AEW Star Argues Heels Need To Be Okay With Being Genuinely Hated

AEW

AEW star Christian Cage has shared his take on what it takes to be an effective heel in pro-wrestling.

During his appearance on the Swerve City podcast, Cage argued that wrestlers have to be okay with being genuinely hated to make heel characters work.

Explaining how he fuels heat, Cage said:

“I think, as a heel, when you’re delivering your message, you have to have a nugget of truth, and you embellish it, and you believe what you’re saying, and you believe it with every ounce of your being, for you, that’s true, and you’re right, and you’re justified, even though it’s probably wrong.

“That’s how I look at it. When it comes to my character, especially these days, the turtleneck guy, zero redeemable qualities, but he can go out and say and do things that Jay Reso would never go say and do.

“In that respect, you have to have full commitment to it for it to really work. You have to be okay with being hated for it to really work.

“You can’t be on the fence like, ‘Ah, these few people are booing me and it kind of bothered me.’ No, you have to be all in. You have to make sure everybody hates you.

“I go out there to get heat. That’s my job, to go out there and to get heat. But I think also, you can get that kind of heat, even with just your mannerisms, pauses, and timing, the way you stop.

“If you just even give a glance to the audience in a certain way, or if they’re trying to get under your skin, where they’re reacting, and you just keep talking through their noise.

“A lot of times, that elevates the heat, if you just keep talking. You’re not even acknowledging the fact that they’re booing you this loud.

“Now they will even try to get louder and louder to try to drown you out. It just happened recently happened in Detroit a few weeks ago, it was very much that way.

“But that’s how I approach being a heel. Zero redeeming qualities. Just kinda go out there and understand that you gotta be okay with being hated.”

In a recent WWE interview, Edge gave a hilarious one-word description of Christian, which you can read more about right here.

Transcription via WrestleZone.

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• Heel
• Christian Cage
• Heat
• AEW

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