Llakor's newest column is up on slash now, and once again it's a thought provoking read. Thanks again, Llakor, for another excellent column.
I was wondering whether you thought they could ever go back to traditional style face/heel roles in today's WWF? After recent years "shade's of grey" approach, do you think fans would accept such delineated personas? Some of us have been discussing the situation in the WWF right now, particularly relating to the way the WWF favours “Super faces” who often crush very weak heels and have been theorising about moving towards a more even balance and more of a semblance of equal competition, do you think something like that would have a chance of working? The psychology need not be that different...
Once again, thanks for the great columns.
"Nobody enjoys a good time more than I do, but this business of yours is as legitimate as a three-legged donkey...which of course is illegitimate because as we all know donkeys have four legs."
I was wondering whether you thought they could ever go back to traditional style face/heel roles in today's WWF? Could? Yes. Would? No.
After recent years "shade's of grey" approach, do you think fans would accept such delineated personas? Traditional Face does not have to mean boring. (c.f. Steamboat, Ricky)
Some of us ?? Who is US??
have been discussing the situation in the WWF right now, particularly relating to the way the WWF favours “Super faces” who often crush very weak heels Not a new development. (c.f. Hogan, Hulk)
and have been theorising about moving towards a more even balance and more of a semblance of equal competition, do you think something like that would have a chance of working? The reason that the Invasion didn't work, the reason that the NWO is NOT working is because the heels didn't look/aren't threatening.
The psychology need not be that different... A concern that I have from time to time is that any time you build up a really bad-ass heel, like say Undertaker right now, it gets harder and harder to keep him heel.
It all points to a degradation of our moral fibre. We cheer for the bad guys and cheer harder the badder they are, while real good guys like say, Kurt Angle get booed.
"Us" would be some of us weiners Some discussions have been on the board but mostly through Private messages.
Do you think it was ever this bad with making heels look weak back in Hogans initial face run? I know the heel would get obliterated in the actual matches but at least they got to do something despicable beforehand, and had usually got a pretty inpressive record behind them. Take a guy like Earthquake, who got trounced at a Summerslam if I remember rightly. He still got to beat down Hogan beforehand (and "break his ribs") and I think he beat up Tugboat too, there was a threat there that needed repelling. Compare that with Jericho lately, he didn't have a chance to do anything at all to Triple H outside of a sledgehammer shot that stopped being sold under a week later. The fact that as champion he should have been the number one heel in the company was secondary to all the Steph related shenanigans.
As for the psychology, take Triple H as a heel. That was quite brilliantly executed in that they actively teased face turns and then had him go even more strongly heel by doing something evil. A strong heel can work in today’s WWF as that showed, but they don’t seem to want to do that sort of thing again. If they commit to keeping someone heel it can be done, it's just that there doesn't seem to be much room for patience in a PPV-every-month based product. Maybe it’s their predilection for super faces and the political stroke that their faces have, I don’t know...
Maybe the move to "shades of grey" was just a move towards realism (in real life people could never be as perfect as the old style face, and never have been) I just think that since they won't go backwards now, then perhaps they should evolve again to a more "realistic" standpoint where the bad guys can actually hold their own against the good guys. Sort of looking backwards in order to go forwards if you see what I mean.
"Nobody enjoys a good time more than I do, but this business of yours is as legitimate as a three-legged donkey...which of course is illegitimate because as we all know donkeys have four legs."
Given that these need a new venue now, I guess I'll start posting them here. Comments are welcome. The show opens with a shot of a casket. Will the Undertaker be traded to RAW tonight? (Opening Credits)