1. What Impact Would A Heel Turn Have Exactly?
The best heel turns of all time are a combination of timing and shock. CM Punk's heel turn last summer at Raw 1000. Bret Hart turning heel and ushering in the Attitude Era. Stone Cold's heel turn at Wrestlemania x-7, aligning with long time rival Mr McMahon and signifying the end of the Attitude Era. These are all memorable because we were invested in the characters previously so their turning their back on the WWE Universe was a real sucker punch. We aren't invested in Ryder right now, so why would we magically care if he's a heel? It's not the guy's fault, he's tried everything he could to get over and when he did he had it cruelly taken away from him. He opened up the companies eyes to the power of social media, they ran with it like it was their idea and threw Ryder back on the pile. Hell, they mentioned the top 5 most followed superstars on air live and didn't even put Zack Ryder in there even though he had more followers than The Miz who was featured. We have been conditioned to not care about Ryder, and in his experience, even he tries to get over as a heel on his own, he will never have the full backing of those in power right now, and probably never will. And that's a shame. I hope I'm proved wrong as the guy could use a break, but time will tell. In the meantime, take care, spike your hair and other such phrases!