Heel (professional wrestling)
From Freepedia
In professional wrestling, a heel is a character who is portrayed as behaving in an immoral manner; sometimes they are humourously referred to as 'evil.' In non-wrestling jargon, heels are often "bad guys" in pro wrestling storylines. They are often opposed by a face (crowd favourite). Some tweeners exhibit heel mannerisms.
The term "heel" is most likely is derived from a slang usage of the word that first appeared around 1914, meaning "contemptible person." [1] The Spanish term, used in lucha libre, is "rudo."
Common heel behavior includes cheating to win (e.g. using the ropes for leverage while pinning, or attacking with foreign objects such as folding chairs when the referee can't see), attacking other wrestlers backstage, interfering with other matches, and acting in a haughty or superior manner.
Once in a while faces who have recently turned from being heels will still exhibit some heel characteristics for a while. For example, The Naturals in TNA, turning face after the death of manager Chris Candido, still use the ropes for pins sometimes and at times use the megaphone of new manager Jimmy Hart to get victories.
Whilst being heel is often part of a wrestler's gimmick, many successful heels fall into one or more categories:
- Crazy heel: a raging madman, dangerous and unpredictable (example: The Sheik; George "The Animal" Steele; Sid Vicious; Mankind; Heidenreich; Eddie Guerrero since his mid-2005 turn).
- Monster heel: an unstoppable juggernaut who squashes his opponents (example: Gorilla Monsoon; Big Van Vader; Sid Vicious; King Kong Bundy; Kane; Brock Lesnar). Sometimes, monster heels violently "injure" other wrestlers (through rulebreaking tactics), terrorize valets (and sometimes injuring them) and commit other extremely heinous acts to set up a feud with a promotion's lead face. One example is the feud between The Giant and Hulk Hogan in 1994 when The Giant broke Hogan's neck. Another is in 1999, when The Undertaker was behind a reign of terror that led to his feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin.
- Egotistical heel: an obnoxious and self-important character; some wrestlers play on their own fame and achievements to achieve this (example: Ric Flair, The Rock; Triple H; Edge; Christian; Kurt Angle; Shawn Michaels; JBL; Chris Jericho).
- Foreign heel: in United States wrestling, foreign heels are often portrayed as being anti-American, such as Russian (Nikolai Volkoff), Iranian (Iron Sheik), Canadian (Bret Hart), Japanese (most notably, Mr. Fuji), or more recently, French (René Duprée). In Mexican wrestling, Americans are often portrayed as heels; the most hated tag team in lucha libre history, Los Gringos Locos, consisted of the Anglo Art Barr and Eddie Guerrero, a Mexican American from El Paso, along with another Anglo in Louie Spicolli. There has been a Team Canada in WCW, WWF and (currently) TNA.
- Traitor heel: in the United States, a variation on the foreign heel who is actually an American, but has turned his back on his country in favor of an (ostensibly superior) one. For example, Rob Conway, who portrayed a man who defected from America to France, or Sgt. Slaughter, who was billed as an Iraqi sympathizer during the first Persian Gulf War. In Japanese wrestling, a "traitor heel" is someone who goes against the established (usually mainstream, babyface) group he was part of within a promotion, such as Riki Choshu, Masa Chono, and Great Muta in New Japan Pro Wrestling, Yoji Anjoh in UWF International, and Genichiro Tenryu in All Japan Pro Wrestling.
Sometimes, a heel can use cheating to his/her advantage to gain appreciation from the audience, thereby being a face with heel tendencies—i.e. Eddie Guerrero before a mid-2005 heel turn.
Many heels today subscribe to the beliefs espoused by Mick Foley in his autobiography, Have a Nice Day!: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks—that a heel must always believe that whatever they do is justified, and that they are in the right.
Common Heel Tactics
- Using the ropes or grabbing the opponent's tights during pinfalls.
- Throwing powder/salt into opponent's eyes.
- Removing the padding on turnbuckles to expose the steel underneath it, then smashing an opponent's head or face onto it.
- Use of concealed weapons (brass knuckes, rolls of coins, etc.); some heels are less subtle when they decide to use a weapon, often grabbing a chair from ringside in full view of the referee with no regard for the consequences.
- Dragging an opponent's face across the top rope.
- Low blows.
- Using the outside of the ring to rest.
- When defending titles, intentionally getting himself/herself disqualified or counted out to lose the match without dropping the title that they are defending.
- Insulting the fans or mocking the city he/she is performing in during promos.
