How WWE Turned Heel

How exactly does a fan become a fan, faced with almost constant oppression?

In 2018, we’ve suffered through Carmella’s squealing, bratty promos. The B-Team’s dumb luck going over the Revival’s intricate teamwork. Sami Zayn’s brilliant obnoxious heel bit steamrolled over the premise and became insufferable. WWE attempted the Bruno Sammartino model with AJ Styles’ lengthy babyface title reign this year, but where Bruno was a wronged man who always had the balls to overcome the odds, AJ…well.

Vince instructs Lio Rush to incessantly, in that awful voice, shout “Lashley! Lashley! Lashley!” over and over again.

It is witless stuff. It’s not Bobby Heenan’s charming cheating, or Jim Cornette’s enraged conniption fits. He drones “Lashley! Lashley! Lashley!” over and over again for the express purpose of p*ssing you off. Entertainment is not a consideration; only the heat.

Cancer. The death of a performer’s father. So much of the WWE product is like a woodpecker drilling into your temple, and its mission is to give you a headache.

Brock Lesnar beat Roman Reigns at WrestleMania, and that, more than anything, illustrated the extent to which Vince now sees heat as the end, and not the means. Vince used to coronate his new megastars on epic stages and with lavish praise. “The boyhood dream has come true!” he said of Shawn Michaels in 1996. Roman Reigns probably didn’t grow up dreaming of getting his skull jacked up by a half-arsed mercenary.

The short answer to that question is that they do not; that core fanbase is old—and they’re growing tired.

But how did we arrive at this year-long heatwave?

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