Wrestling fans in the know, please pardon me while I provide some basic definitions for non-wrestling fans who may come across this post. (And, by all means, feel free to skip ahead if you wish.)
In wrestling, as with any storytelling medium, you have a cast of characters with a variety of traits. This is a world that has its own language to talk about those characters and stories. Here are some terms that you'll hear:
Heels: the bad guys
Babyfaces, or simply faces: the good guys
Turn: the moment when good guy goes bad or a bad guy goes good
Promo: a segment where a wrestler is addressing the audience on the microphone, during which they’re “promoting” their upcoming fight and getting people interested in their match
As with the real world, these neat and tidy definitions rarely lead to a black-and-white narratives with clear heroes and villains. It is not at all uncommon for stadiums full of fans to cheer the heels and boo the faces. It's also not uncommon for a face to use a questionable tactic to win a match from time to time. And, sometimes, although we hate to admit it, even the most hated heels make some very good points during their promos.
In 2018 I did a lot of smiling and nodding as my friends talked about Housewives whose names and hometowns I couldn't have told you if my life depended upon it. But I was deeply invested in the slowly devolving friendship of Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch.
At that time a movement known as the Women's Evolution was taking place within WWE. This was a movement that would forever change the landscape of women's professional wrestling. Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch were two of the women at the epicenter of this movement. They, along with Sasha Banks1 and Bayley, took NXT (the company's developmental brand2) by storm. Although they're all absolutely stunning, they weren't just there to model as most women in the industry before them had been forced to do. No, they were true athletes in every sense of the word and carried themselves in a way that demanded they be treated as such. They were true wrestlers and it was clear from the time of their arrival that they were there to do just that: to wrestle. But changing the industry would require a fight of a very different kind. They had to become workhorses in NXT, going above and beyond to prove that women's wrestling could and should be taken seriously. This drive and the momentum around their efforts eventually earned them the collective nickname of the Four Horsewomen of WWE.3
Being at the front of this movement bonded these women in a way few other experiences can. Throughout the early years of their WWE careers, Charlotte and Becky in particular formed a very real and deep friendship both on camera and off. Their social media pages were full of goofy videos of them during long car rides, between shows, backstage banter, and lots of laughter. On screen they always seemed to have each other's backs. Although not an official tag team, they regularly teamed up for impromptu tag matches. They seemed to be inseparable. But by the summer of 2018 both of their careers and fame had grown. Charlotte had already held 7 world titles, been dubbed "The Queen," and was developing an in-ring character whose hallmark was an air of superiority by virtue of her father being the one and only Ric Flair. She walked to the ring in robes fit for The Queen (which called back to the over-the-top style of her father) beaming with confidence that bordered on arrogance. Meanwhile, Lynch was gaining a following of her own as the relatable everyman character. Her steampunk ring gear was a good match for her scrappy style and attitude. She was able to go with the best of them in the ring and had skills on the mic that could whip the crowd into a frenzy during a promo. But for some reason she always seemed to be just below the top of the roster, always the proverbial bridesmaid. She'd had just 1 title reign, but seemed to be on the cusp of breaking out in a big way if she could just get past whatever was holding her back. Many people felt that her friendship with Charlotte - often viewed as the bride to Becky's bridesmaid - was that very obstacle.
For much of the summer of 2018, Charlotte was out due to an injury. During that time Becky went on a winning streak that ultimately earned her a title match against the then Smackdown Women's Champion, Carmella, at the SummerSlam Pay-Per-View event. Just before SummerSlam, Charlotte made her return to in-ring action by running to Becky's aid during a beat-down by some of their mutual rivals. Following her return Charlotte managed to earn her way into the same match against Carmella for the title that Becky had earned, making it a Triple Threat match rather than the one-on-one match Becky (and most of the fans) had been longing for. This turn of events began to slowly test the friendship between Becky and Charlotte.
The match at SummerSlam was a hard-fought battle, and Charlotte ultimately came out on top by pinning Becky. In an emotional moment after the match, it was clear that Charlotte felt bad that her friend was visibly upset about coming up short. The two exchanged what appeared to be some private words of encouragement and comfort before the hugging in the center of the ring with tears in both their eyes. As they stood back from the embrace, it seemed that this tender moment had come to an end.
