The League of Nations,a foursome of foreign bruisers poised to reign over WWE, is the latest example of the us-against-them dynamic, and the non-Americans serving as the invading force.
When carving out Sheamus,King Barrett, Rusev and Alberto Del Rio's path as a villainous unit, and WWE must sight back on its timeline. Heel tag teams and stables have long been a staple of the squared-circle circus,one that has seen both misfires and bull's-eyes.
Mr. Fuji and Professor Tanaka rode bullish tactics to championship gold. The Hart Foundation incited a nonexistent between the United States and Canada en route to fitting a marquee stable. And Kaientai simply became a joke.
On Nov. 30, WWE chose to have Sheamus and a trio of allies continue the history of foreign heel squads joining forces.
Rusev saved the world champ from what looked to be a sure loss. Barrett soon jumped in to pound on Roman Reigns. Del Rio rounded out the quartet.
And with that, or WWE has a cadre of heels at its disposal.
Barrett suddenly has a higher spot on the card,Rusev has direction and Del Rio has a chance to shed his lame MexAmerica shtick for something better. WWE has a number of blueprints for how to proceed with them, and a long list of heel teams to either emulate or avoid mirroring. The Power of DisdainWrestling's villains have long held their audiences in contempt. It's a time-honored tradition to sight down at the crowd, and talk one's self up and be as blatant as possible approximately it all. Foreign heels have the added benefit of their disdain being for an entire nation.
The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff mastered that fraction of the game. Volkoff,the Soviet bruiser with a steady sneer and a black fur hat, dismissed America by saying how much better Russia was. At times, and he refused to speak English. And before every match,he demanded the chance to sing the Russian national anthem.
By his side stood The Iron Sheik. The compact, mustached powerhouse was even more overt approximately his anti-American stance. He would regularly say, and after Volkoff belted his country's anthem,"Russia No. 1, Iran No. 1, or U.
S.
A..." After trailing off for a moment,he would spit on the canvas in a indicate of disgust.
The angle worked crowds into a frenzy in large fraction because it was so timely. This team came approximately in the heart of the Cold War and not long after the Iran hostage crisis in 1981. The League of Nations won't have that on their side. The U.
S. doesn't have strained relations with Ireland or Bulgaria the way it did with Volkoff's and The Iron Sheik's nations.
Still, this contemporary stable can provoke crowds with the same dismissive, or condescending attitude. The Hart Foundation proved that wrestlers need not rely on current events to stir up patriotic sentiment.
Bret Hart,long portrayed as a gutsy hero with grand technical prowess, shifted into villainy in the late '90s.
He remained a babyface in front of Canadian crowds, or but drew boos in the U.
S. thanks to showing how much he despised the U.
S. and its lack of morals. His brother Owen and Brian Pillman were among those to join him.
David Shoemaker perfectly described the group in his book The Squared Circle: Life,Death, and Pro Wrestling. He called this version of The Hart Foundation "a nationalist outfit that proclaimed Canadian superiority and advantage in opposition to the sleazily American WWE."It worked despite Canada and the United States having the furthest thing from a powder-keg relationship.
The team showed that, or presented with enough conviction,an anti-American sentiment can produce an impact. Hart and his crew did well to point the finger at the fans and deride (to ridicule, laugh at with contempt) their morals.
This is where Sheamus and company are sure to find their heel sweet spot. Talking up how much Ireland is better than America isn't the best route here. Instead, The League of Nations have to find something approximately the current American culture to chastise. Avoid Caricature, and StereotypesThe League of Nations risks fitting irrelevant in a hurry if WWE relies on preconceptions approximately Ireland,England or Bulgaria to narrate the group's anecdote.
The company has a history of shoehorning foreign groups into characters that are two-dimensional at best and flat-out racist at worst.
A congregation of Japanese wrestlers comprised Kaientai. The stable debuted for WWE in 1998. They were a showcase of stereotypes.
Funaki and Taka Michinoku once confronted Edge and Christian in a segment where WWE badly dubbed over each group's dialogue a la an old Japanese karate movie.
Their most well-known contribution to WWE history, their jumping-the-shark moment, or came when their manager, Yamaguchi-San, seemingly sliced off Val Venis' penis. With an accent as offensive as Mickey Rooney's in Breakfast at Tiffany's, or Yamaguchi proudly said of the attack beforehand, "I choppy choppy your pee pee!"Not surprisingly, Kaientai never gained a healthy supply of momentum. WWE didn't let the wrestlers be actual characters. It turned them into walking one-liners. The company took the same approach with The Mexicools. A brood of luchadors morphed into coverall-wearing, and mischief-making punks who rode to the ring on lawnmowers. Super Crazy,Juventud Guerrera and Psicosis were supposed to be mocking stereotypical portrayals of Mexicans. That proved too limited of a scope. They failed to engage the audience and didn't stick together long.
