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Protagonists and antagonists are central elements in many forms of entertainment. That two specific depictions of characters ensure the success of a narrative in various sectors such as film, theatre and even wrestling. The honourable hero vs cunning villain was the foundation of professional wrestling chronicles.
Dating all the way back to the golden era of wrestling, the beloved babyface was always overcoming the insurmountable odds placed in front of him by the villain. Thus, cherished babyfaces took centre stage while the hated heel played the supporting character in the overall plot.
However, with time wrestling aficionados had enough of the WWE’s vanilla babyfaces and with the arrival of edgy superstars of the 90’s, ‘attitude’ was introduced to the WWE and the definition of the term fan favourite was forever changed. Era-defining trendsetters such as ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, The Rock and Chris Jericho had redefined what it meant to be a babyface as their innovative heelish nature had appealed to the wrestling masses. Fans could not get enough of these non-typical faces and thus sparked a radical change in the evolution of a babyface.
But as WWE grew into a global wrestling powerhouse, their approach to narratives, characters and the overall perception of their company had changed drastically. Vince McMahon’s company had moved on from the attitude era and slowly settled into the PG era. WWE’s move from TV-14 to TV-PG meant that there would be less over the top bloody violence, no more stereotypical use of woman wrestlers that would result in PR disasters and the fact that the company saw the excellent opportunity to make boatloads of money. Therefore, in the company’s point of view, this change was a warranted one.
However, no wrestling fan could predict that the decision WWE made to change to TV-PG would mean that majority of their superstars would lack depth in character, have uninteresting motivations and worst of all their babyface wrestlers had slowly devolved into bland ‘good guys that were lost in a vast sea of other generic wrestlers. Over the years, fans became more self-aware of WWE’s continuous mistakes and had unexpectedly turned the tables on the company by taking a liking their supposed hated heels.
The once villainous heels have now become the new ‘cool’ fan favourites for many of WWE’s hardcore fan base. Fans have clearly left the golden era days of adoring babyfaces and loathing heels in the past, as fans have now embraced heels as the key character in an overall story arc and had surprisingly made WWE’s bland babyfaces take a backseat. Although WWE is in an age where creating hot babyfaces that fully connect with audiences is an issue for them, there are a plethora of underrated babyfaces on their extensive roster that has somewhat distinctive personalities, excellent in-ring ability and most importantly they have organically connected with the WWE Universe.
These are wrestlers that WWE should be developing from a standard superstar into the next megastar babyfaces of the company and the Royal Rumble is the perfect place to start.
Here are 5 reasons why a babyface should win the 2018 men’s Royal Rumble match
#1 The end of a frustrating tradition
Ever since its inauguration, the Royal Rumble match has been a fan favourite every casual or hardcore wrestling fan can enjoy, and that is due to the match’s simple rules, where 30 superstars fight for an opportunity to compete in a World Championship match at “the grandest stage of them all”. That simple concept has turned into annual classic due to the outstanding traditions that have associated itself with the multi-man spectacle. Regularities such as nostalgic returns, record-breaking eliminations or Kofi Kingston’s crazy recoveries are classic annual Royal Rumble traditions.
However, over the past few years, WWE has started a new tradition, a bad habit of selecting the wrong Royal Rumble winner. From 2013 onwards WWE has used the prestigious 30-man battle royal to highlight done & dusted main eventers rather than building future rising stars. WWE gave years of significant Royal Rumble victories to veterans such as John Cena, whose presence in the Wrestlemania 29 main event only served to duplicate his supposed “once in a lifetime” dream match with The Rock.
When the 2014 edition of the 30-man extravaganza rolled along, WWE attempted to replace Daniel Bryan - who was at the time the hottest babyface in wrestling - with a universal rejected Batista. The 2016 version saw “the game” Triple H unnecessarily win his 14th World Title and go on to lose it in a lukewarm feud with Roman Reigns. Most recently WWE had the wrestling world finally question the credibility of the Royal Rumble match when they handpicked Randy Orton as the man that outlasts many hotter athletes on the road to Wrestlemania.
However, when WWE chose to break away from this norm and grant a rising superstar their much-needed momentum, they had once again chosen the wrong talent. As younger superstars such as Alberto Del Rio, Sheamus and Roman Reigns were clearly being pushed to the top by the company and not wholeheartedly by WWE’s rigid fanbase. However, WWE has an excellent opportunity to build a new rising star at this year edition of the Royal Rumble, to be more specific a hot babyface. The company has an overabundance of ‘over’ babyfaces on Raw and Smackdown Live that have connected with the fans and they should be the stars getting the spotlight shined them heading into Wrestlemania 34.
