The Heel Report – Week 1 (2012-2013 Season)

The first week of a new report in the 2012-2013 season, and the big change is that from now on I will be showcasing the talent of both WWE and TNA, just like I do on my 411 report. I once said it wouldn’t be fair to do this when I began this report here but since testing things out over on the other site I’ve found that adding TNA to the mix avoids a lot more anomalies from popping up, like guys getting on the chart simply because they appeared on NXT and didn’t lose in a week where everyone else did, there is only so much filler I can put under a ranking where the guy clearly didn’t deserve it on points alone. But apart from that it will pretty much be business as usual, with a small edition of a tiny ‘Heel Hall of Fame’ under the rolling chart (perhaps with a better name in weeks to come) simply showing the guys that have ended the year at the top of the chart since I started doing this thing by years according to Wrestlemania rather than just carrying on for an indiscriminate amount of time, still enough waffle (I have a dissertation to write!) but for now let’s just get on with the report…

Weekly Top Ten:

1st Place: Daniel Bryan (10/10)

I don’t think it would be debatable to say that right now Daniel Bryan is the hottest heel wrestler of the moment, so it is fitting that he heads up the first week of this new season’s chart. Bryan dominanted Raw and he wasn’t even on the televised show, then on Smackdown when he did appear he came out to Cena-like boos and cheers, with half the crowd hating him and half the crowd firmly in support of the American Dragon. The difference is that rather than half the crowd being complete marks and the other half hating your work, this time half the crowd are complete marks and the other half love your work, this is why Cena sucks and Bryan rules. It also could be an argument for how skill beats strength in terms of overall popularity with the discerning crowd. Like everyone else I will end by saying that while the WWE tried to troll us all by jobbing out Bryan in 18 seconds it looks like the joke is on them as they might just have pushed fans to that point where now they will propel Bryan to the top of the WWE, and not in a jokey way like Zack Ryder.

2nd Place: Mark Henry (9/10)

The World’s Strongest Man is back and just in time to make an impact on the new chart after being partially robbed of the winning spot last year. Henry suffered from a slight momentum loss that let a game Cody Rhodes capitalise and steal the top spot away from the man who was arguably the most dominant heel for a six-month period last year. But putting the past aside Henry is definitely on the rise, so much so that apparently he can just give away a pinfall victory to David Otunga and still come out near the top. This mainly would be due to Mark’s count-out victory over the WWE champion; C.M. Punk, and while the champ was injured from his Mania match with Jericho, it was thanks to Henry’s sheer power alone that Punk couldn’t make the ten count and that says a lot.

3rd Place: John Laurinaitis (8/10)

Pretty high up in the first week but the newly crowned GM of both Raw and Smackdown was throwing his weight around a great deal, which got him a ton of points. Such as booking face champions in matches where they could lose their titles and making the former GM go from a proud and defiant free man to a grovelling employee. I’m overjoyed that Team Johnny beat out Team Long at Wrestlemania, from a fan and a storyline point of view. Fact is that the face authority figure just rarely serves a purpose, whereas heel authority figures always have something to do. I’m surprised the WWE have abandoned the guest host idea, I mean obviously at the time I complained about it constantly, but not when the celebrities got into it, which is easier when they are cast as heels. All the WWE needs to do is pick people who actually watch the product, which isn’t many people I know but there must be enough of them. Also another side note is that WWE should look into poaching some top TV series writing talent that likes the product since there are a few out there, just watch shows like House or Space Ghost/Adult Swim Shows, there are enough wrestling references crammed in there to show that at least one writer for the show must be a fan, getting on some actual writing talent that are interested in wrestling could really help the product at this point. SO yeah Johnny Ace is great where he is, but he could use some backup to overall improve things.

