Mr. Nerfect
10-26-2004, 09:58 AM
I think pretty much everyone around here knows what a face and heel are. The face being the “good guy” and the heel being the “bad guy”, and this sort of role has been so cartoonishly separated for us, it was almost immediate that we could watch a match and distinguish the face and the heel easily.
I was watching WrestleMania 2000 last night, and the opening match on the card was The Godfather & D’Lo Brown vs. The Big Bossman (R.I.P.) & Bull Buchanan. Now if I had removed the crowd from the arena, it would have still have been easy to tell who were the “good guys”, and who were the “bad guys”. The Godfather coming out dancing around with several scantily dressed women, D’Lo Brown with his cigar and cane, and Ice-T signing about how The Godfather was forced into a hard and illegal life and became a pimp to survive, but how he’s better off because of it, and both wrestlers were dressed in white silk. Then out came the Bossman & Buchanan. Not a single facial expression modification on the way to the ring. Dressed in black gear, the match started with Buchanan & Bossman in control of D’Lo Brown. The smallest man in the match was being “bullied” if you will by two bigger men. A smart strategy by the law enforcers, but it seemed a little cruel, like they held something personal against poor little D’Lo. Eventually the big guy dressed in white who had a huge smile on his face on the way to the ring (The Godfather) managed to help the little guy dressed in white, and this would allow him to escape the painful double team. The little guy then climbed to the top rope, as his partner had a look of concern, and pulled off a hurracanrana and managed to tag in his friend, who rushed in, and was now allowed to legally hold off any threats to the little guy. With a smile the biggest man in the match thrashed and smashed some black gear wearing punks, and managed to do so while looking like he was out there having the time of his life.
The men in white lost to the men with no smiles and dressed entirely in black, but they still looked like they put in 100% effort, and didn’t hide it at all, while the two members of the black team walked out pretty much the same they did on the way in, not changing in facial expression at all, and not even glancing towards the crowd area. Which guys were the good guys, and which ones were the bad guys? The men in white looked like they would sign everyone in the arena an autograph, while the big guys in black suits acted as if they would go into spasms if they even looked at a crowd member. The Godfather & D’Lo Brown were the faces, while Big Bossman & Bull Buchanan were the heels.
Speaking with terms, in which the words “face” and “heel” are used often, the match was decent, with all four guys working as hard as they could to tell a good story. They did everything right. The strategy, the attire, the facial expressions, the dominance by the “hot-tagee”, everything was played out right. It almost seemed painted for us. They could’ve held up a sign, or inserted microchips into our brain, but the crowd’s participation wouldn’t have changed. This was a case when the good guy and bad guy were almost like Superman & Lex Luther. Whether or not there were personal problems between the good guys and bad guys like Superman & Lex Luther, is unknown, but it was so easy to tell who was o be cheered, and who was to be booed.
OK, enough living in 2000. This is 2004. Many wrestling fans have come to the conclusion wrestling has gotten worse creative-wise. A lot have stopped watching the product. But those of us that have remained faithful to the WWE will know how the WWE has split their roster, and now has RAW & SmackDown! brands. This has allowed them to transform more talent into wrestling figureheads. I’m going to discuss a few of them, and the situations they are now in. You decide “good guy” or “bad guy”, but it is my own opinion that I am trying to express. It seems to me like the WWE have developed a new kind of “heel”. One that necessarily isn’t a “bad guy”, but he doesn’t fulfill bloodthirsty desires that are outlawed in any kind of modern civilization, or he doesn’t jump form a great height when he doesn’t need to, or he goes through a tough and unfortunate turning in his life. Let’s look at some of these wrestlers:
Gene Snitsky
A man that blackmailed a woman to have sexual intercourse with him, sets smaller men doing their job on fire, and ties up a man and attaches a car battery to his testicles, walks in to his boss’s office and yells at him that he wants to face an average sized man that he almost killed, who has a family at home, in a match, so he can destroy him. “The Big Red Machine” Kane cannot get his wishes, so the boss, Eric Bischoff, will find someone else for Kane to destroy. Mr Bischoff at least chooses a man big enough to give the monstrous Kane a good fight. This young man is named Gene Snitsky. He doesn’t have a name like “The Annihilator”, he’s just a man that isn’t even under contract, but he shows his passion for the business by going out there in a match with Kane. After all the smaller Shawn Michaels beat him less than 24 hours ago.
