10 Genuinely Disturbing WWE Heel Beatdowns
We Are Not Good People
Heel beatdowns are something of a lost art in modern day WWE. Newer performers seem scared of the heat in comparison to their elder peers, whilst the company itself has seemingly lost the ability (or want) to craft a sense of legitimately frightening menace within their characters.
Villainy is established more by acts of unconvincing unlikability. Characters will moan, or patronisingly gloat, or run away. Stephanie McMahon - the heel - will b*llock one of her kowtowed employees - also often heels - and audiences are expected to blindly hate both the perpetrator and victim of the dressing down without really being given reason to.
Even actual heel turns are often mangled messes of metatextuality in 2018. WWE can't control their audience anymore, and have thus lost the ability to get in front of a crowd with shocks. Babyfaces are rarely supported just as baddies are hardly booed. It creates a vaccum of misplaced emotion on show any times Roman Reigns wrestles. 'The Big Dog' motors through the wrong'uns on Raw but stops for a mammoth moan when he loses clean to bigger and better foes. Like John Cena before him, he's reached a point where a heel turn would only register with those that already hate him - those that would most likely then cheer him for his change in attitude.
These malfunctions ruin what was once a devastating money-drawing device. Bad guys being really f*cking bad guys made the eventual reversal of fortunes all the more rewarding...
10. Mickie James Has Her Cake
As evidenced by Alexa Bliss' reclamation of the Raw Women's Title at Money In The Bank 2018, bullies always get to win in WWE in the end regardless of the supposed comeuppance they suffer along the way.
This was sadly the case in February 2010 when Michelle McCool regained the WWE Women's Title from Mickie James a month after losing it in humiliating fashion in a contest that should have been a payoff to the divisive LayCool 'Piggy James' angle.
Both McCool and Layla got their just deserts that night, with the shadow of their horrific attack on the oppressed James still fresh in the mind of the former champion's loyal fanbase. Abusing Mickie for her alleged weight gain (an angle infuriatingly crafted by the company to make that exact point), McCool, Layla and Beth Phoenix assaulted her on the go-home edition of SmackDown with a variety of baked party goods.
The beatdown culminated in Mickie having a pig cake rammed forcibly in her face before then having a full punch bowl tipped over her head as she helplessly wept.