We’ve all had personal villains in our lives. The people that have made our skin crawl, our blood boil, our faces flushed. Sometimes it can cloud our judgment, or give us a clearer window into these villains than others may see. But at the end of the day, there’s a side to them that hold something a little deeper beyond evil.
In wrestling, that is a recurring theme. It’s a role for a lot of heels as they exist around those baddies who are just plain rotten through and through. Unlike those constant demons, however, are wrestlers who are battling their own. It is not owed to us an explanation, but once that veil is opened, just a bit, so much understanding takes place.
In recent wrestling, you may have seen these: the Bloodline featured Roman Reigns accepting the fact he had to break his family, the Usos coming to grips that they existed under a tyrannical, abusive, manipulative narcissist of a cousin – and the version of Sami Zayn who needed an awakening instead of validation.
AEW presents this as well, exquisitely well, with the likes of MJF harkening back to his days as a lost youth who was haunted by antisemitism and bullying. ADD and his heroes giving up and the lives of people intertwined with his life touched his soul with poisonous purple that brought him straight to hell as a devil.
Once upon a time, Eddie Kingston was one of these bad guys. He was betrayed by those closest to him, and he betrayed himself. People would leave him but violence never left, so much so that he thought he’d never be saved.
Yet, deep beneath his gruff exterior and furious anger belied the heart of kindness and love in a man so hurt. A man from Yonkers had a world inside him from a world that tried to unmake him. In seeing in himself the goodness he needed, he overcame and became an affront to what he fought and what gives him bread, a capitalistic system meant to hold him down. Kingston has layers upon layers to himself, from this to the self-hatred born of body image, past failings and Catholicism. And when you hurt so much, sometimes you have the coldest or most beautiful things to say.
This isn’t solely through the West though, as NJPW could show you. Current AEW star Jay White famously gave a post-Wrestle Kingdom promo where he blurred Jay White the wrestler and Jamie White the human, wondering if it was all worth it in a rare act of self-blame when other times it was seemingly everyone else’s fault. In this, there was a frail man in the chiselled exterior of a warrior. And yet, our hearts bled for the man.
He had a lot of inspiration to draw from, names like Raven and Mick Foley. Both of these men of the 90s would reach into your soul and rip it out with the pain and anguish they felt as they live the lives of wrestlers. Foley could draw that turmoil in promos whether it involved the Cactus Jack persona as he detailed the threats of ECW fans to his child Dewey, or Mankind’s regaling of flying home from Japan while his flesh was still burning from an explosive match that “disfigured” him.
In these performances, these characters feel like something more. They’re carrying scars, scars that we cannot see, but we can feel in every raw breath. Cautionary tales or pleas for help, the wounds that won’t seem to heal. With every affliction, how it is treated is paramount to recovery; heels such as these either refused or were not given the opportunity to fix what was broken inside them.
Our world is a gutting place. Evil is around so many corners, it taints and pollutes and we see good turned bad with abandon. These were good men turned hollow.
Redemption stories are important for this very reason. It reminds us that even if we are sinking, there is a way out to repair ourselves before we lose ourselves completely in the ignoble shadow of our psyche. We don’t have to be these things, and we don’t have to let these feelings and pitfalls trap us. If we can climb and clutch our way out of a hole, we are that which reminds the world that good still exists inside of it.
Wrestling heels are compelling in this nature as they go through this transformation week by week alongside us. Not in a book, not in pre-recorded television shows and film, but in theater masquerading as sport. It is a unique form of art, professional wrestling.
When you watch these stories play out over time, you will find that not all championships are tangible; sometimes the greatest title we can wear is being stronger than ourselves and finding the light. To become better than you were the day before.
Not every day can be easy, all it takes is a bad day. You don’t have to let it be that, so long as you are not too far gone.
All you need is that babyface turn.
Wrestle Inn 