The match is all Kane, and Kane then decides he will not beat Snitsky; he will get an illegal steel instrument, and try and crush his throat with it. Yummy. Kane goes to drive his 326lbs weight into the smaller Snitsky’s throat, but it’s a good thing that the woman Kane coerced to have sex with him (who is also pregnant and his forced wife now), saves Snitsky form a gruesome fate. Kane grabs this woman, known in wrestling circles as “Lita” and tells her to stay out of it. The 280lbs or so of Gene Snitsky gets back to his feet, and uses the steel chair that Kane brought into this match to stop the ravaging monster of a human figure. How Snitsky could have seen Lita standing on the opposite side of Kane is something to consider, and how Snitsky could possibly be thinking of anything else but escaping the lion’s den he was thrown into by Eric Bischoff is also note worthy. Anyway Kane got knocked into his wife by Snitsky’s chair, and this offspring that he has spent the last few months talking about dies.
Keep in mind this offspring was intended by Kane to carry on his “evil”. The Devil incarnate might be a good way to describe this. Now I have a question to bring up. Why does Lita think her child is innocent? This is a man who will burn people, bury them, electrocute them, sleep with them against their will, have intercourse with dead bodies and throw them from high places. This is all from a storyline perspective of course, but never the less, this character either has a severe mental condition, which could be genetically passed on to her baby, or he is pure evil, in which case I would be more scared to bring something like that into the world.
With the loss of this baby, who may or may not have had a soul, Lita is upset. This is understandable, because Lita may have felt she had a responsibility to keep this thing alive, and turn it into a good person. Kane is more than upset however. He has threatens to kill Gene Snitsky, and from past experience he means that. So how would you feel if you were Gene Snitsky? You were simply caught in the moment, which rarely comes along, when you saw an opportunity to survive an encounter with such a monster. Then you accidentally force him to fall on his wife, which really is unexpected, as Kane has taken shots form much bigger men and not gone down, and now your life has been threatened by a man who how supernatural tendencies. What’s worse is that the authorities don’t give a damn. Eric Bischoff was basically sentencing this young man to death by having him face Kane anyway.
Snitsky does the only thing he can do, fight to survive. He brings out a baby carriage to infuriate a previously quiet stalker, and he brings Kane into his sights. Then he teaches the irrational beast a lesson by beating him with a lead pipe. Would anyone boo a person who tried defending himself against Jason Voorhees in a horror movie? Snitsky could have put Kane into a stretcher. He had the weapon, the opportunity and the natural instinct to, but Snitsky proved he values life, and spared the monster, hoping he proved there are bigger sharks out there, and that if Kane came back, he would pay.
This is not the end of the story however. Eric Bischoff makes a match at RAW’s interactive PPV, between Kane & Gene Snitsky. What makes it worse is that he sanctions (which means that the WWE are willfully allowing) these two men to use a weapon of the fans choice to do combat. This makes RAW sound more like a fight to the death in ancient Rome, than a respectable sport. Snitsky provokes Kane heading into the match. This worked once, but will it work again? It certainly made Kane angry, and The Big Red Machine destroys a man who respectably wrestles night in and night out with a steel chair. What’s interesting is that this man, Val Venis, also had a confrontation with Snitsky, except Snitsky beat Venis with a wrestling move, and Venis was able to walk away.
Gene Snitsky now has a match with Eugene Dinsmore on the last RAW before Taboo Tuesday. Dinsmore has mental problems, but he’s a wrestler. Snitsky wins the match, and he goes a little further, possibly because he needs to rid himself of human emotion, since nothing seems to stop Kane. Out runs Eugene’s friend, William Regal. In a flurry Regal attacks Snitsky, and beats him down to the ground. Snitsky manages to save his skin by low blowing Regal. That doesn’t stop the English superstar, who urns at Snitsky again only to get a steel chair in the temple. This was not aimed by Snitsky, and was only intended to stop Regal. Did he proceed to bash Regal with a chair? Did he set him on fire? He did do a more cruel action in putting Eugene in a turnbuckle for the man he’s facing at Taboo Tuesday to kick him in the gut, but that’s sending a message to a person’s brain, it’s not hurting a person so much that their brain cannot receive messages.
