WWE Fans Should Support Wrestlers with the Appropriate Response

Tradition once dictated that the best way to honour a heel wrestler was to boo them unmercifully.

Wrestlers like Stan Hansen and Bruiser Brody would actively go out of their way to quell cheering from some sections of the crowd, as their brawling style was popular even if the characters they played were reprehensible.

Those archaic ideas were squashed during the "Monday Night Wars," when the division between good and bad and hero and villain became a blurred confusion.

This evolved into a situation where one of the most hated wrestlers, Kurt Angle, was someone who preached the three I's (intensity, integrity and intelligence) yet the most loved, Eddie Guerrero, was open about winning by lying, cheating and stealing.  

For a mixture of reasons, those days where right and wrong were a tonal subtlety are gone. Today, heroes are knights in shining armour who fight for the WWE audience while villains fight for themselves and personal glory.

Heel wrestlers who gain popularity with the audience aren't allowed to examine the darker nature of the WWE mentality, and instead they are quickly turned into faces themselves.

This refusal to break the predetermined mould is one of the reasons that the WWE is so bland at this point.

It seems clear that the WWE are not going to bend on this stance (until Linda McMahon's senate run is over at least), so should fans who want to support a heel character boo instead of cheer and return to the pre-Attitude Era tradition?

It could make a lot of sense as it would allow wrestlers to continue on their career path, rather than seeing promising young talents lose their edge by becoming artificially nice and clean cut.

Randy Orton is the most notable superstar of recent years to gain a really big following as a heel only to be turned into an uninteresting face.

Orton's intensity accompanied by his desire to take other wrestlers out of action made him stand out. No one else was as honest with the WWE Universe at that time as Orton was when he rose to prominence for the second time. His character openly admitted that other superstars were in his way and taking them out was the best option to permanently remove them.

Turning Orton face when Legacy disbanded lost that element of honesty and the connection with the audience. His actions—which were far more traditionally face-like—appeared false, and his character has melted away into a secondary face behind John Cena.

Had the cheers not materialised, Orton may have stayed on that more interesting path, but that is a question that can never be answered.      

Dolph Ziggler is a case where negative supporting could help his career right now.

The "Show Off" has been building an impressive resume over the past two years without ever breaking through the proverbial glass ceiling. Impressive displays, such as his two matches with Chris Jericho over the SummerSlam weekend, have cemented his position as the next top guy. It seems like it will only a matter of time before he becomes a champion.

However, Ziggler's progress may stall if cheers and chants—which were clearly audible at both SummerSlam and Raw—continue.  

The cheering itself is understandable. Ziggler has put on some of the best displays of wrestling, whatever the result, for most of the year, but such positive reactions are going to lead to certain creative directions that might limit his progress.

Right now, Ziggler is one of the few legitimate heels left in the company, and he can still get the strong heel reaction from younger or more casual fans of the product. Alongside Wade Barrett, Ziggler is likely to be one of the main challengers for a title belt throughout the "Road to WrestleMania,"  which is the best time to catapult someone into the limelight.

For an example, just look at Daniel Bryan's rise to prominence last year.

A face turn forced upon the WWE, though, would leave Ziggler in a far weaker position. John Cena, Sheamus and Randy Orton would be far ahead of Ziggler as a must-see face, while CM Punk has monopolized the tweener position for himself.

A face Ziggler, at this point in his career, would get lost in the mix and would never be a main-eventer, so negative supporting could be the answer.

Booing a heel in support of his or her actions would not be appropriate in every situation. Underutilized talent in particular often needs a ground swell of support before they are given a national-television-level feud.

Then there is the natural point where a superstar is ready to make the transition from hated foe to beloved hero, and that could be interfered with if negative supporting were to be applied too heavily.

Another consideration is whether the WWE could appreciate negative supporting for what it is, and not assume that it simply means they have created the ultimate heel character. Rumours have always circulated that the WWE's top brass can be blinkered to certain trends, and something as subtle as this could be easily mistaken.

Despite this, it is clear that negative supporting and the reinforcement of heel characters is an option for WWE fans in certain circumstances. Anything that can help with the product's current blandness has to be good for everyone.