Whatever happened to heels and faces?

Last year, World Champion Edge opened the first post-draft RAW gloating that RAW was going to be without a Champion, now that WWE Champion Triple H had been drafted to Smackdown. Batista comes out and just destroys him out of revenge for something Edge did to him, I'm guessing he cheated in a title match the night before at the PPV. So, Edge is there in the ring, bloodied and beaten. Cue up Killswitch Engage and CM Punk comes waltzing out with a ref beside him and his Money in the Bank briefcase. He hits the Go To Sleep, pins Edge, wins the Championship, and the crowd pops for him.

Between that moment and the second after Jeff Hardy won the World Championship at Extreme Rules, nothing really changed for CM Punk. He was still getting cheers, he was the clear and obvious face in his feud against the now-future endeavored Umaga, I mean, there was no drastic change in character.

But Jeff Hardy won the World Championship at Extreme Rules. Punk cashed in his Money in the Bank on Hardy. Similar situation as last year. And what happens? Punk gets a tepid crowd reaction, mostly boos. The first Smackdown after Extreme Rules, Punk again gets a tepid reaction. Hardy confronts him with the strength of the crowd behind him.

It left me baffled. Are fans that programmed to be allegiant to their favorite wrestlers or hate their heels that actions no longer matter? I mean, there used to be a time that you could tell who the faces were and who the heels were by their actions. Sure, there were people who were unheelable. Guys like Hulk Hogan, Ricky Steamboat, Sting and Hacksaw Jim Duggan probably could have done unspeakable things and still gotten cheered. We'd never know the reactions though, since, at least before the dawn of the nWo (which was one of the watershed moments in wrestling history), they never had the chance to. They always did what was "right", unless they were pushed to the edge by heels, who always did what was "wrong", no exceptions.

People blame this on the Attitude era and Steve Austin changing the paradigms of what it meant to be a heel and what it meant to be a face. Even so, faces still had roles and heels still had roles. You could tell which one was which for the most part. The heels were all about authority, being "the Man", acting cowardly, etc. Faces marched to the beat of their own drummer. It was kinda like punk rock, if only slightly, I guess.

Right now though, there's so much fence-straddling. Take for example the build to WrestleMania, John Cena blackmailing Vickie Guerrero to get his title shot. In one breath, he preaches hustle, loyalty and respect, but in another, he's committing a crime to get what he wants. And it's not like he had a pressing personal issue with either Edge or Show at that point in time. What's the face behavior? The message is garbled. Then you have CM Punk doing the same thing to different people and getting crowd reactions.

I wonder what went so wrong. Are fans just so invested in cheering or hating on certain superstars that it doesn't matter the reaction? If they wanted to turn Jeff Hardy or John Cena heel, could they even do it? Do the fans need to be reprogrammed? Okay, that last question sounds like people are nothing but sheep, and that's not the case, at least individually. But in large groups, mob mentality takes over. I don't think that's disputable, no matter what the intelligence level of the singular individual is.

How would you go about reconditioning crowds though? They like whom they like. Simple as that. Honestly though, I'd start through a more foundational level, in the ring. If someone is going to be a face, then they wrestle like a face. They abide by the rules. They break when the ref tells them to break. They hold tag ropes. They double team in tag matches within the five seconds the ref gives them. They don't attack people before or after the match. The only way they would not do any of the preceeding is if they were pushed in a high-tension moment or in a high-stakes personal feud.

Heels would then wrestle like heels. They would take liberties, pull trunks, do all the things heels do. Then you let the out-of-ring characters develop from what happens in the ring. Would it be easy? Probably not, seeing as the chairshot and the sledgehammer are over as face tactics. It would take some intense implementation, but I think it could work.

Then maybe, the universe could go back to being in order.