{"id":11276,"date":"2019-02-16T07:00:20","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T12:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/?p=11276"},"modified":"2019-02-16T07:06:07","modified_gmt":"2019-02-16T12:06:07","slug":"boo-heels-cheer-faces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/16\/boo-heels-cheer-faces\/","title":{"rendered":"Boo Heels, Cheer Faces"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Friday night (15<sup>th<\/sup> February), Riptide\nWrestling served up a belated Valentine\u2019s Day gift to the south coast wrestling\nfans in the form of Deep Six. Though the show delivered in the end in terms of\naction, it was the behaviour of some fans in attendance that had more than a\nfew in the crowd shaking their heads in disbelief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Having rode the storm of a difficult 2018 that saw the\nknock-on effect of some shows being cancelled towards the tail end of the year,\nit was great to see Riptide make its way into 2019. A sold out crowd spoke\nvolumes about the interest in having a wrestling product in Brighton, but the\natmosphere on the night took a while to get going. This can be attributed to a\nmixture of things: competition (Rev Pro ran York Hall the same night) and\ncontracts perhaps meaning Riptide regulars weren\u2019t available; the introduction\nof several newer wrestlers because of this; the more casual nature of the\naudience when compared to companies like PROGRESS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Whilst this meant an occasionally muted atmosphere to begin\nwith, matches like TK Cooper versus Candy Floss and Cara Noir against Ashmore\ndefinitely got the crowd going in places, and you had what felt like three\nguaranteed wrestlers to get a reaction: Jack Sexsmith, Spike Trivet, and Chuck\nMambo. For what they represent, or how they carry themselves, you don\u2019t really\nneed to have a deep affinity for wrestling to either love or hate them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Chuck Mambo naturally had the crowd behind him in a\nsuccessful defense of the Brighton Championship against Mark Haskins. The Sexsmith\/Damon\nMoser match was hurt by what I feel is confusion about Sexsmith\u2019s seeming heel\nturn on social media, yet the expectation that he is the good guy (as he should\nbe) in Riptide. Fans wanted to cheer him, but didn\u2019t really know if they\nshould.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In between these two contests was Spike Trivet going up\nagainst Wild Boar Mike Hitchman. At a time when the show had lacked genuine\nheat towards a wrestler due to the aforementioned, Trivet was exactly what was\nneeded. At a base level, he represents an ideology at odds with most of the\npeople that are likely to be at a wrestling show in Brighton. Also, he holds\nhimself like a cocky twat. Perfect heel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the two men began to tussle in the ring, attention was\nsomewhat diverted by a group of five or six fans cheering on Trivet. At one point,\nHitchman drew attention to it with something of a point and a shoulder shrug;\nTrivet effectively told them to stop doing it halfway through the contest. I\u2019m\nrarely a man who believes that you should or shouldn\u2019t chant something and don\u2019t\noften draw myself into those type of debates. However, I still am somewhat of\nthe belief that you should cheer faces, boo heels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, if the booking of the wrestler means their disposition is\nwrong, I can get why you might want to boo a face or cheer a heel \u2013 look at\nBecky Lynch and WWE\u2019s initial attempts to have her as the heel in her conflict\nwith Charlotte Flair. However, Trivet is very much presented as a repugnant guy\nwho wouldn\u2019t piss on you if you were on fire. He doesn\u2019t warrant cheers, and\nmore importantly, I\u2019ll assume that the guy who plays the gimmick of Spike\nTrivet also doesn\u2019t want cheers. He is a bad guy; his job is to make us hate\nhim, and it is a job he does well. It harkens back to Jimmy Havoc\u2019s mega heel\nrun in PROGRESS \u2013 he got legitimately pissed off if even one fan showed him\nsigns of support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I get that it can be difficult because Spike does his job so\nwell that he becomes likeable to watch be the arrogant dick that he portrays. I\u2019ve\nspoken before about how he is legitimately funny in his put downs, generating\nlaughs even from the multitudes who boo everything else he does. He is a great\nheel to watch and to help knit together the overarching storylines that play\nout in Riptide. To show my appreciation, I bought a t-shirt, but I still boo\nthe fuck out of him every time he walks out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The biggest problem with supporting Trivet in that contest\nwas that it threatened to suck the atmosphere out of the room at a time when it\nfelt like it should have been reaching its zenith. It all came across as too\nknowing, whilst showing little awareness to the detrimental effect it\nthreatened to have on the match itself. The focus became those fans rather than\nthe action inside the ring all too often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You pay your money, you have a right to get involved.\nHowever, I think people need to take a step back and consider whether what they\nare doing is actually supports the wrestler they like and the promotion they\nwant to support. If that\u2019s what you are looking to do, the only real option is\nto boo Spike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Friday night (15th February), Riptide Wrestling served up a belated Valentine\u2019s Day gift to the south coast wrestling fans in the form of Deep Six. Though the show delivered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":11281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[28,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-editorials","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-2VS","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/RIPTIDE-Deep-Six-2019-696x392.jpg?fit=696%2C392&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11276"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11279,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11276\/revisions\/11279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}