The bottom line with the heels that if they were good wrestlers then it was very watchable.If they were just repeating a stale routine not so watchable
As I said previously,majority of people if they were honest would prefer to see Mick McManus (the man you loved to hate), top of the bill against Mike Marino for instance. 🤼♂️
the heel is my favourite aspect great to see a good beating of the jobber
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Unknown member
May 30, 2022
The heels point wasn't a rehtorical question - I'd quite like some feedback on that idea: yes heels but no brawling and no bouts where, as Kent Walton would say, "not too much wrestling just yet!"
Great stuff David. Yes, there are rule-benders in most sports, aren't there, so why not amateur wrestling.
I love the "roughing up tactics". Makes it sound like legitimate technical strategy. Kent would have been proud of that.
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Unknown member
May 18, 2022
Here's a question.How about if there WERE heels but they were all generally scientific wrestlers who just dropped in the odd foul now and then, rather than have matches descending into total brawls/slugfests?
Professional Wrestling without the heels would probably be on the same level as Amateur Wrestling.
David mentions some heels in other sports, we could add Lester Piggott, Hurricane Higgins, George Best, Nastase.
There are a good few in boxing: Brian London, Cassius Clay (=Gorgeous George), Mike Tyson.
Some even did heel turns on a par with Wayne Bridges. Boris Becker's one! Tiger Woods, another.
All those heels made good money and were at the top of their game. There was even a heel swimmer!!!
But what about the other combat sports? Any heel amateur wrestlers?
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Unknown member
May 18, 2022
Replying to
I saw a Commonwealth Games bronze final in 2002 in Manchester which pitted a bigger Australian of Asian descent with an Arab/Muslim name against a Scotsman with blond hair. The Australian did a lot of slapping his opponent around the face ("roughing up tactics" said the commentators) en route to victory by a 3 point lead at the end of round 2. They shook hands before and after and were both very sporting but if this was the pros, most promoters would have encouraged the Australian-Asian guy to really heel it up, especially in America if the Scot had been an American.
True to say that it would have been very boring without the heels. The scientific clean bouts were top level. Like Johnny Saint Versus Steve Grey, or Bert Royal Versus Steve Taylor. But remember the great heels like the Indestructible Skull Murphy! Wrestling, needed the heels.
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Unknown member
May 16, 2022
Replying to
Important point about the blue-eyes in England:They were generally better off when wrestling another scientific wrester - whther that be a clean match or against a reasonably scientific heel. The trouble was when they strayed from this against a brawling/exclusively dirty heel and became the whinging morally outraged victims of heel skullduggery - or worse still started throwing the rulebook out themselves for "retaliation" as Kent Walton explained it. On those occasions, a lot of the good guys just came across as hypocritical and hubris ridden. It made one long for an honest anti-hero like Billy Robinson who only didn't wrestle dirty because he frankly didn't need to and who made no secret of the fact that he LOVED to injure and torture opponents, was an admirer of heel Kendo Nagasaki (his real life mate and training partner Peter Thornley) and quite enjoyed a good dirty scrap with a heel like with Roy Bull Davies in the The Wresters Granada docu.. Rather like Avon in Blake's 7 there was something refreshing about this bad man whom twists of fate had made into a hero.It's also worth considering the situation of the 1972 Adrian Street vs Jim Breaks heel vs heel match where the referee comes across as the true blue-eye for keeping control of these two notorious villains and getting a scientific 1-1 draw (with just the one public warning seconds from the end) out of them.
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Unknown member
May 12, 2022
Heels exist in lots of sports - boxing (Chris Eubank, Joe Bugner), tennis (John McEnroe) showjumping (Harvey Smith)British wrestling managed better than most territories would with a lower than average headcount of heels, but it needed the heels to reach out beyond the purist audience.
Got to go back to the one we often overlook; Mick McManus,
Never exaggeratedly evil, more or less keeping within the rules but aiming for believable blindiside skulduggery, simply with a horrible sneeering demeanour throughout. It was all so slight but it was more than enough to rile everyone.
Hi folks: There is no way that wrestling would of survived without heels, or as we used to say in the North East, Villains it was nice to see a good fast clean bout with such as Johnny Saint versus Jon Cortez or Al Miquet but to put on 4 clean bouts on a evening would be boring. What the punters really liked to see was the Domenic Pye's, Klondike Bills and Dr Death 's of the wrestling world or a bit of comedy with Les Kellett or Pedro the Gypsy. I used to here people say " we like to see the clean wrestling bouts " but I often wondered was that really what they wanted to see!!!? . Regards. Les 💪
I don't think the professional sport would have survived without the heels. The colourful characters of all kinds are necessary to keep enough fans coming back for the shows to be viable. Heels, or the dirty wrestlers as we called them, were an essential element - placed on this earth to receive their come-uppance. Congratulations on starting another good topic Romeo. You are very creative.
