Oct 20 2009
Who On Smackdown Should Turn Face?
I spoke about the ratio problem on Raw a few days ago, but Smackdown does have its own problem. The heels outnumber the faces. Maria and Mickie James are the faces. In terms of experience and wrestling credibility, you only have Mickie James. The heels are Michelle McCool, Beth Phoenix, Natalya, and Layla. If you turn just one of those heels, everything balances back out to what you had before the diva trade. But who should turn?
Layla? She has a vital role. She is a heel jobber. Because she is lacking much experience anyway, using her for this role is a great option. If she should turn face, who becomes the jobber? Natalya? Aside from the fact that serious wrestling fans will be crying about that, she seems busy with Hart Dynasty matters most of the time. And even if you should turn someone face out of this list, it should be a credible wrestler to give Mickie better support and take the spotlight when the time comes. That is not Layla. Leave her where she is.
Natalya? She is a member of a heel stable. Maybe if the whole group turned face, it may work. But have her turn alone? Why? An angle that puts a lot of attention on Natalya would have to be done to have her break away from her two guys and turn face, and that may help her get more widely over, but I doubt that would happen. The WWE may feel that the two men need a valet. And they may not be too willing to push Natalya too much anyway. If you have not noticed, she does not have the typical diva look either.
Beth Phoenix? If they are already teasing tension between McCool and Beth, something may give right there. Then again, McCool had tension with basically every heel diva when she turned last year. They were trying to set her up as a huge, independent heel. They definitely were not thinking about killing her face character, which was not that popular anyway, but wanted her over as a heel badly. Back to Beth, will this be a repeat of Maryse/McCool? These two heels, once McCool fully turned heel, had tension. No one turned face out of it. For Beth to turn face, the fans would have to actually rally behind her against McCool. I doubt the fans will care enough. McCool will have to bring her heel character at its best, not playing a coward to Beth’s size. Beth will have to show a bit of weakness, either in the ring or in terms of behavior, to give McCool that edge. Although Beth has finally been showing more emotion as of late, I doubt she can pull this off. I doubt the WWE would want to ruin her character like that. How else could she viably turn face? There were rumors that she was supposed to turn face out of her angle with Santino (in drag). I shot those rumors down, and nothing came out of that for her anyway. It was too obvious that Santino would be the one turning. If the WWE honestly thought otherwise, which I doubt, they are more idiotic than I usually think of them. But this is not about Beth’s past failed rumored and actual attempted face turns, this is about the current. And I still think it would not work. Then again, does it really need to?
That leaves the Women’s Champion, Michelle McCool. She was not over enough as a face for the WWE last year. As a heel, Vickie Guerrero can get more heat than her just by walking to the ring. Would it even matter if they turned her face again? Because of the dominant character the WWE has created for Beth, it may be easier for them to create a scenario for the fans to try to rally behind McCool against Beth. However, I doubt that is where they are going. Too many segments are still treating McCool as a true heel. If she did turn, that would leave Beth as top heel. That does not seem like something the WWE may be against doing. That would also leave McCool as top face. She does not have the years in the business or titles Mickie James has, but I strongly believe that the WWE will not have McCool just play a sidekick’s role for long. In the end, I do not see McCool turning just yet either.
After running through all the possibilities, I pretty much came up with no answer. Layla is needed as a jobber. Natalya is involved in a stable that requires her to be heel. Beth may not make a great face. McCool will not be outshined. Nevertheless, McCool or Beth seem like the best choices. The tension is already there. All I know is, someone seriously needs to turn. If not that, debut some face divas, who can wrestle, on Smackdown soon.
Mickie James cannot go on like this for long. She will have to carry the most of the work with only Maria alongside her. She has been overworked since her title push on Raw. Her job was to make the new divas look good and bring some credibility to the butterfly title. You can see yourself how stressful it can be to work with Rosa in the ring. But she did keep it together for as long as she could. She got no good angles to help her work a bit more outside the ring. And with no credible option to take her place so she can get non-title angles now, the stress will only get worse. There is no Gail Kim to provide credible back up. People will complain even more of always seeing Mickie James getting used on Smackdown. Does the WWE realize this? Is that why they created this situation? And what happens should she get injured seriously? Maria becomes top face? They do a rushed job to turn Beth or McCool face? They send Gail over to Smackdown? After the draft last year, Mickie was left as as sole face on Raw for a while. There were rumors of her getting injured during this time, but she worked through it, if the report was true. Kelly Kelly was moved to Raw to add a new face there. You can still see the problem. Mickie James has proven that she is a worker and has a body to take bumps, but the WWE cannot continuously take advantage of that with proper reward. No, giving her a title and expecting her to do magic with less-experienced divas is not a proper reward. She needs interesting angles to keep her character fresh and ease her a bit from working in the ring. She needs to be moved up the card. She does not need to win every match, I will never say that. Mickie knows this as well. And I can see what may happen should Mickie get seriously injured in the present state of Smackdown. The majority of the fans may blame her for causing trouble for the WWE. They may say it is her own fault for being sloppy, and the rest of the same old record they have been playing. She will get even more needless heat. And things will not be better if McCool turns face. Mickie may never get out from her shadow. She still may end up as a sidekick without angles. Mickie James needs to get out of this cycle of title pushes and nothing good at all. But with no other options for credible face divas, the job gets harder.
