In professional wrestling, an audience favourite is referred to as 'a face'', but what name, also a body part, is given to a cheating, hated performer, whose every move is usually booed?
"Face (professional wrestling) In professional wrestling, a face (babyface) is a heroic or a ""good guy"" wrestler, booked (scripted) by the promotion with the aim of being cheered by fans. Traditionally, they wrestle within the rules and avoid cheating (in contrast to the villains who use illegal moves and call in additional wrestlers to do their work for them) while behaving positively towards the referee and the audience. Such characters are also referred to as ""blue-eyes"" in British wrestling and ""técnicos"" in ""lucha libre"". The face character is portrayed as a hero relative to the heel wrestlers, who are analogous"
"started. These actions often relate to wrestlers promoting charity work or other actions outside the ring, blurring the lines between scripted wrestling and their personal lives. Face (professional wrestling) In professional wrestling, a face (babyface) is a heroic or a ""good guy"" wrestler, booked (scripted) by the promotion with the aim of being cheered by fans. Traditionally, they wrestle within the rules and avoid cheating (in contrast to the villains who use illegal moves and call in additional wrestlers to do their work for them) while behaving positively towards the referee and the audience. Such characters are also referred to"
"known for this. Other heels may act overpowering to their opponents as to play up the scrappy underdog success story for the face instead. Brock Lesnar has played heel in both capacities, but has become quite famous (either as a heel or a face) as an almost-unstoppable machine who can take down anything in his path. Heel (professional wrestling) In professional wrestling, a heel (also known as a ""rudo"" in ""lucha libre"") is a wrestler who portrays a villain or a ""bad guy"" and acts as an antagonist to the faces, who are the heroic protagonist or ""good guy"" characters."
"Heel (professional wrestling) In professional wrestling, a heel (also known as a ""rudo"" in ""lucha libre"") is a wrestler who portrays a villain or a ""bad guy"" and acts as an antagonist to the faces, who are the heroic protagonist or ""good guy"" characters. To gain heat (with boos and jeers from the audience), heels are often portrayed as behaving in an immoral manner by breaking rules or otherwise taking advantage of their opponents outside the bounds of the standards of the match. Others do not (or rarely) break rules, but instead exhibit unlikeable, appalling and deliberately offensive and demoralizing"
"are generally known for being brawlers, using physical moves that emphasize brute strength or size while often having outfits akin to demons or other nasty characters. Traditional faces are classic ""good guy"" characters who rarely break the rules, follow instructions of those in authority such as the referee, are polite and well-mannered towards the fans and often overcome the rule-breaking actions of their heel opponents to cleanly win matches. While many modern faces still fit this model, other versions of the face character are now also common. A good example would be Stone Cold Steve Austin, who despite playing a"
"rather than their birth/legal names, unless otherwise introduced. A professional wrestling character's popularity can grow to the point that it makes appearances in other media (see Hulk Hogan and El Santo) or even give the performer enough visibility to enter politics (Antonio Inoki and Jesse Ventura, among others). Typically, matches are staged between a protagonist (historically an audience favorite, known as a babyface, or ""the good guy"") and an antagonist (historically a villain with arrogance, a tendency to break rules, or other unlikable qualities, called a heel). In recent years, however, antiheroes have also become prominent in professional wrestling. There"
"of selling their opponents' moves, or an uninteresting character. This often results in wrestlers who are supposed to be cheered receiving a negative or no reaction from the fans. The majority of the time, faces who are low-carders, or lesser known, are used as jobbers. These wrestlers usually lose matches against established wrestlers, usually heels that would then lose to the top faces. Some face wrestlers would often give high fives or give out merchandise to fans while entering the ring before their match, such as T-shirts, sunglasses, hats and masks. Bret Hart was one of the first superstars to"
"Austin, and Scott Hall displayed heelish behavior through most of their careers yet got big face reactions, leading them to be marketed as Antiheroes. On other occasions, wrestlers who are positioned as faces receive a negative audience reaction despite their portrayal as heroes. An example is Roman Reigns, who in 2018 is a top face in WWE, but gets booed in his matches while his opponents gets cheered regardless of them being face or heel, due to perceived favoritism from WWE bookers and executive and a lack of character development. Such characters often (but not always) become nudged into becoming"
