Heels and Babyfaces: How the Landscape of Pro Wrestling Is Changing.

For years and years professional wrestling has drawn in fans with their epic battles between good and evil. This formula works wonders as the babyface has to overcome the odds presented by the monster hell or the cheating heel to make things right in the world.

Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant. Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage. Steve Austin vs. Mr. McMahon. These are perhaps the most well known mainstream rivalries in the professional wrestling landscape. There were few rivalries in the past decades that had a face vs. face or heel vs. heel feel to them.

Then came the infamous "MSG incident" to which many attribute as the "death of kayfabe".  Onscreen enemies HHH, Kevin Nash (Diesel) Scott Hall (Razor Ramon) and Shawn Micheals embraced after their match due to the imminent departure of Hall and Nash to the rival WCW company.

This started a shift in perception as to what a heel or a face should be. No longer did people want to see comic book characters do battle against each other. Fans wanted to see a more realistic product unfold in front of them.

Before, we were inundated with supernatural characters such as The Undertaker, Kane, The Ultimate Warrior, Papa Shango, and so on. Now we were witnessing characters we could relate to on a personal level.

Storylines were being created based on things that were somewhat taboo to talk about in the wrestling world due to the breaking of kayfabe, such as HHH marrying Stephanie McMahon. With the creation of insider news websites, more and more fans were exposed to the inner workings of the industry, and as a result demanded more and more of an edgier product.

With this came the development of a new type of character, the "tweener". This character normally acted with attributes normally credited with the tendencies of a heel, but due to the situation they were put in, they would be cheered as a babyface.

Bret Hart was portrayed as a heel and universally booed in the United States when his character was boycotting the U.S. However, in his home country of Canada, and many other countries that have some disdain for the U.S., he was cheered.

Steve Austin was a beer drinking, hell raising, foul-mouthed character for his whole career after his famous "Austin 3:16" promo, and these traits are normally associated with a heel. Put him in a feud with Vince McMahon, where your boss tries to make your life a living hell, and heel tendencies or not, many people have a character they can relate to and therefore they get cheered.

Conversely, there have been characters who display traits and messages normally associated with a babyface, yet they are portrayed as a heel due to the way they present themselves as "holier than thou".

Kurt Angle and CM Punk are just two examples of this. CM Punk lives a straight-edge lifestyle in real life in which he does not drink, smoke or do drugs. Normally in the wrestling world, these would be admirable traits in a person, and be worth rooting for, but he started preaching this lifestyle to others and condemning those that did not follow and he became a heel because of it.

I for one welcome this change with open arms. Although we can never really go back to the days of comic book heroes and villains (except for The Undertaker) I will willingly give that up to feel more included in the story I am watching unfold before me.