And then Becky Lynch sucker-punched Charlotte Flair right in the face. The crowd went nuts!
The cheers Becky's heel turn received and the frenzy of fan support for her breakout into singles stardom is just one of the great examples of how real life experiences are vital to understanding and telling stories. People were drawn in by this new rivalry because of just how relatable it was. Many of us have had at least one friend we feel gets handed absolutely everything in life while we're left scraping the bottom of the barrel. And many of us have had (or have at least feared) friends or loved ones turn on us for putting ourselves first. I've been on both sides of that, myself. While technically Charlotte was the face and Becky was the heel in this storyline, most fans were solidly behind Becky. Throughout the duration of this rivalry I found myself going back and forth, but thoroughly enjoying all of the drama on my screen.
Around this same time, there was another truly brilliant performance happening by The New Daniel Bryan. Years earlier, Daniel Bryan4 had a similar underdog storyline to that of Becky Lynch. His endurance during hour-long ironman matches and his no-frills mat grappling style set him apart and quickly earned him respect within the industry. Much like Edge, he had been forced into early retirement due to injury. But then after many years away and many medical advancements, he was able to return to performing.
In November of 2018 after winning the WWE Championship from AJ Styles with a blatant low blow, Bryan gave a somewhat odd and hard-to-follow promo in which he referred to himself only in the third person and dubbed himself The New Daniel Bryan.
The New Daniel Bryan was a big supporter of environmental sustainability. He was all for animal rights. He openly spoke out about the negative consequences of capitalism. But - and here's the brilliant part - he was an absolutely insufferable holier-than-thou douchebag about it. He was so good at playing a preachy jackass that he could make you want to stop recycling, because let's face it, nobody wants to be like that asshole. At one point he threw away the championship belt he’d won to unveil a new one made of wood and hemp. Everywhere he went, he screamed that the audiences were fickle. He openly belittled audience members for going to the concession stand, failing to eat clean, and utilizing plastic products. He really excelled at the “I’m better than you” aspect of his character’s new personality.
If you're a current or relatively new viewer of WWE and go back to watch some of these 2018 episodes, you may be surprised to see that one of the most popular faces today, Sami Zayn, was also an insufferable douchebag back then. For most of his WWE career Zayn has been a truly brilliant heel, playing up his role as a loudmouthed jackass whose cunning way of skirting the rules to win was nothing short of infuriating. He was truly hated by most of the fans for the better part of a decade. As of 2022 his storyline featured him running his mouth on the mic and online so much that he somehow ended up in a match with Johnny Knoxville (yes the guy from Jackass, no not a real wrestler) at Wrestlemania. Sami was so hated that it was much to the crowd's delight that he lost this insane match to a non-wrestler celebrity guest.
In a weird interlude after the Knoxville loss, Sami's storyline briefly pivoted to him literally running away from a fight with Drew McIntyre, one of the most dominant fighters on the roster. Sami's fear and cowardice eventually led him to the door of Roman Reigns and his Bloodline running-crew, seemingly looking for some sort of protection. Sami began a slow and persistent effort to prove to Reigns, Jimmy and Jey Uso (Reigns' real-life twin cousins and on-screen Bloodline faction mates), and their spokesman Paul Heyman that he could be useful to the group. Over the next few months, Sami would deploy his typically cunning tactics to help secure victories for the various members of the Bloodline.
Early on his actions were met with deep skepticism from the members of the Bloodline. They, and most fans, seemed to believe Sami was just doing this to get close to Roman Reigns so he could take down the "Tribal Chief" and end Roman's record-setting title reign. Honestly, this would have been pretty on-brand for him. But after steadily earning his way into their good graces one by one, betraying his own best friend Kevin Owens in the process to prove his loyalty to the Bloodline, his ability to break into one of the strongest and most tightly run factions of the day endeared him to fans around the world. He was, quite literally, the red-headed step-child of the Bloodline, tapping into that inner outcast and misfit in each of us that just longs to belong.