"This often happens to popular faces and sometimes heels towards the end of their careers. Many of these jobbers to the stars are ""heels"" (villains) who routinely beat up on ""nice guy"" jobbers (""faces"") so as to build up a reputation of being reasonably capable competitors (which makes the stars all the more impressive when they in turn defeat them easily) as well as to earn the contempt of the audience who enjoy seeing them finally get their comeuppance when they take on the tougher wrestlers. Heels can also be jobbers, such as Steve Lombardi during the 1980s and early"
"negative reaction that a wrestling character gets from a crowd in a performance setting, it has also become slang for a negative reaction that a wrestler gets backstage from colleagues, management or both. Backstage heat can be garnered for both real and perceived slights and transgressions. Heels can draw ""cheap heat"" (called ""cheap"" because it is an easy way for the villains to receive boos) by blatantly insulting the fans, a local sports team, or the town in which they are performing. Fan favorites would sometimes do the equivalent, referred to as a ""cheap pop"", by referring to the town"
"as a villain, arrogantly uses his achievements to insult other people. He mixes aspects from his amateur wrestling background into his in-ring work, performing various suplexes, including the belly-to-back, German or Overhead belly-to-belly, as well as submissions, such as the Rear naked choke or the Triangle choke. He primarily performs two finishing maneuvers to end his matches: an Olympic slam, dubbed ""Angle Slam"" and an ankle lock, sometimes dubbed ""Angle Lock"". During Angle's entrance, it is common for fans to chant ""You Suck!"" to the tune of his entrance music, after comments made about him by Edge in their 2002"
"alternating between both—earning them the term ""tweener"". Despite the wrestlers' character settings, the crowd may not react accordingly due to booking issues or the general public's affinity to react positively to heels, or negatively, or in an indifferent manner to faces. The divide also can be separated by fan demographics, where older male fans tend to cheer for heels and boo faces, while kids and female fans tend to stay on the 'cheer for faces, boo for heels' sentiment, especially with John Cena and Roman Reigns. Many storylines make use of kayfabe romantic relationships between two performers. Very often, both"
"opponents head,chest or midsection The wrestler jumps in the air and uses one of his legs to push down on the head of an opponent who is leaning forward, which drives the opponent face-first into the mat. The move was innovated by Johnny Ace calling it ""The Ace Crusher II"" and later popularized by Billy Gunn, who called it the ""Famouser"" (which was also used by Dolph Ziggler) or ""Fame-Ass-Er"", the latter name used when he wrestled as ""Mr. Ass."" Marty Jannetty performed a version of the move where he applied a wristlock to the opponent first, which became known"
"shortened to just ""faces"") and ""heels"". ""Faces"" (the ""good guys"") are those whose actions are intended to encourage the audience to cheer, while ""heels"" (the ""bad guys"") act to draw the spectators' ire. There is no governing authority for professional wrestling rules, although there is a general standard which has developed. Each promotion has its own variation, but all are similar enough to avoid confusion most of the time. Any rule described here is simply a standard, and may or may not correspond exactly with any given promotion's ruleset. Due to the staged nature of wrestling, these are not actual"
"villains over time or retooled to present a different public image, such as The Rock's heel turn from a clean-cut face to self-absorbed narcissist in the heel Nation of Domination stable. The term heel does not describe a typical set of attributes or audience reaction by itself, but simply a wrestler's presentation and booking as an antagonist. Depending on the angle, a heel can act cowardly or overpowering to their opponents. For instance, a ""closet champion"" in particular is a term for a heel in possession of a title belt who consistently dodges top flight competition and attempts to back"
"held in that state, as well as to avoid the need to meet the requirement of having to employ medical professionals standing by, as was generally mandatory for legitimate contact sports involving substantial possibility of injury. The characters assumed by wrestlers can be distinguished into two alignments: faces and heels. Faces, short for ""babyfaces"", are hero-type characters whose personalities are crafted to elicit the support of the audience through traits such as humility, patriotism, a hard-working nature, determination and reciprocal love of the crowd. Faces usually win their matches on the basis of their technical skills and are sometimes portrayed"