The night is not over yet for Snitsky who is on the phone to a mystery person, who obviously agrees that Snitsky is in the right. He is approached by an angry Lita, who has lost her baby. Lita proceeds to attack Snitsky, but Gene simply subdues her without much violence. He tells her that it is not his fault. Maybe Gene should have reminded Lita of the things she has done to Kane? Such as costing him his match against Shawn Michaels which actually led to this entire situation or trying to help her boyfriend hurt Kane, etc. Now that Lita has lost Kane Jr, what’s stopping Kane from hurting Lita? If I were Lita, I’d be going to Snitsky for protection, which is what Lita actually wants, in my opinion. She went in to this entire Kane thing with a wrestling career, a boyfriend and a future husband. She has walked out of that dream life, and into a metaphorical Hell. Jim Ross reminds us that he hopes Snitsky gets killed at Taboo Tuesday. Why, I have no clue. Snitsky even entered a conversation with the play by play voice of RAW, and didn’t burn him.
Taboo Tuesday rolls around, and Snitsky goes out to the ring, not running because he knows there will be nowhere to escape from this man, Kane. Kane & Snitsky fight each other with the legalized chain, and Snitsky uses it to keep the monster at bay, whipping him with it. Snitsky warned Kane not to come back. Any normal man would learn a lesson from a man who they forced to fight for their life, and did so successfully. Snitsky survives another encounter with Kane, and does to him what Kane was going to do to Snitsky BEFORE he got angry with him. Before he threatened Gene’s life, and would undoubtedly do much worse. Snitsky sent a message to me, to the fans, to JR & Jerry Lawler, to Eric Bischoff and to Lita. This isn’t my fault, but I dealt with it. Snitsky was involved in an accident, which might have costed him his life if he wasn’t as big as he is. Actually, if he was smaller he may no have knocked Kane down, and he might have escaped with his mentality 100% intact. If Snitsky had convinced himself that this situation was his fault, he would have probably gone insane, and Kane might have succeeded in his threats. Snitsky stayed true to himself, and survived the biggest obstacle of his life. Fate used a monster in Kane to give Snitsky the chance, and the confidence to take his spot on RAW. Is it over with Kane? Is it over with Lita? Is Snitsky still sane? This guy hasn’t really gotten a break since he first appeared on WWE TV, but he kept his head high, and never gave up, never gave in, and gave out what he needed to survive, and climb the ladder.
By the way, did I mention Snitsky was the heel? He was the guy getting booed. He overcame all these obstacles, and deserves a lot of recognition (storyline-wise). Will he get it? I hope so. Snitsky proved he’s tough enough, and independent enough to survive anything. I hope this guy does well. But does it bother anyone else that a chunk of this story seems to be missing? Why should we boo Snitsky? Why should we cheer the decimation of a veteran of the company, and a former Intercontinental Champion? Why should we be upset that a “knight in shining armour” might have saved us form an evil being in Kane Jr (who I could have seen Kane naming “Matt” in honour of Lita’s former boyfriend), and why should we lose any sleep that Kane might now get an X-Ray, and the doctors might realize he needs to be institutionalized due to a decay of the reasoning part of his brain. Am I missing something? Have we not been fed something (which is unlikely, since Kane was getting cheered, and Snitsky booed without it)? I don’t know, maybe the WWE really does have microchips in our brains?
I have a few others lined up like Billy Kidman, Heidenreich, The Undertaker & Randy Orton, but I’m so tired now, and I still have to go out tonight, so I might do them another time. But does it bother anyone else that the transition from face to heel may be too shakey to be reasonable? Sure, Snitsky is over as a heel, but why? Oh well, the mysteries of life. I haven’t see RAW yet, and won’t until tomorrow night, so maybe we’ll see some Gene Snitsky character development.
