greatness as a heel though.

 

[Gentleman Jake]

I love intelligent wrestling debates...great points from both of you....and yes I love you both

 

[Eddie North]

you also have to remember back when most of the classic matches happened with say Savage, Steamboat, Hogan, and Warrior. We didn't have many Pay Per Views, it was mainly the top 4 and maybe one thrown in every now and then. Now a Days there are sooooooo many PPVs that they get watered down. You could have the same exact match happen the same exact way in the the next upcoming PPV and then again at Wrestlemania and the only one that will be remembered would be Wrestlemania because a lot of fans only get the Main 4 PPVs. Unless you stream them, Watching every PPV through out the year can be very costly, which is why I can see people only watching Wrestlemania, Summerslam, Survivor Series, and Royal Rumble and can explain why Wrestlemania matches get remembered more than any other PPVs

 

[Chris Michaels]

Here are my thoughts...

Old School
1. Ted Dibiase
2. Curt Henning
3. Owen Hart


New School
1. JBL
2. Y2J
3. HHH

 

[Horrorfan_1986]

I feel old if Ted DiBiase, Owen Hart and Curt Hennig are considered old school. :

 

[Halfbreed]

I feel old if Ted DiBiase, Owen Hart and Curt Hennig are considered old school. :

Ditto, mate. I just went back and watched Survivor Series 1989 this afternoon (a show I hadn't ever seen before, oddly enough) and fell RIGHT back into the storylines of the era with relative ease. Meanwhile, I can't remember what happened last week on Raw.

 

[Sabretooth]

Ravishing Rick Rude. Every time he cut his pre-match promo it would just piss the fans off. He'd get major heat it was great.