"federal tax collector; Jacques Rougeau wearing RCMP-inspired dress as The Mountie; and Glenn Jacobs, later to become famous as Kane, as Isaac Yankem, a dentist. Heels can also be other characters held in low esteem by the public such as a repossession agent (a role played by Barry Darsow as Repo Man). Heels typically inspire boos from the audience and often employ underhanded tactics, such as cheating and exploiting technicalities, in their fighting strategies, or use overly aggressive styles to cause excess pain or injury to their opponents. A wrestler may change from face to heel (or vice versa) in"
"Gimmick (professional wrestling) In professional wrestling, a gimmick generally refers to a wrestler's in-ring persona, character, behaviour, attire and/or other distinguishing traits while performing which are usually artificially created in order to draw fan interest. These in-ring personalities often involve costumes, makeup and catchphrases that they shout at their opponents or the fans. Gimmicks can be designed to work as good guys (babyfaces) or villains (heels) depending on the wrestler's desire to be popular or hated by the crowd. A tweener gimmick falls between the two extremes. A wrestler may portray more than one gimmick over their career depending on"
"wrestling had changed. Although his character was intended to be a heel and behaved accordingly, some commentators speculated that if Angle attempted to get over as a face using a more heroic version of the same character, he would have failed. Unusually, Angle did not use any of these heroic mannerisms when playing a face character, instead acting as somewhat of an antihero with a few elements of the ""lovable loser"" character archetype. Fans sometimes dislike face wrestlers despite the way they are promoted. Some reasons for this include repetitive in-ring antics, a limited moveset, a lengthy title reign, lack"
"the referee is looking away), employing dirty tactics such as blatant chokes or raking the eyes, attacking other wrestlers backstage, interfering with other wrestlers' matches, insulting the fans or city they are in (referred to as ""cheap heat"") and acting in a haughty or superior manner. More theatrical heels would feature dramatic outfits giving off a nasty or otherwise dangerous look, such as wearing corpse paint over their faces, putting on demonic masks, covering themselves in dark leather and the like. Gorgeous George is regarded as the father of the wrestling gimmick and by extension the heel gimmick. Starting in"
"most hated heel in his area of operation for almost three decades engaging in extremely physical, violent and bloody matches, mostly as part of a tag team and often with his brother Don Wright but his most well-known and frequent opponent was still Caldwell who he would try to provoke to genuine anger in order to make their bouts better. He was known not only for being a nefarious cheat and bully but also for his speaking ability, both as a wrestler and as a manager, a style based on local preachers. He did however appear as a face in"
"gimmick, and there Von Hess further developed the gimmick of the villain into the wrestling persona of a Nazi sympathizer there being the first to take the gimmick nationwide. In doing this, Von Hess became one of the most hated wrestlers; and fans flocked to the arenas to boo him. He adopted the name of Karl Von Hess, later changing his name legally. Von Hess was so convincing as a ""heel"" that some fans tried to stab him, burn him, and even shoot at him. Von Hess quickly rose to fame in Vince McMahon Sr's World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF),"
"Cutter (professional wrestling) In professional wrestling, a cutter is a ¾ facelock front face bulldog maneuver. This move sees an attacking wrestler first apply a ¾ facelock (reaching back and grabbing the head of an opponent, thus pulling the opponent's jaw above the wrestler's shoulder) before falling backwards (sometimes after running forwards first) to force the opponent face-first to the mat below. The cutter was innovated by Johnny Ace, who called it the Ace Crusher. It was later popularized by Diamond Dallas Page, who called it the Diamond Cutter, which is where the move got its name. The cutter also"
"chest, throat, or face. An elbow attack sees the wrestler using front or back elbow to connect it in any part of the opponent's body. Also known as reverse elbow, sees the wrestler giving the back with to a standing or running opponent, and then striking with the back of the elbow to the opponent's face, neck or chest. The wrestler strikes a back elbow to a cornered opponent, lying (facing inwards or outwards the ring) against the corner. This is usually struck from a running wrestler. The wrestler faces away from the opponent, spins around to face away from"
