With the recent loss by CM Punk to the Undertaker wrecking his run as a great character and heel world champion a lot of discussion has started up on who the greatest heel champion of the modern era in the WWE has been. A lot of great heels have held the belts. Triple H, Edge, Kurt Angle, Randy Orton. Everyone has an opinion and they will defend their chosen champion to the hilt in any argument. I believe there has been only ONE truly effective heel WWE champion in the past decade, yet when I mention his name anywhere I'm either flamed incessantly or have people question my sanity as a wrestling fan.
Before I reveal my choice as the greatest heel champion of the modern era let me explain the criteria as once again I open the book entitled "Maskell's Booking 101"
The heel champion should be a great talker or at least have a great mouthpiece to generate heat, to incense the fans and to get them to come and see him get beat up by the babyface challenger.
The heel champion should always find a way to sneak away with a win, just when it looks like the babyface is finally going to put him away, the heel champion cheats to win and makes the fans believe that their guy almost had it and next time, next time the heel champion won't be so lucky. He doesn't even have to win, he can sneak out and run for a countout or get himself disqualified, which while losing him the match means he keeps the gold around his waist. All the while he goes on televison and claims he's better than everyone simply cause he's the champion and the babyface is not.
The heel champion should always stack the odds in his favor, whether that's by gathering a group of lackeys to protect him or setting up challenges so outlandish they seemingly don't have a hope of winning. It all infuriates the fans more as the fans now believe the champion is a coward as well as an asshole, which in turn makes them want to see their guy overcome those odds and destroy the champion even more.
The Honky Tonk Man did this with the Intercontinental Title in the late 80's, he held the belt for almost 18 months, yet ask fans who are still watching wrestling today who saw him in that era and ask them to name five matches that Honky won that weren't squash matches, just five matches he won when he had a legitimate shot of losing his title and I guarantee all you'll get is a series of dumb looks and "I don't know"'s all around. Yet he's still regarded by old school as the Greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time, because he followed the criteria of Booking 101 and got the fans so riled up they paid money to see him get beaten up.
That turns us to the WWE title, every person I've named certainly has claims to being the greatest heel champion of the modern era. Noone respected HHH and the way he would always seemingly win when common logic said he should lose. Then we all found out he was banging the bosses daughter and head of the writing staff Stephanie McMahon and the whole thing made sense. Edge has definately riled fans the world over with his antics on WWE TV but in the grand scheme of things he's only ever been used as a transitional champion, a very good one but transitional nonetheless. Orton may yet become the greatest heel champion ever but most fans at least respect him for being a good worker, even if he's a prick backstage and that means he's not there yet.
Nope, in my opinion only ONE man has ever taken the principles of Booking 101 to their utmost to be the greatest heel champion of the modern era. Fot almost a year he infuriated fans with his promos, his running down of their heroes and their way of life, the way he managed to slip out of the clutches of the virtuous babyface time after time and the way he never fought a babyface champion on terms that weren't to his advantage. Only one man had absolutely no respect from the fans and made those fans who already did want to see him get beaten up riled up to the point where some wanted to see him killed.
His name? John Bradshaw Leyfield
Before you all start laughing or preparing your letters of hate let me explain. Before he became JBL, Bradshaw was a opening match tag guy who drank beer, beat up people and appeared in low level comedy spots. Around April of 2004 his tag team, the APA was split up, primarilly because Ron Simmons wanted to retire as an active wrestler, what that kicked off was the most amazing character change of all time as the Texas beer drinking bar fighting redneck dissappeared to be replaced by a Wall Street, suit wearing, corporate version of what a wrestler should be. He looked down his nose at the fans that once cheered him, saying that he earnt money in the stock market while his fellow wrestlers and fans had squandered their money on cars and drugs and loose women (Which is not that far from the truth, in real life Leyfield made many appearances on Fox News programs such as Cashin' In where he gave stock tips and his opinions on the stock market. He wrote a book on how to make money in the stock market, he got his own radio show where he doled out financial advice) and that that made him better than them and that he was a better wrestler than anyone, in fact he was a Wrestling....God! (You have to say it like that or it doesn't work).