#2 Sets up a long awaited Wrestlemania main event
WWE has been dominating the wrestling scene ever since they bulldozed WCW in the Monday night wars. Therefore, for many years Vince McMahon’s wrestling empire was at the pinnacle of ‘sports entertainment’. However, the landscape of professional wrestling has drastically evolved over the last decade and in 2018 the variety of wrestling is as vast as the ocean itself, as many promotions across the world helm some of the best combatants in the industry. Each of those wrestling promotions is successfully growing. Thus, they have created marquee pay-per-views for their marquee superstars who produced some of the best wrestling in the business today.
Events such as NJPW’s Wrestle Kingdom has produced an excellent wrestling product that is slowly changing the landscape of professional wrestling. Although, the quality of Wrestlemania has deteriorated over the last decade, “the show of shows” is still one of the most anticipated wrestling shows on the planet and that is only due to the foundation that the company built it on. Whether it was legend vs icon, unforgettable breath-taking action or history-making moments, Wrestlemania has produced brilliant conclusions to excellent programmes over the years and most of those rivalries began at the Royal Rumble.
The fact that WWE decides who is one half of the main event of Wrestlemania in the Royal Rumble match is why it might be the most important match on WWE's calendar. However, by WWE choosing wrong winners for so many years, it has resulted in some of the most underwhelming Wrestlemania main events in the PPV’s illustrious history. Royal Rumble winners such as Alberto Del Rio, Randy Orton, and Triple H, all went on to compete in disappointing matches that only added to a list of barely average World Titles bouts at Wrestlemania.
This year WWE should give that career-defining Royal Rumble win to a deserving babyface and by glancing at WWE’s list of legitimate faces, money Wrestlemania main events can be attained if WWE chooses the correct wrestler to win the 30-man battle royal. Larger than life main events such as the NJPW dream rematch of Shinsuke Nakamura vs AJ Styles, the final chapter in the exhilarating feud between Braun Strowman and Roman Reigns or a legendary veteran vs a rising talent such as Finn Balor will prevent another Wrestlemania from closing in disappointing fashion. More importantly, it can make Wrestlemania the “showcase of the immortals” again.
#3 Gives validation to a rising star
It takes many years to build up a well-rounded wrestler and WWE is a company that has all the resources to create a successful superstar from scratch, and down at Full Sail University, WWE has done just that. Whether it was bringing in an influx of the most popular wrestlers on the planet, sparking a revolution for women’s wrestling in the promotion or giving the company their future World Champions, NXT has ensured that WWE’s future has an abundance of treasured babyfaces and loathed heels.
However, as soon as these once valuable prospects debut on the main roster, they automatically fall into a pit of obscurity because WWE's creative team controversial booking derails the momentum these superstars worked hard to achieve on the yellow brand. However, this year’s edition of the Royal Rumble match will be infiltrated by former NXT talent, to be more specific wrestlers such as Bobby Roode, Shinsuke Nakamura and Chad Gable will make their long-awaited debut in the 30-man melee and WWE has to use this opportunity to draw attention to those underutilised babyfaces.
Over its elongated history, the Royal Rumble match was a medium for giving talent on the rise that final bit of momentum that sends them over into World Champion status. The match has served as a transitional phase from breakout star to certified main eventer for superstars such as Steve Austin, whose 1998 Royal Rumble win arguably made him one step closer to becoming the hottest star in all of professional wrestling, Rey Mysterio, a deserving superstar that was finally cemented as a main eventer when he gave an outstanding performance in the 2006 Royal Rumble match, and Batista, whose picture-perfect feud with Triple H was only possible due to his ascension in the 2005 Royal Rumble match.
That all-important Royal Rumble victory helped turn those veterans into legends as the scorching hot momentum they acquired paved the way for them to reach the apex of their popularity and become World Champion. This year WWE has countless babyfaces that are one Royal Rumble victory from being the freshest prospect heading into Wrestlemania season. Instead of WWE doing a Survivor Series repeat and building up part-timers such as Shane McMahon, Triple H, and Kurt Angle in the Royal Rumble match, they rather give that validation to rising babyfaces that desperately need that momentum just like the countless legends before them.