"face-first. The move was popularized by Jillian Hall. The wrestler hooks a half nelson hold on his opponent with one arm and his opponents waist with the other. He then leaps forward into a sitting position, driving the face of the opponent into the ground. This move is also incorrectly referred to as a faceplant, which is a different move altogether. The attacking wrestler stands side-to-side and slightly behind the opponent, facing in the opposite direction, from there he/she leaps in the air and drops to a seated position driving the opponent neck and back first to the mat. In"
"filthy hands off me!"" Once the match finally began, he would cheat in every way he could. Gorgeous George was the industry's first true cowardly villain, and he would cheat at every opportunity, which infuriated the crowd. His credo was ""Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!"" This flamboyant image and his showman's ability to work a crowd were so successful in the early days of television that he became the most famous wrestler of his time, drawing furious heel heat wherever he appeared. It was with the advent of television, however, that George's character exploded"
"the last two WWE wrestlers billed as ""the face of the company"" or ""the top guy"" (John Cena and Roman Reigns) have been linked to have had go away heat, as both have in common the fact to be billed as heroic characters and staying as such despite getting jeers for years, unlike Rocky Maivia who was turned into a villain less than a year after his failed run as fan favorite. Cena had a brief run as a villain between late 2002 and late 2003, when he was turned back into a fan favorite to acclaim, much like The"
"face, while falling back on their feet. In the same sense, and as performed by Eddie Guerero, this move sees a wrestler putting one foot over the face of an opponent lying on the mat. As stepping, he/she spins around the point of their foot, rubbing the fallen opponent's face. In the same sense of an elbow or a knee, the attacking wrestler strikes the opponent using one or both forearms. A forearm thrown in an uppercutting fashion, often the wrestler does a quick grapple first to bring the spare arm up inside, hitting the opponent under the chin. The"
"wrestler hooks both an opponent's arms in an elevated double chickenwing, lifts them up into the air from behind, then drops the opponent down onto the mat face first. There is also a sitout variation, where a wrestler hooks their opponent's legs and drops to a seated position, while planting the opponent's face into the canvas between the wrestler's legs. WWE Hall of Famer Beth Phoenix used this as her finishing move, which she called the ""Glam Slam"". Current New Japan Pro-Wrestling star Ryusuke Taguchi uses this as his finisher under the name ""Dodon"". Facebuster A facebuster, also known as"
"their shoulder face-first into the turnbuckle or ropes. This move is most commonly used by The Undertaker. With the wrestler's back to the opponent, he/she applies a three-quarter facelock (also known as a cravate), and either kneeling down or bending over pulls the opponent forward, flipping them over his/her shoulder down to the mat, back first. Another variation, sometimes called a ""flying mare"", sees the wrestler pull the opponent by the hair over his/her shoulder before slamming them to the mat. This variation of the snapmare sees the application of the facelock with the takeover to the opponent, but rather"
"Facebuster A facebuster, also known as a faceplant, is generally a takedown move in professional wrestling in which an attacking wrestler forces his/her opponent down to the mat face-first without involving a headlock or facelock. A standard facebuster, also known as a jumping facebuster, involves the wrestler grabbing hold of the opponent's head / hair and dropping down to their knees, forcing the opponent's face into the mat. The attacking wrestler places an opponent in an Argentine backbreaker rack, where the opponent is held face-up across both the shoulders of the wrestler, from here the wrestler falls sideways (towards the"
"both wrestlers faces the ropes or turnbuckle. The attacking wrestler runs and jumps on the ropes and bounces back. As they fall, they catch the opponent into a ¾ facelock and drops them in the cutter. This variation is popularized by Will Ospreay and is called the ""OsCutter"". Cutter (professional wrestling) In professional wrestling, a cutter is a ¾ facelock front face bulldog maneuver. This move sees an attacking wrestler first apply a ¾ facelock (reaching back and grabbing the head of an opponent, thus pulling the opponent's jaw above the wrestler's shoulder) before falling backwards (sometimes after running forwards"
"an illegal tactic on a heel wrestler that was used on the babyface earlier in the match, Monsoon would state ""What's good for the goose is good for the gander."" Also, when a wrestler or tag team (usually the face) lost a match through illegal tactics (such as being hit with ""The Mouth of the South"" Jimmy Hart's megaphone), Monsoon would often proclaim that there had been a ""miscarriage of justice"". Monsoon generally put more emphasis on this when the heel(s) won a championship match, or retained their title(s). When referring to the heel managers/on screen personalities (Bobby Heenan, Luscious"