The WWE finally had a compelling character and for once in their lifes, they didn't fuck it up, they had him beat up people and appear in vignettes attacking the mexican heritage, making it clear that there was only one person who he was aiming for. The WWE champion Eddie Guerrero. They met at Judgement Day and the result was one of the goriest WWE pay per view matches in history, the result of a Guerrero blade job gone horribly wrong. JBL didn't even win the belt that night, the match finished in a double DQ but the groundwork had been laid, just over a month later at the Great American Bash JBL did the unthinkable in the eyes of many fans, he beat Eddie Guerrero 1-2-3 and became the new WWE Champion
And the Internet Wrestling Community pretty much exploded 3 seconds later.
A lot of people howled with derision, saying this was a terrible idea, how could the WWE do it? and that JBL was the worst champion ever. What these fans failed to realise is every time they posted their hatred, they proved why JBL was the right choice for champion. They tuned in week after week, sure that it would only be a one month reign and someone would defeat, but lo and behold week after week, month after month JBL found a way of escaping, whether by cheating, getting dq'ed or with help from his "Cabinent", Orlando Jordan and the Basham Brothers. Every hero that he faced he got by, Big Show, Guerrero, Benoit, Undertaker, Angle. They all fell down....and all the while JBL kept talking, kept riling the fans into more and more of a frenzy by saying he was a wrestling god and that noone could defeat him, finally it became clear that the fans had just one hope left, a babyface had been building for over a year, a man who was like a powderkeg waiting to go off and all that was needed was that one final spark to shoot him into being the next WWE mega hero.
John Cena.
After winning the number one contendership not long after the Royal Rumble, JBL tried EVERYTHING to keep Cena away from ever facing him, he set up roadblock after roadblock, gauntlet matches against his Cabinent, four on one beatdowbs on a weekly basis, constant interference in his matches to upset his momentum heading into their showdown. Cena survived it all and finally JBL had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, the stage was set. Wrestlemania 21. JBL faced John Cena for the WWE title, and the fans were convinced that tonight, finally JBL would get his comeupance and Cena would destroy him. The bell rang, the crowd roared and the two locked up as the fans waited for Cena to start ripping JBL to shreds.
It didn't happen. JBL overpowered Cena and beat him down.....and beat him down again.....then he beat him down some more.....this went on for 15 minutes.
I must admit when I first saw the match, I never got this part of it, now I totally get it. The fans were so convinced that Cena was going to destroy JBL that they regarded it as a formality, by taking that away from them they made them believe that maybe....just maybe their last hope couldn't overcome the odds....that JBL was right, that he truly was better than everyone just like he said he was....slowly the fans went silent in disbelief as their hero seemed down and out, then they got emotionally involved, cheering for Cena to rise up and somehow, someway find a way to beat JBL, and since this IS wrestling and good MUST triumph over evil in the end, Cena did find a way, digging down deep into his reserves to reverse JBL's offence, turn the tables, hit an F-U and end the reign of John Bradshaw Leyfield once and for all. And with that win Cena became a megastar, a place he still holds today
JBL never really got to that height again, he fueded with CM Punk over the World Heavyweight Title in 2008 but he never got back to the heights of 2004/5, eventually he quit earlier this year after losing an Intercontinental Title match to Rey Mysterio in just 7 seconds. However his legacy should not be so easily thrown away by wrestling fans, by following the principles of Booking 101, he not only provided the WWE with a compelling heel champion who fans both internet and regular wanted to see get killed, his promos infuriated fans, his way of getting out of matches frustrated them and his eventual loss of the title to John Cena created the biggest star the WWE has had in this decade.
With all that on his resume, how can anyone deny he was the greatest heel champion of the modern era? No other champion out there ticked every other box plus had zero respect from the fans, respect equals sympathy and if a heel has sympathy he's not doing his job. JBL did his to a tee and for that reason in the realms of the heel champions of the modern eta he truly was a Wrestling.....God!
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