CheapShots: Tommaso Ciampa – The Heel We Need…and Deserve

The very foundation of the story of Wrestling is baby faces vs. heels. At what point did WWE decide to throw this out of the window? Has the rise in social media collapsed this belief because everyone is twitting and hanging out back stage? Every decade of wrestling has had its major Heel and Face feuds. In this day and age though everyone balances in the grey, because we still got to sell those T-Shirts right? But, out of the ashes of want to be heels, Tommaso Ciampa has risen. And it is the freshest air I have breathe in WWE for a long time.

After NXT New Orleans, one thing is clear, Ciampa is a heel. But, not just any heel, a proper heel, and one we haven’t seen the likes of in a long, long time. KO and Miz do a good job as heels, Nakamura will most likely be in the same boat as KO and Miz but, at the end of the day they aren’t true proper heels, they balance somewhere in the grey. Ciampa on the other hand is in the black. I have said it before and I will say it again, if you are getting cheered as a heel you aren’t doing your job right. Here are a couple of reasons why I believe Ciampa is the heel we need in this day and age, and one we deserve for years to come.

Merchandise

Now a day, everyone has merchandise they want to sell, so they can get those royalty checks, including the heels we have on the main roster. Chris Jericho is has mentioned that when he is a heel he won’t allow WWE to sell his merchandise. Why would Jericho do this? Well, back in the old days of wrestling, there was no merchandise for heels. Why? Because they generated so much heat, and were so hated, you didn’t want to buy their merchandise. Now whether this is a call from Ciampa (most likely), or NXT they are doing it right by not selling his Blackheart shirt. (Even though I want one) This is an old school move and one that applaud Ciampa or NXT for doing.

The Heat

Is he generating old school heat? Not exactly. No one is jumping the barrier and try and kill him, or chasing him out the building. But his entrance at Takeover showed just how much heat he can generate. You could feel the hate coming from the fans, and that is what a heel is supposed to be, no one should be cheering for them. With that kind of heat, when they are beaten it makes the crowd pop that much more, because everyone wants to see them fail, and lose.

Final Thoughts

A hero is only as good as its villain. This is story-telling 101. The NXT writers struck a nerve with the audience with the Gargano -Ciampa feud. This is a feud that we will see play out on the main roster for years to come. But, the key thing that NXT and WWE need to do and it is imperative, is keep Ciampa a heel for the foreseeable future. It is obvious that he is good at it, and is a natural. They need to let him build this same type heat with others on the roster. Make him the most hated man in WWE. If they can do this, and keep their finger on the pulse, then Ciampa can become one hell of a villain to the WWE story. A story with that type of villain is one that I want to see.