I was watching WrestleMania 2000 last night, and the opening match on the card was The Godfather & D’Lo Brown vs. The Big Bossman (R.I.P.) & Bull Buchanan. Now if I had removed the crowd from the arena, it would have still have been easy to tell who were the “good guys”, and who were the “bad guys”. The Godfather coming out dancing around with several scantily dressed women, D’Lo Brown with his cigar and cane, and Ice-T signing about how The Godfather was forced into a hard and illegal life and became a pimp to survive, but how he’s better off because of it, and both wrestlers were dressed in white silk. Then out came the Bossman & Buchanan. Not a single facial expression modification on the way to the ring. Dressed in black gear, the match started with Buchanan & Bossman in control of D’Lo Brown. The smallest man in the match was being “bullied” if you will by two bigger men. A smart strategy by the law enforcers, but it seemed a little cruel, like they held something personal against poor little D’Lo. Eventually the big guy dressed in white who had a huge smile on his face on the way to the ring (The Godfather) managed to help the little guy dressed in white, and this would allow him to escape the painful double team. The little guy then climbed to the top rope, as his partner had a look of concern, and pulled off a hurracanrana and managed to tag in his friend, who rushed in, and was now allowed to legally hold off any threats to the little guy. With a smile the biggest man in the match thrashed and smashed some black gear wearing punks, and managed to do so while looking like he was out there having the time of his life.
The men in white lost to the men with no smiles and dressed entirely in black, but they still looked like they put in 100% effort, and didn’t hide it at all, while the two members of the black team walked out pretty much the same they did on the way in, not changing in facial expression at all, and not even glancing towards the crowd area. Which guys were the good guys, and which ones were the bad guys? The men in white looked like they would sign everyone in the arena an autograph, while the big guys in black suits acted as if they would go into spasms if they even looked at a crowd member. The Godfather & D’Lo Brown were the faces, while Big Bossman & Bull Buchanan were the heels.
Speaking with terms, in which the words “face” and “heel” are used often, the match was decent, with all four guys working as hard as they could to tell a good story. They did everything right. The strategy, the attire, the facial expressions, the dominance by the “hot-tagee”, everything was played out right. It almost seemed painted for us. They could’ve held up a sign, or inserted microchips into our brain, but the crowd’s participation wouldn’t have changed. This was a case when the good guy and bad guy were almost like Superman & Lex Luther. Whether or not there were personal problems between the good guys and bad guys like Superman & Lex Luther, is unknown, but it was so easy to tell who was o be cheered, and who was to be booed.
OK, enough living in 2000. This is 2004. Many wrestling fans have come to the conclusion wrestling has gotten worse creative-wise. A lot have stopped watching the product. But those of us that have remained faithful to the WWE will know how the WWE has split their roster, and now has RAW & SmackDown! brands. This has allowed them to transform more talent into wrestling figureheads. I’m going to discuss a few of them, and the situations they are now in. You decide “good guy” or “bad guy”, but it is my own opinion that I am trying to express. It seems to me like the WWE have developed a new kind of “heel”. One that necessarily isn’t a “bad guy”, but he doesn’t fulfill bloodthirsty desires that are outlawed in any kind of modern civilization, or he doesn’t jump form a great height when he doesn’t need to, or he goes through a tough and unfortunate turning in his life. Let’s look at some of these wrestlers:
Gene Snitsky
A man that blackmailed a woman to have sexual intercourse with him, sets smaller men doing their job on fire, and ties up a man and attaches a car battery to his testicles, walks in to his boss’s office and yells at him that he wants to face an average sized man that he almost killed, who has a family at home, in a match, so he can destroy him. “The Big Red Machine” Kane cannot get his wishes, so the boss, Eric Bischoff, will find someone else for Kane to destroy. Mr Bischoff at least chooses a man big enough to give the monstrous Kane a good fight. This young man is named Gene Snitsky. He doesn’t have a name like “The Annihilator”, he’s just a man that isn’t even under contract, but he shows his passion for the business by going out there in a match with Kane. After all the smaller Shawn Michaels beat him less than 24 hours ago.
