RE-POST: What Makes a Villain? (Originally Written in 2002)

Professional wrestling, by it's very nature, is in some ways like reading a comic book. There are faces, blue eyes, heels, who constantly battle it out with the heels, the villains.

Recently, I began to ponder the question, what makes a good villian? For me, it isn't really enough that a westler is put in front of me, and someone tells me "this man is a villain, you will hate him!"

For me, for someone to be a villain, they have to do something, well, villainous. This not only means that as a fan, I have to hate him, but his opponent, the hero, must hate him as well. After all, if the Green Goblin hadn't murdered his girlfriend, would Spider-Man have hated him?

So what must a villian do to make us hate him? As a wrestling fan for most of my near thirty-one years, I can think back to my many years worth of WWF and WCW television, such as the time when Earthquake attakced Hulk Hogan while he was being interviewed, or when the Undertaker blind-sided the Ultimate Warrior and locked him in a coffin, or the time when Hulk Hogan turned his back on his legions of Hulkamanics, siding with Kevin Nash and Scott Hall and forming the New World Order.

In recent months, I've seen two good examples of heel work, right in a WAW ring.

At the Lowestoft show in May, Paul Tyrell went against Phil Powers. The match was very good, but what made it for me was the way Phil Powers made the crowd hate him. In the front row, a rather large lady was shouting insults at Powers. Powers replied by shouting insults of his own at the woman, which upset her a little. For the remainder of the match, the woman's husband stood right behind the ringside barrier, virtually screaming at Powers, using words I can't re-print here.

In Holt last month, at the beginning of the show, the crowd were very quiet. Despite the best efforts of the wrestlers, they just couldn't get a sound out of them. Then, after the interval, Rowdy Ricky Knight came out for his match. Snatching the microphone from the ring announcer, he hurled a string of insults at the crowd. Immediately, the crowd sprang to life, and hurled a string of insults back in Ricky's direction.

By doing this, Ricky was giving his permission to the fans, all but ordering them to insult him. The fans loved hurling abuse at him, and for the remainder of the show, the crowd were far from silent.

So if you see a heel, a villain, in the ring, and they insult you, think about what they have done. Don't take this insult personally, because after all, they are only doing their job, and if you hate them after they have insulted you, it is a job well done.