P.S. just to clear something up - was it "Heels" or "Villains" in Britain? Pallo writing in 1983 seemed to be happily familiar with the term Heel, but a lot of old times insist it should be Villain just the same as it should be Blue-eye not babyface in the UK.
I always remember it as "Villain", or simply "bad guy". Heel was very much an American term, in general, and used in Wrestling, over there.
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Unknown member
Aug 09, 2022
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How did Pallo come about it then? He didn't tour over there even though JJ did shortly thereafter.
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Unknown member
Aug 09, 2022
The clean matches are good for the heel because they present a vision of a heel-free utopia which the heel spoils in the next bout to get even more heat.
Without the purist clean technical matches however it just isn't British Wrestling. Even now
There were the men in the middle that I always liked. Wrestlers like Albert Wall, Jack Dempsey, Bill Joyce, Norman Walsh. They weren't outright villains but had that harder edge that prevented them from being the good guys.
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Unknown member
Aug 09, 2022
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Billy Joyce, we have all agreed was a sly, moderate liberty taking subtle heel. I didn't think Jack Dempsey was particularly heel, just very no-nonsense. Oddly enough the real life Tommy Moore was quite a loveable old boy and people would have really taken to him if they'd seen more of the guy in the beret we meet in The Wigan Hold.
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Unknown member
Jul 31, 2022
I definitely like my clean matches, more and more as I grow older.I like to point to this bout especially as an example of how to do it without a heel:
In my youth my favourite heel was Seamus Donlvey. When he was at Wembley in the 60s he always got cheered. Dear old Seamus always entered into the spirit of the occasion. The dirtier he got the louder we cheered. He used to throw the blue eyes and the best laugh we had was when he held to a draw Steve Veidor. It was a naughty session and then they announced the next event top of the bill was Seamus & Steve return. Even the posters were already up. Chuckles everywhere
The return was bloody good. Young Steve won and it was a clean fight. Seamus showed he could really wrestle and was excellent.
We needed the heels, or dirty wrestlers as we called them in those days. Football and cricket have the local teams to support. We needed to know who to cheer, and those were the clean wrestlers. They would have been nowhere without the baddies. I rarely had time for the pure good guys. I enjoyed a villain and those on the edge like Dempsey, Joyce, Roach, Davies.
I can think of a few bouts with no heel that I enjoyed. From youtube Les Thornton v Tony Charles in USA was a cracker. Really hard stuff. Don't remember any rule bending , just furious action. Don't think anyone played the heel.
And then we have Albert Wall v Gwyn Davies. Don't think anyone set out to be a heel , but tempers could fray somewhat at times , and could push the crowd to supporting one or the other. Did they alternate it as to who the good guy was.
Pat Roach of course played it as though he did not want to be a heel at times , but got the boos. Came over as misunderstood. There are more exceptions , but in the main a match with two good guys took a lot to warm itself to the crowd.
P.S. just to clear something up - was it "Heels" or "Villains" in Britain? Pallo writing in 1983 seemed to be happily familiar with the term Heel, but a lot of old times insist it should be Villain just the same as it should be Blue-eye not babyface in the UK.
The clean matches are good for the heel because they present a vision of a heel-free utopia which the heel spoils in the next bout to get even more heat.
Without the purist clean technical matches however it just isn't British Wrestling. Even now
There were the men in the middle that I always liked. Wrestlers like Albert Wall, Jack Dempsey, Bill Joyce, Norman Walsh. They weren't outright villains but had that harder edge that prevented them from being the good guys.
I definitely like my clean matches, more and more as I grow older. I like to point to this bout especially as an example of how to do it without a heel:
Matey Dave has told us:
In my youth my favourite heel was Seamus Donlvey. When he was at Wembley in the 60s he always got cheered. Dear old Seamus always entered into the spirit of the occasion. The dirtier he got the louder we cheered. He used to throw the blue eyes and the best laugh we had was when he held to a draw Steve Veidor. It was a naughty session and then they announced the next event top of the bill was Seamus & Steve return. Even the posters were already up. Chuckles everywhere
The return was bloody good. Young Steve won and it was a clean fight. Seamus showed he could really wrestle and was excellent.
We needed the heels, or dirty wrestlers as we called them in those days. Football and cricket have the local teams to support. We needed to know who to cheer, and those were the clean wrestlers. They would have been nowhere without the baddies. I rarely had time for the pure good guys. I enjoyed a villain and those on the edge like Dempsey, Joyce, Roach, Davies.
il check them out sounds good
I can think of a few bouts with no heel that I enjoyed. From youtube Les Thornton v Tony Charles in USA was a cracker. Really hard stuff. Don't remember any rule bending , just furious action. Don't think anyone played the heel.
And then we have Albert Wall v Gwyn Davies. Don't think anyone set out to be a heel , but tempers could fray somewhat at times , and could push the crowd to supporting one or the other. Did they alternate it as to who the good guy was.
Pat Roach of course played it as though he did not want to be a heel at times , but got the boos. Came over as misunderstood. There are more exceptions , but in the main a match with two good guys took a lot to warm itself to the crowd.
As long as a heel is a good wrestler and not just repeating a tired routine
You can do it without the heel , but I always found it pretty dull.
I guess it's the bread and butter of the script that there is usually a heel.