The match is all Kane, and Kane then decides he will not beat Snitsky; he will get an illegal steel instrument, and try and crush his throat with it. Yummy. Kane goes to drive his 326lbs weight into the smaller Snitsky’s throat, but it’s a good thing that the woman Kane coerced to have sex with him (who is also pregnant and his forced wife now), saves Snitsky form a gruesome fate. Kane grabs this woman, known in wrestling circles as “Lita” and tells her to stay out of it. The 280lbs or so of Gene Snitsky gets back to his feet, and uses the steel chair that Kane brought into this match to stop the ravaging monster of a human figure. How Snitsky could have seen Lita standing on the opposite side of Kane is something to consider, and how Snitsky could possibly be thinking of anything else but escaping the lion’s den he was thrown into by Eric Bischoff is also note worthy. Anyway Kane got knocked into his wife by Snitsky’s chair, and this offspring that he has spent the last few months talking about dies.
Keep in mind this offspring was intended by Kane to carry on his “evil”. The Devil incarnate might be a good way to describe this. Now I have a question to bring up. Why does Lita think her child is innocent? This is a man who will burn people, bury them, electrocute them, sleep with them against their will, have intercourse with dead bodies and throw them from high places. This is all from a storyline perspective of course, but never the less, this character either has a severe mental condition, which could be genetically passed on to her baby, or he is pure evil, in which case I would be more scared to bring something like that into the world.
With the loss of this baby, who may or may not have had a soul, Lita is upset. This is understandable, because Lita may have felt she had a responsibility to keep this thing alive, and turn it into a good person. Kane is more than upset however. He has threatens to kill Gene Snitsky, and from past experience he means that. So how would you feel if you were Gene Snitsky? You were simply caught in the moment, which rarely comes along, when you saw an opportunity to survive an encounter with such a monster. Then you accidentally force him to fall on his wife, which really is unexpected, as Kane has taken shots form much bigger men and not gone down, and now your life has been threatened by a man who how supernatural tendencies. What’s worse is that the authorities don’t give a damn. Eric Bischoff was basically sentencing this young man to death by having him face Kane anyway.
Snitsky does the only thing he can do, fight to survive. He brings out a baby carriage to infuriate a previously quiet stalker, and he brings Kane into his sights. Then he teaches the irrational beast a lesson by beating him with a lead pipe. Would anyone boo a person who tried defending himself against Jason Voorhees in a horror movie? Snitsky could have put Kane into a stretcher. He had the weapon, the opportunity and the natural instinct to, but Snitsky proved he values life, and spared the monster, hoping he proved there are bigger sharks out there, and that if Kane came back, he would pay.
This is not the end of the story however. Eric Bischoff makes a match at RAW’s interactive PPV, between Kane & Gene Snitsky. What makes it worse is that he sanctions (which means that the WWE are willfully allowing) these two men to use a weapon of the fans choice to do combat. This makes RAW sound more like a fight to the death in ancient Rome, than a respectable sport. Snitsky provokes Kane heading into the match. This worked once, but will it work again? It certainly made Kane angry, and The Big Red Machine destroys a man who respectably wrestles night in and night out with a steel chair. What’s interesting is that this man, Val Venis, also had a confrontation with Snitsky, except Snitsky beat Venis with a wrestling move, and Venis was able to walk away.
Gene Snitsky now has a match with Eugene Dinsmore on the last RAW before Taboo Tuesday. Dinsmore has mental problems, but he’s a wrestler. Snitsky wins the match, and he goes a little further, possibly because he needs to rid himself of human emotion, since nothing seems to stop Kane. Out runs Eugene’s friend, William Regal. In a flurry Regal attacks Snitsky, and beats him down to the ground. Snitsky manages to save his skin by low blowing Regal. That doesn’t stop the English superstar, who urns at Snitsky again only to get a steel chair in the temple. This was not aimed by Snitsky, and was only intended to stop Regal. Did he proceed to bash Regal with a chair? Did he set him on fire? He did do a more cruel action in putting Eugene in a turnbuckle for the man he’s facing at Taboo Tuesday to kick him in the gut, but that’s sending a message to a person’s brain, it’s not hurting a person so much that their brain cannot receive messages.
