5 Reasons why a babyface should win the 2018 Royal Rumble
Protagonists and antagonists are central elements in many forms of entertainment. That two specific depictions of characters ensure the success of a narrative in various sectors such as film, theatre and even wrestling. The honourable hero vs cunning villain was the foundation of professional wrestling chronicles.
Dating all the way back to the golden era of wrestling, the beloved babyface was always overcoming the insurmountable odds placed in front of him by the villain. Thus, cherished babyfaces took centre stage while the hated heel played the supporting character in the overall plot.
However, with time wrestling aficionados had enough of the WWE’s vanilla babyfaces and with the arrival of edgy superstars of the 90’s, ‘attitude’ was introduced to the WWE and the definition of the term fan favourite was forever changed. Era-defining trendsetters such as ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, The Rock and Chris Jericho had redefined what it meant to be a babyface as their innovative heelish nature had appealed to the wrestling masses. Fans could not get enough of these non-typical faces and thus sparked a radical change in the evolution of a babyface.
But as WWE grew into a global wrestling powerhouse, their approach to narratives, characters and the overall perception of their company had changed drastically. Vince McMahon’s company had moved on from the attitude era and slowly settled into the PG era. WWE’s move from TV-14 to TV-PG meant that there would be less over the top bloody violence, no more stereotypical use of woman wrestlers that would result in PR disasters and the fact that the company saw the excellent opportunity to make boatloads of money. Therefore, in the company’s point of view, this change was a warranted one.
However, no wrestling fan could predict that the decision WWE made to change to TV-PG would mean that majority of their superstars would lack depth in character, have uninteresting motivations and worst of all their babyface wrestlers had slowly devolved into bland ‘good guys that were lost in a vast sea of other generic wrestlers. Over the years, fans became more self-aware of WWE’s continuous mistakes and had unexpectedly turned the tables on the company by taking a liking their supposed hated heels.
The once villainous heels have now become the new ‘cool’ fan favourites for many of WWE’s hardcore fan base. Fans have clearly left the golden era days of adoring babyfaces and loathing heels in the past, as fans have now embraced heels as the key character in an overall story arc and had surprisingly made WWE’s bland babyfaces take a backseat. Although WWE is in an age where creating hot babyfaces that fully connect with audiences is an issue for them, there are a plethora of underrated babyfaces on their extensive roster that has somewhat distinctive personalities, excellent in-ring ability and most importantly they have organically connected with the WWE Universe.
These are wrestlers that WWE should be developing from a standard superstar into the next megastar babyfaces of the company and the Royal Rumble is the perfect place to start.
Here are 5 reasons why a babyface should win the 2018 men’s Royal Rumble match
#1 The end of a frustrating tradition
Ever since its inauguration, the Royal Rumble match has been a fan favourite every casual or hardcore wrestling fan can enjoy, and that is due to the match’s simple rules, where 30 superstars fight for an opportunity to compete in a World Championship match at “the grandest stage of them all”. That simple concept has turned into annual classic due to the outstanding traditions that have associated itself with the multi-man spectacle. Regularities such as nostalgic returns, record-breaking eliminations or Kofi Kingston’s crazy recoveries are classic annual Royal Rumble traditions.
However, over the past few years, WWE has started a new tradition, a bad habit of selecting the wrong Royal Rumble winner. From 2013 onwards WWE has used the prestigious 30-man battle royal to highlight done & dusted main eventers rather than building future rising stars. WWE gave years of significant Royal Rumble victories to veterans such as John Cena, whose presence in the Wrestlemania 29 main event only served to duplicate his supposed “once in a lifetime” dream match with The Rock.
When the 2014 edition of the 30-man extravaganza rolled along, WWE attempted to replace Daniel Bryan - who was at the time the hottest babyface in wrestling - with a universal rejected Batista. The 2016 version saw “the game” Triple H unnecessarily win his 14th World Title and go on to lose it in a lukewarm feud with Roman Reigns. Most recently WWE had the wrestling world finally question the credibility of the Royal Rumble match when they handpicked Randy Orton as the man that outlasts many hotter athletes on the road to Wrestlemania.
However, when WWE chose to break away from this norm and grant a rising superstar their much-needed momentum, they had once again chosen the wrong talent. As younger superstars such as Alberto Del Rio, Sheamus and Roman Reigns were clearly being pushed to the top by the company and not wholeheartedly by WWE’s rigid fanbase. However, WWE has an excellent opportunity to build a new rising star at this year edition of the Royal Rumble, to be more specific a hot babyface. The company has an overabundance of ‘over’ babyfaces on Raw and Smackdown Live that have connected with the fans and they should be the stars getting the spotlight shined them heading into Wrestlemania 34.