 |
| Kingston went way overboard Sunday, even if his form was mostly good Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein |
What is a heel? What characteristics define a wrestling villain, both traditionally and recently? Are the bad guys the ones who do dastardly deeds? Are they rebels, or are they conformists? Are they the ones who eschew friendship? Or, like Rich Thomas posits, are they the ones who cheer on the action from the crowds? All of the above characteristics can denote villainy, sure.
However, John Cena once invaded the privacy of Vickie Guerrero to air her butt stuff to the world. Steve Austin was wrestling's most iconic rebel, and Bob Backlund stood for everything the archetypical 1960s conservative military father loved. Who cares if his salad days were in the '80s? No one ever accused wrestling of being ahead of the times. Hulk Hogan tossed away friendship all the time during the height of Hulkamania, while the crowd, at times, has cheered for genuinely heartwarming things, like Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth reuniting.
The conclusion one might come to is that alignment in wrestling is more art than science. That statement has truth to it, but I feel like there is one thread that ties together every bad guy in my wrestling memory. They don't care about the fans. I think the best example of this dichotomy rests within Bret Hart, whose character in the WWF in 1996 was based on shunning American fans and embracing international fans. Guess which fans rabidly cheered him and booed him? Exactly.
Recently though, the trials and travails of trying to get boos from crowds can be seen in a crucible at independent wrestling shows. For example, look at Chuck Taylor. His character is dastardly, like a flesh-and-bone version of Snidely Whiplash or some other outlandish cartoon villain brought to life. He cheats in plain sight of any and all authority figures. One of his most effective non-move moves is complaining when others cheat just to gain an advantage when the opponent invariably appeal to the ref. He fakes sportsmanship, hits people from behind, and always uses the numbers advantage when he has cohorts at his back.
Yet, Taylor is one of the most popular guys at any show he goes to. The reason for this is that he does not shy away from fan support. He will clap to chants for him on the apron or in the ring. The only fans he'll shush are those cheering for his opponent. He has killer t-shirt designs, which up the cool factor of being a fan of his. Even though Taylor assumes a lot of the classic tropes of heeldom, he is not a villain, and that is not a criticism.
Being a heel on the independent circuit can turn out to be financially detrimental. I don't know the average payout for a given show, but I do know that payments can sometimes not even cover the gas to get to the show hearing some anecdotes from people in or formerly in the business. If the fans boo you, do you think they want to purchase your merchandise, which at times can be the only way to make a wrestling show worth your while? I think expecting Davey Richards to sell long term is a better proposition.
Against the backdrop of 15-20 wrestlers trying to earn the crowd's approval, wrestlers who dedicate themselves to being the bad guy pop off the canvas that much more boldly. The best examples I can think of over the long term are the Young Bucks in PWG. They're Southern California natives who have national cache, so their need for selling wares locally has not been in question for at least four years now. So what did they do that made Reseda turn on them? They stopped giving the crowd what they wanted, and instead started trolling them during matches. Again, the endgame is all about not catering to the wants of the crowd.
So now, Eddie Kingston comes into the spotlight. He has been a dynamic heel character ever since his initial meltdown at Tag World Grand Prix, and his evolution is owed to a strong desire not only to troll the crowd, but to insult them and even threaten them. I came closer than any other time in my life to melting in a literal sense Sunday at the Proving Grounds, so on a show where the Colony cemented themselves as heroes of the day by handing out ice cream, wouldn't the inverse, destroying one of few fans that were struggling to cool the building, make Kingston the worst monster in the building? Wouldn't attacking the one symbol of innocence, a child at a wrestling show, make him vile to most decent people in the audience?
But then he had to go too far and throw an awful, accusatory racial slur at a man in the crowd who may have shared a nationality with a known terrorist in the past. Funnily, Kingston didn't go after any white dudes in the crowd despite the fact that Timothy McVeigh's body count from Oklahoma City still looms large over America, but isn't ignoring facts such as those what makes Kingston's epithet that much worse?
There are mitigating circumstances, of course. Kingston couched that insult in a bouquet of crowd attacking that made it seem less like he was attacking one guy and instead just throwing what he could at anyone he could see heckling him. Still, attacking an oppressed people in America is still not personally acceptable, not even at a wrestling show. Again, being a heel is still an art, not a science, and I'm not sure anyone ever accused Kingston of being at his savviest at all times. I'm not saying Kingston is an idiot. I'm saying he's a human, and he admittedly has a hot temper.
The major pitfall of any heel act is where the line is, and much like with comedy, everyone has a different line. I still think that we would all be better off if our lines were closer to the point where people cared about other people, but I also understand where Kingston's heart was. It doesn't make his slur any better to me, but I respect everything else he did to get the crowd to hate him.
Being a heel on the indies is a hard thing for a wrestler to do, but it also shows the essence of the heel/face shift. For better or worse, the fans are the tastemakers, something that can stifle the artistic elements of wrestling if the company relies too much on that alignment for storytelling. So, I propose that maybe every company, whether it be WWE or Podunk Bingo Hall Wrestling and everywhere in between, just tell the story that they want to tell, and let the crowd react how it may. The crowd reactions might not be what they have been traditionally, but again, art is best moving forward.