The night is not over yet for Snitsky who is on the phone to a mystery person, who obviously agrees that Snitsky is in the right. He is approached by an angry Lita, who has lost her baby. Lita proceeds to attack Snitsky, but Gene simply subdues her without much violence. He tells her that it is not his fault. Maybe Gene should have reminded Lita of the things she has done to Kane? Such as costing him his match against Shawn Michaels which actually led to this entire situation or trying to help her boyfriend hurt Kane, etc. Now that Lita has lost Kane Jr, what’s stopping Kane from hurting Lita? If I were Lita, I’d be going to Snitsky for protection, which is what Lita actually wants, in my opinion. She went in to this entire Kane thing with a wrestling career, a boyfriend and a future husband. She has walked out of that dream life, and into a metaphorical Hell. Jim Ross reminds us that he hopes Snitsky gets killed at Taboo Tuesday. Why, I have no clue. Snitsky even entered a conversation with the play by play voice of RAW, and didn’t burn him.
Taboo Tuesday rolls around, and Snitsky goes out to the ring, not running because he knows there will be nowhere to escape from this man, Kane. Kane & Snitsky fight each other with the legalized chain, and Snitsky uses it to keep the monster at bay, whipping him with it. Snitsky warned Kane not to come back. Any normal man would learn a lesson from a man who they forced to fight for their life, and did so successfully. Snitsky survives another encounter with Kane, and does to him what Kane was going to do to Snitsky BEFORE he got angry with him. Before he threatened Gene’s life, and would undoubtedly do much worse. Snitsky sent a message to me, to the fans, to JR & Jerry Lawler, to Eric Bischoff and to Lita. This isn’t my fault, but I dealt with it. Snitsky was involved in an accident, which might have costed him his life if he wasn’t as big as he is. Actually, if he was smaller he may no have knocked Kane down, and he might have escaped with his mentality 100% intact. If Snitsky had convinced himself that this situation was his fault, he would have probably gone insane, and Kane might have succeeded in his threats. Snitsky stayed true to himself, and survived the biggest obstacle of his life. Fate used a monster in Kane to give Snitsky the chance, and the confidence to take his spot on RAW. Is it over with Kane? Is it over with Lita? Is Snitsky still sane? This guy hasn’t really gotten a break since he first appeared on WWE TV, but he kept his head high, and never gave up, never gave in, and gave out what he needed to survive, and climb the ladder.
By the way, did I mention Snitsky was the heel? He was the guy getting booed. He overcame all these obstacles, and deserves a lot of recognition (storyline-wise). Will he get it? I hope so. Snitsky proved he’s tough enough, and independent enough to survive anything. I hope this guy does well. But does it bother anyone else that a chunk of this story seems to be missing? Why should we boo Snitsky? Why should we cheer the decimation of a veteran of the company, and a former Intercontinental Champion? Why should we be upset that a “knight in shining armour” might have saved us form an evil being in Kane Jr (who I could have seen Kane naming “Matt” in honour of Lita’s former boyfriend), and why should we lose any sleep that Kane might now get an X-Ray, and the doctors might realize he needs to be institutionalized due to a decay of the reasoning part of his brain. Am I missing something? Have we not been fed something (which is unlikely, since Kane was getting cheered, and Snitsky booed without it)? I don’t know, maybe the WWE really does have microchips in our brains?
I have a few others lined up like Billy Kidman, Heidenreich, The Undertaker & Randy Orton, but I’m so tired now, and I still have to go out tonight, so I might do them another time. But does it bother anyone else that the transition from face to heel may be too shakey to be reasonable? Sure, Snitsky is over as a heel, but why? Oh well, the mysteries of life. I haven’t see RAW yet, and won’t until tomorrow night, so maybe we’ll see some Gene Snitsky character development.