#4 A rare chance to break through the glass ceiling
There is no doubt that WWE is the biggest wrestling promotion on the planet, and with every passing year, the company is making efforts to expand their product across various countries. Therefore, by reaching out to different wrestling hotspots around the world, the powerhouse in professional wrestling has one of the biggest wrestling rosters on the planet. As they recruit respected Indy darlings, create future superstars at the WWE performance centre and already have a talented main roster with many performers and veterans. Therefore, Vince McMahon & Co have a huge responsibility of ensuring these superstars don’t get lost in the shuffle.
Getting lost in the shuffle shouldn’t be an issue for WWE superstars as the company has numerous shows such as Raw, Smackdown Live, NXT and 205 Live to present every wrestler in a unique light. Unfortunately, even though WWE has hours of time to build up every wrestler in their rungs, a majority of their roster is underdeveloped. While most WWE wrestlers are underutilised, there are a rare few that find a way to get themselves ‘over’.These are wrestlers that organically forge a connection with the audience, eventually become more popular than the company’s top draw and logically position themselves as the WWE’s next top main eventers.
However, even though those superstars do their part and get themselves over, management doesn’t do their share and give them that monster push that would assist these white-hot wrestlers in reaching the apex of their careers. These are superstars that were held back by the glass ceiling and in turn, they couldn’t grab any of Vince McMahon’s brass rings. As McMahon said in an interview with Steve Austin back in 2014, his roster is not doing everything in their power to grab the spotlight. The CEOs misperception has cost his own company high merchandise sellers and huge draws, as superstars such as Cesaro, Dolph Ziggler and Zach Ryder were held back by the company’s glass ceiling and were never allowed to show their full potential as hot rising talent.
But this year there are several scorching hot superstars just waiting to explode into the main event scene and by giving these babyfaces a chance at the Royal Rumble will showcase whether or not they are ready to ascend to the next level. Having an old face return into the main event of Wrestlemania would be redundant, as superstars such as John Cena, Randy Orton and Triple H have already cemented their names in the Hall of Fame and therefore need no further validation
But superstars such as Rusev, Shinsuke Nakamura and Finn Balor are wrestlers that popularity is at its peak. Therefore, rather than seeing them waste their momentum jobbing to mid-carders they should be given an opportunity where McMahon witnesses whether they sink or swim just like many superstars before them. Letting these superstars shatter all notions will be a breath of fresh air at the Rumble and could turn out to be extremely profitable for the company.
#5 A chance to build another top star
WWE has produced some of the biggest wrestling talents for decades now. From the Undertaker to the Rock, WWE has never had a scarcity of main event talent. However, over the past decade, most of Vince McMahon’s valuable assets have either retired, quit or work part-time for the company. Therefore, with those central superstars gone they took their priceless star power with them, star power that would ensure drawing a large number of wrestling fans to the company, ensure better ratings and high merchandise sales. Although WWE has an extensive roster that can fill the shoes of those popular athletes, the company’s glass ceiling is often a roadblock on their path to success.
In retaliation, over the past few years, WWE has tried to create a newer crop of future stars that will carry the company forward. However, even though the company has designed a whole bunch of brand new talent, their creative decisions regarding the handling of these superstar’s is baffling, to say the least. From observing the careers of WWE superstars such as the unique Bray Wyatt who was presented as the modern-day Undertaker but was constantly buried by the creative team to the point Wyatt has little to no credibility left. Then there is “the lunatic fringe” Dean Ambrose, who was a breakout star of The Shield but was never booked as strong as his other Shield brethren.
Finally, there is Finn Balor, a man that has all the makings to be the hottest athlete in any promotion around the word but was shockingly deemed ‘not over’ by the Chairman of the company. Instead of building up those talented athletes, Vince McMahon chooses to rely on part-timers to fill those gaps in the company, and by continually filling those key places on the card with these ageing veterans, many young up and comers were unnecessarily buried. Through questionable decisions as the above, is the reason WWE has a shortage of big PPV stars.
Although these once-revered veterans are responsible for building the company, their place in today’s era of wrestling should stay as a special attraction and not get to the point where they jeopardise younger superstars credibility for a cheap pop. The fact of the matter remains once the dust settles and WWE will have to call a close on these veterans HOF careers, the company will be left with the superstars they refused to push and give that career-defining moment. However, WWE has an excess of breakout babyface talent sitting domain in the mid-card waiting for that huge push, and a Royal Rumble win is the aptest way to create a future World Champion.