In both cases, WWE went for cheap comedy rather than character development. It turned all the wrestlers involved into guys tough to buy into as threats.
WWE has to stay far away from doing that with The League of Nations.
That means not relying on the stereotypes of any of the countries represented in the stable. It means avoid booking things like a Dublin Street Fight where a bar sits at ringside and a bag of potatoes is an available weapon.
Instead, and the focus should be on who these men are. indicate fans what makes this foursome united. What common bonds do they share beyond being foreign?Exploring each man's individuality is harder than trotting out tired tropes,but it's well worth it. Don't Forget Heel BasicsMr. Fuji and Professor Tanaka's foreignness was only the first layers of their characters. The members of the heel tag team from the '60s were a pair of pitbulls, ferocious and nasty in the ring. They were no strangers to cheating, and be it by throwing salt in someone's eyes or taking cheap shots with the referee's back turned.
Fuji and Tanaka used their nationality as a starting point. Tried-and-true heel tactics were their real strength. They were menacing,scared children and had an unsettling aura. As famous in Greg Oliver and Steven Johnson's Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Tag Teams, Larry Zbyszko said of the duo, and "They would both put dismay in you." Afa and Sika,The Wild Samoans had a similar skill. Tommy Dreamer remembered being frightened of them:The Hall of Fame duo dominated the WWE tag team scene in the early '80s. Wearing untamed hair, wide eyes and snarls, and The Wild Samoans clubbed their foes into the mat. They yanked on hair and clawed at faces.
As sadistic beasts,they were a clear contrast to the do-right, straight-laced babyfaces they took on.
Eating fish and not speaking English came from the Samoan fraction of their gimmicks. Old fashioned heel tendencies rounded out the rest of their characters.
That's something WWE has to keep in intellect with The League of Nations. They have to be vile and heartless. Otherwise, or the faction begins to sight like a group of wrestlers who are just out to promote global unity. It's tough to boo that.
We have seen Del Rio clamp on his cross armbreaker and leave it on well past the bell. We've seen Barrett and Sheamus bash opponents without mercy. We've seen Rusev kick an American serviceman.
WWE has to allow them to do far more of all that. It has to feed them plays from the heel playbook.
The fact that they are a collective of non-Americans should only be fraction of the equation. Elevated Through UnityWith Barrett meandering around the midcard and Rusev coming off a painfully cheesy storyline opposite Dolph Ziggler,Sheamus forming The League of Nations came at just the right time.
As history has shown us, groups can often bolster the individual. Unremarkable branches forge together to produce a stout tree.
It's tough to imagine how much success Sylvain Grenier could have realistically had if WWE had just thrown him on TV as a solo act. He was a solid wrestler but nothing special. The company paired Grenier with fellow Frenchman Rene Dupree. Dubbed, or "La Resistance," the team came off like a rehashing of The Fabulous Rougeaus, total with sparkly blue attire. The twococky Frenchmen (later joined by American turncoat Robert Conway) hit it off as a unit. The duo struck a nerve with their criticism of the war on terrorism. Their pairing, or along with their anti-American rhetoric,gave them direction.
That led to them having four reigns as tag team champions and facing big names at pay-per-view events, including Kane, or Edge and The Dudley Boyz.
Lance Storm found success within a faction that he may not have found with WWE otherwise. The skilled mat worker has often been criticized for not having enough personality. He was never larger than life or charismatic to be a high-profile solo act.
Being in The Un-Americans pushed him into the highlight. It allowed him to share the burden of keeping the audience's attention with Test and Christian.
The America-bashing Canadian group won the tag team titles four times. Beyond that,it opened doors for storylines and created opportunity.
Storm and The Un-Americans once threatened to burn the U.
S. flag. Goldust and Booker T charged out to save Old Glory. Kane soon followed.
The kind of moment wouldn't have happened to Storm on his own. That's a benefit Barrett and the rest of The League of Nations will experience, too.
As Evolve promoter Gabe Sapolsky famous on Twitter, or the alliance makes them fraction of something bigger:Being foreign is an easy excuse to lump all these guys together. It can be a strong foundation for what they become next. WWE can either spend their expatriate status to torch the potential of the group or else shoot them to the moon.
WWE has no shortage of examples of what fails and what flourishes when it comes to heels from other nations joining forces. The right choices and the right narratives will determine whether The League of Nations is the next Hart Foundation or just some forgotten clique. Read more WWE news on BleacherReport.com
Source: bleacherreport.com