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Guest Columns | Matt Talbot |
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THE OUTSIDER'S EDGE The Theory of Heat Relativity I have been getting some good feedback about my last column "Wrestling Elitists", but I don't really like the column. So, I am writing this one just one week afterwards although I usually wait two weeks to write a new column. Also, since I am going down with the band to the UCLA game this weekend (Yeah Mr. Hegarty I am in the band), this will save me from having to pack in too much work. The Theory of Heat Relativity. This theory was originally created by ancient Greeks who noticed that a bucket full of room temperature water would feel hot to a man who had just had his hand in cold water and cold to a man who just had his hand in hot water. They reasoned that heat is not an objective property and depends on the perception of the person involved. This relates to pro wrestling also. Sometimes certain people will be heels when compared to another wrestler, but they will be faces when compared to other wrestlers. Now, is this good or bad? It is hard to tell. You have to look at the pros and the cons of the theory before making a definite statement. I think that in certain places the theory can be used to further the characters of the wrestlers, but sometimes they can just create heat paradoxes. It is hard to explain in a general sense, let's look at some examples. During the springtime in WCW, there were few stables. That was the time when they had a lot of three way and four way main events consisting of DDP, Ric Flair, Goldberg, Kevin Nash/Hulk Hogan, Sting, and Randy Savage. You can see there that they have seven guys and only two are in any type of group. So, they had degrees of heat. I think that it went (from megaface to megaheel): Goldberg; Sting; Kevin Nash/Hulk Hogan; DDP; Randy Savage; Ric Flair. This was after the Uncensored cage match where they did the double switch, so Hogan was a face and Flair was a heel. I might have my time frame wrong, but I think that that is right. It helped the characters in that they had to have different relationships with five or six other people. It wasn't like they had a carbon copy reaction to every nWo member. In some cases certain people would be faces or heels. If Ric Flair were to mention Hogan's name, the people would chant Hogan, Hogan, but if Sting were to mention his name, they would chant Hogan Sucks, Hogan Sucks. While this did create small heat paradoxes, I don't think that it hurt any of the middle guys like Nash or DDP at all, because they were MEs anyway and more prone to getting a certain type of heat. In other words, they could make up for lost heat with a good heel/face interview depending on who it was. So, while the downsides were small in this situation, the upsides were great. I have never seen better character development in WCW (at least up to this Revolution angle). Sting would be trusting in Goldberg, the higher face, but slightly hesitant in Nash, the lesser face. Goldberg would be staunchly against the megaheel Flair, but against DDP merely on principle. It wasn't a black and white "You are heel, I am face I hate you totally", but a multicolored picture of heeldom and facedom. The same thing kind of happened with the SixPack match at Unforgiven, but it wasn't done as well. People would just scatter when the face Kane came down the ramp, even if they were higher faces or barely heels, like British Bulldogg. I think that the heat relativity was done well in the SixPack, just not as well as in the springtime months for WCW. They also just threw them back into old alliances afterwards (i.e. Kane and XPac), but that is a different topic. There are times when heat relativity can be a bad thing. The biggest paradox that I have found is Chyna these past couple of months. The WWF has done a great job of getting her over as both a heel and face, but that is not a good thing. When she is around HHH, she is a heel. When she is around JJ, she is a face. It's like two characters=face and three characters=heel. So, what happens in a situation like on Maunday, where she was in the tag match with HHH=heel and JJ=face runs down to beat her with a toaster and drag her away. She surely is not a tweener in the Diesel sense. I think that this will just ruin her credibility with new fans. They will be like, "Why do we cheer her sometime and boo her other times." As the woman trying to break into a man's world, she is the natural face, so get her away from HHH (or turn HHH and Austin all around). The WWF still tries to continue to keep her with HHH, so she is stuck in a heat paradox, a heat black hole, if you will. This physically disgust me on many levels. OK, no it doesn't, but it might. Another smaller heat paradox took place on Nitro on the eleventh. By looking at the flow chart we can figure out the situation. Kidman= face and Kidman takes Torrie away from David Flair. David Flair is petulant, so DFlair=heel. DFlair comes out to help his dad against CHennig=heel, which would make DFlair face by opposition to CHennig and association with RFlair, but he is also heel by opposition to Kidman. That is a smaller, more complicated heat paradox, but showcases the continuity problems with pro wrestling. This one could have promise, though, because it is new. If they let the people develop and we see DFlair as both the loving son, but also a jealous dude, then it will turn out better. Right now, it looks bleak, but Russo and Ferrara could help it. So, you can see that in some cases heat paradoxes can help the characters develop better thoughts and feelings instead of just being stock heels or faces. Although in Chyna's case she has become a walking complication, when done right, the Theory of Heat Relativity can help a story line. Anyway, if you have any comments, concerns, compliments, or questions, or just wanna chat about how powerful the most powerful man in all of Unit Four really is, then please email me at talboito@uclink4.berkeley.edu. Matt Talbot freelance Mail the Author |
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