4th Place: Robert Roode (7/10)

The first appearance from a TNA guy on the chart in a year and fittingly the man is the current reigning TNA champion; Bobby Roode. Roode might have had his decision over Anderson reversed this week but he still gets points for causing trouble backstage and being dastardly in the ring as always. I am really split when it comes to Lockdown as while I honestly don’t see the appeal in the Cowboy and I love Roode as champion I also remember slating TNA for not pulling the trigger at Bound For Glory and giving Roode the title after his big face push, so if TNA don’t give Storm the title after his massive face push I would be a big ol’ hypocrite if I let that slide and say that I hope Roode wins. So while I will be cheering for Roode I’m pretty sure that morally Storm should win this one, which I hate, but what can you do.

5th Place: Alberto Del Rio (6/10)

The returning Excellence of Execution had a good week and straight away jumped into the Smackdown title picture, despite some protests from the crowd. While I hope Bryan isn’t pushed out of the title picture in favour of Del Rio, I wouldn’t mind seeing a triple threat match between the three, with Sheamus as the powerhouse, Bryan as the coward and Del Rio as the Guerrero-esque cheater, winning matches with his smarts like he did this week on Smackdown against the new World Champion. We’ll just have to see how things develop.

6th Place: Chris Jericho (5/10)

I almost feel bad for putting Jericho so far down the list when he put on such a great show in the short time he had this week, pouring Jack down Punk’s throat and then smashing the bottle over his head in a sick looking stunt. But other guys had better heat and promos and in a week of big news Jericho kind of got overshadowed, but I have to say that any other week Jericho would have been right up there, but it is a heel dominated world right now in professional wrestling and while Jericho is good I’m not sure if he is at a point in his career to give it his all, but we will see as the chart rolls on.

7th Place: David Otunga (4/10)

The legal adviser and leader of Team Johnny continues to improve, if slowly, this week getting heat from the crowd both on the mic and by taking the tag from Henry and getting the win over R-Truth despite doing barely any of the work. I thought this move worked great to establish just how dominant Henry was and how clever and conniving Otunga is, and how much stroke he now possesses as Ace’s second in command, look for this to develop further.

8th Place: Kurt Angle (3/10)

The injured Olympic Gold Medalist limps on, trying to honour all his commitments when he probably should lay off something for his own sake. Angle had a match with Hardy that I thought would be a few seconds to save his help and sure Angle pulled the classic heel move of walking away half way thought, but it still went longer than Storm’s match with Bully at Victory Road so props to Angle, but the older the guy gets and the more he does this, the more his passion starts to look like madness.

9th Place: Lord Tensi (2/10)

The returning Albert, or Giant Bernard to all those fans of Japanese wrestlers out there, did a good job of putting on a return squash match this week. He was the second biggest post-Wrestlemania return, the third being Skip Sheffield as Ryback and the first is so obvious I don’t need to say who it is. I have heard a lot of buzz about Albert and how much better he has gotten and I hope those saying this aren’t just blowing smoke. His debut was good, but I would hope that there is a lot more than we saw and hopefully we will see this if he goes up against someone like Mark Henry in the near future.

10th Place: The Miz (1/10)

Last place goes to the former most must-see WWE champion; the Miz. After picking up the victory for Team Johnny at Wrestlemania the Miz solidified his return to the good books of the WWE by taking out the man he pinned on the Grandest Stage; Zack Ryder, and beat him again clean. In situations like this the Miz will always be favoured as it is clear that the WWE made him and he seems pretty loyal, whereas the fans made Ryder and the WWE hates this. So if the Miz can just stick to facing guys like that he might be able to keep on top, otherwise I won’t hold my breath for now, despite where he is on the overall chart.

2012-2013 Season Top Ten:

1st Place: Daniel Bryan (10/10)
2nd Place: Mark Henry (9/10)
3rd Place: John Laurinaitis(8/10)
4th Place: Robert Roode (7/10)
5th Place: Alberto Del Rio (6/10)
6th Place: Chris Jericho (5/10)
7th Place: David Otunga (4/10)
8th Place: Kurt Angle (3/10)
9th Place: Lord Tensi (2/10)
10th Place: The Miz (1/10)

Weekly Filler:

The Face-Off: Hulk Hogan as GM

Oh great, because if a fifty year old crazy man watching your back means you can come in and run a place as chaotic as TNA. Hogan, Sting and Bischoff really need to get over themselves and stop hogging the hotspot. Now we have a Lethal Lockdown match with a Bischoff on either side and Hogan sticking his nose into everyone’s business. How long can it be until we get Hogan vs. Roode, hell we just had Sting vs. Roode not for the title so I would imagine that if Roode retains at Lockdown it could come up soon and if he doesn’t then it will probably happen even sooner, so much for the prolonged Storm-Roode feud that I was looking forward to!

