They are the promos that have made LAX the hottest act in pro wrestling today. The vicious, serious, and down right bad ass words that Konnan spits on the mic every Thursday night have made me wonder if we are in for a revolution. No, not the Latin American revolution that Konnan says will leave all us gringos in dust, but a reinvention of the heel performer.
For a few years now the “heel” has been marginalized, trivialized, and made to be laughing stock. Konnan is working to change that image.
In the early part of the decade we had great performers like Kurt Angle and Y2J Chris Jericho who instead of being positioned as serious adversaries to The Rock and HHH were made to be cowards who would readily tuck their tails between their legs and run.
Though entertaining, it left the heel with little credibility and often times fans never really bought into this form of heel as a serious threat to a top babyface.
At best, this kind of heel can only go as far as mid-card comedy.
Want proof. Look no further than Canada’s own Christian Cage.
A favorite among the smarks for his funny, “chicken shit” heel promos where he outsmarts the babyface, Christian has grown stale in TNA and has not been able to rise above the mid-card comedy act that he was in the WWE. Christian’s promos are “entertaining” but they don’t draw serious heat.
No heat = No money. Want to know why Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz drew 775,000 buys on pay per view for their match, because each guy delivered serious, heated, and nasty promos to build up to their affair. They didn’t try and do what pro wrestlers of today are taught to do. Be comedians. Most attempts at comedy feel contrived and come off as a poor man’s sitcom complete with witty jokes and pop cultural references.
Enter K-Dawg. In the build-up to the Ultimate X match at No Surrender between LAX versus AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels, Konnan delivered solid heel promos that left the verbally challenged babyfaces unable to mount a comeback. The promos were serious, bereft of any humor and campy comedy that a Christian Cage promo or DX segment is riddled with. Konnan cuts through the “sports entertainment” BS that has become the great sport of professional wrestling and has brought TNA kicking and screaming into 2006.
For TNA to survive and thrive they need to look, feel, and sound different than anything WWE is doing. Do away with the comedy, the blow up dolls, the cheesy storylines, and the Christian Cage promos and adopt a new image. Konnan and LAX comes off as fresh, new, exciting, and current. And it is promos like the ones Konnan delivers that will draw money and get people to order pay per view. Now before my inbox gets filled with hate mail I will acknowledge the fact that there are other stars other than Konnan that are doing away with comedy and adopting a more serious promo approach. Christian Cage’s much more talented pal Adam Copeland put together amazing promos for his feud with John Cena. Edge solidified himself as a heel star in 2006 doing away with the coward act and becoming a bad ass main event star. what today’s wrestling should be. Edge’s old pal from his days as an Ontario indy worker Rhino has also become a threat on the mic with his angry style of interviews and helping make TNA more current than the stale WWE. And I would be remised if I didn’t mention one of the greatest talkers of all time Mick Foley who in the build-up to his series of matches with Ric Flair cut some of the most masterful promos ever. No humor, just genuine heat.
To draw in 2006, wrestling needs to, to borrow a line from Lance Storm, become serious. Characters need to be skewed towards reality and feuds between wrestlers need to create an atmosphere of hate and genuine heat. When people can’t buy into a feud they will not buy into the pay per view where the feud is being showcased. Don’t agree? Tell me if you have genuine interest in seeing any match that King Booker, DX, or Vince McMahon is involved in. I’ll take an “Arriba la Rasa” over an “All Hail King Booker” any day.
4 comments: on "Reinventing the Heel: How Konnan is bringing Wrestling into 2006."
Frank "No Gimmicks Needed" Fronte... Welcome to Tha O Show... It's good to be working with you again. Nice first installment....
i agree and that's the reason ECW got popular when it did cause it was different from the other promotions. The characters came in to music you hear outside the ring, the atmosphere was more realistic, and the characters themselves were more like something you would see on the street. My point is that every now and then wrestling has to "flip over the pillow". By this I mean look at the product that's out now. It's a copy of that old ECW formula; backstage access, heel characters hanging out with face characters, and real life situations brought up as storylines. Now it's time for the industry to some what restrict it. Heels being heels. Babyfaces being babyfaces. Valets that can't wrestle being valets that DON'T wrestle(*cough*Torrie Wilson*cough*)
i agree and that's the reason ECW got popular when it did cause it was different from the other promotions. The characters came in to music you hear outside the ring, the atmosphere was more realistic, and the characters themselves were more like something you would see on the street. My point is that every now and then wrestling has to "flip over the pillow". By this I mean look at the product that's out now. It's a copy of that old ECW formula; backstage access, heel characters hanging out with face characters, and real life situations brought up as storylines. Now it's time for the industry to some what restrict it. Heels being heels. Babyfaces being babyfaces. Valets that can't wrestle being valets that DON'T wrestle(*cough*Torrie Wilson*cough*)
Man whats with the Christian hating? The reason he can't be top heel is Jeff Jarrett. And while he can be funny, Ive seen him tear down quite a few faces with his own brand of david spade-styled delivery and self aggrandization. Christians a lot better than you give him credit for.
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