As he became more and more ingratiated to Roman Reigns and the Bloodline, his own popularity began to supersede that of the group's. When the group would emerge for their entrance or matches, deafening chants of "Sami, Sami, Sami," filled arenas around the globe. As his popularity began to surge, the jealousy of Roman Reigns began to grow. The threat to Roman’s power that Sami posed led to larger and larger loyalty tests from Reigns. And although Sami passed each test, the audience could begin to see him questioning whether he really wanted to be part of this family anymore. The love for Sami may have hit an all-time high when, after months of putting up with manipulation and emotional abuse from Roman Reigns in order to stay on his good side and in the Bloodline, he turned on Reigns by hitting him with a steel chair meant to be used on Kevin Owens. This turn led to the next installment of the storyline in which his new mission began: the mission to take down the Bloodline. (Note: This full and complicated Bloodline storyline is still unfolding as of this writing. If you're interested in seeing the entirety of the Bloodline storyline play out from the beginning you'll have to go all the way back to episodes of RAW and SmackDown from the fall of 2020 in order to fully catch up on all the intricacies and nuances of this particular tale. But this two hour compilation of Bloodline clips will give you most of the highlights up through this past spring, including most of Sami Zayn’s involvement.)
There are plenty of podcasts and interviews out there in the world to confirm that a little over a year ago it would have been unthinkable that Zayn would be one of the most beloved babyfaces in WWE. Getting there involved a lot of questionable tactics and manipulations of his own. He had to truly hit bottom as a heel, and the slow burn of redemption and empathy in the eyes of the fans may have had a more lasting impact than any single shocking moment could have. I believe it's because we understand the murky grey area where his journey to standing with (and then against) the Bloodline started. Many of us understand that "what the hell do I do now" feeling he seemed to have after losing to Knoxville, even if we thought at the time he deserved to feel that way. Seeing him put one foot in front of the other led us to respect him and relate to him in a way the braggadocios loudmouth we'd known up until then never permitted. We realized that perhaps he was more than what we'd allowed him to be in our eyes to that point.
These three performances and storylines are just tiny samples of the many conflicting messages and characters that populate the worlds of WWE and professional wrestling as a whole. In many ways the entire industry is designed as a metaphor for how we all wrestle with the best and worst parts of our own humanity every single day. We all have good intentions and we all have demons. Wrestling provides an outlet for us to explore and acknowledge the darker side of ourselves - like the side of us that maybe really would love just once to bitch-slap that overly privileged friend of ours who only ever talks about herself. It provides an opportunity for us to see hope amidst our struggles - like how maybe the friends we fear losing by standing up for what we think is right aren't friends we should be trying to keep in the first place. And it even provides us with a much needed reminder that goodness and jackassery can exist in the same person at the same time. After all, it wasn't the content of The New Daniel Bryan's message that rubbed people the wrong way, it was the delivery.
This idea that "good" and "bad" are more ambiguous than we would like is far from new or original. In fact, it's kind of a foundation for a lot of Lutheran theology. One of the main ideas behind Lutheran theology is that we are all simultaneously sinner and saint at all times. Perhaps this is why we sometimes boo the "good guy" and cheer the "bad guy." We know what it's like to feel a desire to do good while our hands do bad. We know what it's like to slowly soften our hard edge and rebuild relationships with those around us. We understand somewhere deep inside that our past and our mistakes are not the sum of who we are, and we hope that others will see that also. We all have wrestling matches going on inside of us. Perhaps the point isn't to cheer the good and boo the bad. Maybe the point is to learn to love the whole match, contradictions and all. And maybe doing that will let us enter a new level of compassion toward ourselves and our fellow walking, talking human wrestling rings.
Currently Sasha Banks performs under the ring name Mercedes Moné for New Japan Pro-Wrestling
Although not a perfect analogy, this is often considered something like the minor leagues of the industry
Not to be confused with the Four Horsewomen of MMA: Ronda Rousey, Marina Shafir, Shayna Baszler and Jessamyn Duke; and a rather intentional nod to the Four Horsemen of a generation or two prior - a faction with a revolving cast that always included Charlotte's father, Ric Flair.
Currently Daniel Bryan wrestles for All Elite Wrestling under the ring name Bryan Danielson