Face the Facts: The Returns

Outside of Lord Tensi, we had the return of Ryback, who received some hype and has been doing great in dark matches; he even had a small, confused gaggle of superstars backstage watching his match. I’m getting the sense that the WWE expect big things from these new big guys and I expect Ryback to be dominating the mid-card in the foreseeable future. On the other side of things we have the enigma that is Brock Lesnar, we know he is back for the year at least but we have yet to learn his next opponent, despite it most likely being Cena, and we still can’t really know if he has come back as a face or a heel considering Cena’s status right now as Face to Face punching bag, first with Punk and then with the Rock. For all our complaints about Cena being the constant top guy and never put down he has jobbed out in several major matches this year, only against the top guys in the business mind you but still it’s something, hell go back to last year and he even jobbed out to the Miz, albeit not in a clean fashion. But enough about Cena, fact is that Lesnar is back and in a way it is good that he is only working limited dates, otherwise you could bet that the entire rest of the roster would just spend their time eating F-5s constantly, just like when Stone Cold was kicking around in his untouchable days.

On the Rise: Damien Sandow

Another interesting occurrence that nearly passed by the wayside this week was the video debut of this well-spoken man. While I must ask if we need another guy in a sea of talented heels at the moment there is certainly some promise in his attitude. The WWE have tried before in the past decade to debut a man who has a cocky heel persona but just claims to be trying to help the people, but it hasn’t really stuck. I personally love the gimmick, see Matt Striker for the best example of a gimmick that I thought could have gone way further than it did and so I have hope for this guy when he actually makes his way to the ring. I have heard some rumblings from the internet but as of yet have not seen him in action myself so I can’t say for sure how excited I am to see his in-ring skills, but if he can go even half as much as he can talk then he would be a great addition to the Smackdown roster.

Flat -Footed: Pointless Eve is Pointless & Beth Phoenix’s Mega De-Push

Personally I don’t get it. The WWE is pushing Eve more than any diva as of late and really all she does is say how men can’t help falling for her, over and over again, we got it the first time! She takes up airtime with these pointless promos that really don’t advance anything and just serve to get the crowd riled up into a woman-hating frenzy, I mean at least when Vicky Guerrero does it there is usually a point, even if it is only to introduce the Show Off Dolph Ziggler, an event in and of itself. Then on the other side of the coin we have Beth Phoenix, who not only got rolled up by Maria Meno…who cares, for a THIRD TIME IN A ROW, to lose her match at Wrestlemania, but she then went out on Raw and lost to Nikki Bella, Nikki Bella? Nikki Bella?! Ridiculous!!! Why not have just given Menunonono the belt at Mania and be done with it if the WWE hate pushing the women on their roster who possess actual talent. I know wrestling is a male-dominated sport but come on!

That’s all for this week, a lot of interesting developments as we leave off from Wrestlemania, and we have yet to experience the draft or the emergence of four major guys currently in FCW who could be making waves this year. I think part of the problem is that the WWE has enough talent, they just want every guy to be a monumental superstar who sells merchandise like a bastard, and that is just not for everyone, some guys need to be there just to shine as talented wrestlers and then you get behind a few decent money spinners, although the strategy of hiring old stars to come in for select dates for that wow factor is a good one and as long as new talent isn’t completely eclipsed by this it might be the best way for the WWE to go. It might appear like a quick fix but at least it will be entertaining and hopefully help to showcase new talent as well as old, although that’s what some people said about celebrity hosts and that didn’t exactly happen now did it. For now this is James Wright signing off.