There will always be room in wrestling for the character who "YOU PEOPLES" the crowd into submission. But maybe all companies would be better off varying the cast, letting rivalries develop with split crowds, and try to build promotions with more of a NASCAR-style of fan following. That way, when an act that truly gets how to rile the crowd into a frenzy like the Young Bucks and about 95% of Eddie Kingston, they can be uniquely effective and thus stand out even more.
However, John Cena once invaded the privacy of Vickie Guerrero to air her butt stuff to the world. Steve Austin was wrestling's most iconic rebel, and Bob Backlund stood for everything the archetypical 1960s conservative military father loved. Who cares if his salad days were in the '80s? No one ever accused wrestling of being ahead of the times. Hulk Hogan tossed away friendship all the time during the height of Hulkamania, while the crowd, at times, has cheered for genuinely heartwarming things, like Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth reuniting.
The conclusion one might come to is that alignment in wrestling is more art than science. That statement has truth to it, but I feel like there is one thread that ties together every bad guy in my wrestling memory. They don't care about the fans. I think the best example of this dichotomy rests within Bret Hart, whose character in the WWF in 1996 was based on shunning American fans and embracing international fans. Guess which fans rabidly cheered him and booed him? Exactly.
Recently though, the trials and travails of trying to get boos from crowds can be seen in a crucible at independent wrestling shows. For example, look at Chuck Taylor. His character is dastardly, like a flesh-and-bone version of Snidely Whiplash or some other outlandish cartoon villain brought to life. He cheats in plain sight of any and all authority figures. One of his most effective non-move moves is complaining when others cheat just to gain an advantage when the opponent invariably appeal to the ref. He fakes sportsmanship, hits people from behind, and always uses the numbers advantage when he has cohorts at his back.
Yet, Taylor is one of the most popular guys at any show he goes to. The reason for this is that he does not shy away from fan support. He will clap to chants for him on the apron or in the ring. The only fans he'll shush are those cheering for his opponent. He has killer t-shirt designs, which up the cool factor of being a fan of his. Even though Taylor assumes a lot of the classic tropes of heeldom, he is not a villain, and that is not a criticism.
Being a heel on the independent circuit can turn out to be financially detrimental. I don't know the average payout for a given show, but I do know that payments can sometimes not even cover the gas to get to the show hearing some anecdotes from people in or formerly in the business. If the fans boo you, do you think they want to purchase your merchandise, which at times can be the only way to make a wrestling show worth your while? I think expecting Davey Richards to sell long term is a better proposition.
Against the backdrop of 15-20 wrestlers trying to earn the crowd's approval, wrestlers who dedicate themselves to being the bad guy pop off the canvas that much more boldly. The best examples I can think of over the long term are the Young Bucks in PWG. They're Southern California natives who have national cache, so their need for selling wares locally has not been in question for at least four years now. So what did they do that made Reseda turn on them? They stopped giving the crowd what they wanted, and instead started trolling them during matches. Again, the endgame is all about not catering to the wants of the crowd.
So now, Eddie Kingston comes into the spotlight. He has been a dynamic heel character ever since his initial meltdown at Tag World Grand Prix, and his evolution is owed to a strong desire not only to troll the crowd, but to insult them and even threaten them. I came closer than any other time in my life to melting in a literal sense Sunday at the Proving Grounds, so on a show where the Colony cemented themselves as heroes of the day by handing out ice cream, wouldn't the inverse, destroying one of few fans that were struggling to cool the building, make Kingston the worst monster in the building? Wouldn't attacking the one symbol of innocence, a child at a wrestling show, make him vile to most decent people in the audience?
But then he had to go too far and throw an awful, accusatory racial slur at a man in the crowd who may have shared a nationality with a known terrorist in the past. Funnily, Kingston didn't go after any white dudes in the crowd despite the fact that Timothy McVeigh's body count from Oklahoma City still looms large over America, but isn't ignoring facts such as those what makes Kingston's epithet that much worse?
There are mitigating circumstances, of course. Kingston couched that insult in a bouquet of crowd attacking that made it seem less like he was attacking one guy and instead just throwing what he could at anyone he could see heckling him. Still, attacking an oppressed people in America is still not personally acceptable, not even at a wrestling show. Again, being a heel is still an art, not a science, and I'm not sure anyone ever accused Kingston of being at his savviest at all times. I'm not saying Kingston is an idiot. I'm saying he's a human, and he admittedly has a hot temper.
The major pitfall of any heel act is where the line is, and much like with comedy, everyone has a different line. I still think that we would all be better off if our lines were closer to the point where people cared about other people, but I also understand where Kingston's heart was. It doesn't make his slur any better to me, but I respect everything else he did to get the crowd to hate him.
Being a heel on the indies is a hard thing for a wrestler to do, but it also shows the essence of the heel/face shift. For better or worse, the fans are the tastemakers, something that can stifle the artistic elements of wrestling if the company relies too much on that alignment for storytelling. So, I propose that maybe every company, whether it be WWE or Podunk Bingo Hall Wrestling and everywhere in between, just tell the story that they want to tell, and let the crowd react how it may. The crowd reactions might not be what they have been traditionally, but again, art is best moving forward.
There will always be room in wrestling for the character who "YOU PEOPLES" the crowd into submission. But maybe all companies would be better off varying the cast, letting rivalries develop with split crowds, and try to build promotions with more of a NASCAR-style of fan following. That way, when an act that truly gets how to rile the crowd into a frenzy like the Young Bucks and about 95% of Eddie Kingston, they can be uniquely effective and thus stand out even more.