Yes Romeo , it wold be a bit like a circus not having a clown.
My gran watched wrestling on TV until 1988 and was gutted when it was pulled. She went to 1995 , age 95. At four o'clock on a Saturday I was the only one allowed to visit because she would not be distracted from the wrestling.
There is not a cat in hells chance she had a favorite wrestler. She just went crazy shaking a fist at all the heels especially McManus and Logan.
Her blood boiled and it was next day before she could talk about it calmly.
The bottom line with the heels that if they were good wrestlers then it was very watchable.If they were just repeating a stale routine not so watchable
As I said previously,majority of people if they were honest would prefer to see Mick McManus (the man you loved to hate), top of the bill against Mike Marino for instance. 🤼♂️
the heel is my favourite aspect great to see a good beating of the jobber
The heels point wasn't a rehtorical question - I'd quite like some feedback on that idea: yes heels but no brawling and no bouts where, as Kent Walton would say, "not too much wrestling just yet!"
Great stuff David. Yes, there are rule-benders in most sports, aren't there, so why not amateur wrestling.
I love the "roughing up tactics". Makes it sound like legitimate technical strategy. Kent would have been proud of that.
Here's a question. How about if there WERE heels but they were all generally scientific wrestlers who just dropped in the odd foul now and then, rather than have matches descending into total brawls/slugfests?
Maybe we can see an answer to Romeo's question.
Professional Wrestling without the heels would probably be on the same level as Amateur Wrestling.
David mentions some heels in other sports, we could add Lester Piggott, Hurricane Higgins, George Best, Nastase.
There are a good few in boxing: Brian London, Cassius Clay (=Gorgeous George), Mike Tyson.
Some even did heel turns on a par with Wayne Bridges. Boris Becker's one! Tiger Woods, another.
All those heels made good money and were at the top of their game. There was even a heel swimmer!!!
But what about the other combat sports? Any heel amateur wrestlers?
True to say that it would have been very boring without the heels. The scientific clean bouts were top level. Like Johnny Saint Versus Steve Grey, or Bert Royal Versus Steve Taylor. But remember the great heels like the Indestructible Skull Murphy! Wrestling, needed the heels.
Heels exist in lots of sports - boxing (Chris Eubank, Joe Bugner), tennis (John McEnroe) showjumping (Harvey Smith) British wrestling managed better than most territories would with a lower than average headcount of heels, but it needed the heels to reach out beyond the purist audience.
It would not have become the attraction it became, let alone survived, without the heels,
Got to go back to the one we often overlook; Mick McManus,
Never exaggeratedly evil, more or less keeping within the rules but aiming for believable blindiside skulduggery, simply with a horrible sneeering demeanour throughout. It was all so slight but it was more than enough to rile everyone.
So many heels went over the top.
McManus got it just right.
Hi Les. The real answer is a mixture.
Too much of anything becomes boring after a while.
Hi folks: There is no way that wrestling would of survived without heels, or as we used to say in the North East, Villains it was nice to see a good fast clean bout with such as Johnny Saint versus Jon Cortez or Al Miquet but to put on 4 clean bouts on a evening would be boring. What the punters really liked to see was the Domenic Pye's, Klondike Bills and Dr Death 's of the wrestling world or a bit of comedy with Les Kellett or Pedro the Gypsy. I used to here people say " we like to see the clean wrestling bouts " but I often wondered was that really what they wanted to see!!!? . Regards. Les 💪
I don't think the professional sport would have survived without the heels. The colourful characters of all kinds are necessary to keep enough fans coming back for the shows to be viable. Heels, or the dirty wrestlers as we called them, were an essential element - placed on this earth to receive their come-uppance. Congratulations on starting another good topic Romeo. You are very creative.
I think if it survived it would not have had the mainstream appeal and probably became very localised and certainly not on tv
Hi Romeo, NO- If it was all clean and scientific, I think that the crowds would have slowly drifted away. Too much of a good thing.
Yes Romeo , it wold be a bit like a circus not having a clown.
My gran watched wrestling on TV until 1988 and was gutted when it was pulled. She went to 1995 , age 95. At four o'clock on a Saturday I was the only one allowed to visit because she would not be distracted from the wrestling.
There is not a cat in hells chance she had a favorite wrestler. She just went crazy shaking a fist at all the heels especially McManus and Logan.
Her blood boiled and it was next day before she could talk about it calmly.
Her best phrase for a heel was " A Dirty Begger"