Is Heels Based On A True Story? Or Is It All Fiction?

If you’re into sports and particularly wrestling and follow a lot of WWE, I guess you’re at the right place.

Heels is a sports drama written by Michael Wandron and Mike O’Malley serving as a showrunner, based on wrestling and the politics around the sport.

I have been wondering whether the show has some elements inspired from real life. In shows like Foxcatcher, real life wrestling events has been depicted before.

So is Heels also inspired by a true story or incident? Turns out its all fictional after all.

Heels is not based on a true story. But it does portray real life struggles within the wrestling business. It is a slow burn series which centres around the story of two brothers, who’re also rivals in a tiff over their late father’s wrestling business.

What Is Heels Based On?

Heels is a Starz original sports drama which revolves around two brothers turned rivals who’re groping over their father’s wrestling business after his death.

It is set in a close knit group based in the small town of Georgia and talks about a community of ambitious people who wants to make it big in the world of wrestling.

Heels talks about brothers Jack Spade and Ace Spade. While Jack plays the role of “heel” (the villain in the wrestling industry), his younger brother Ace is the “face” or the good one of their firm, which is called Duffy Wrestling League.

In the season premiere titled “Kayfabe”, Jack tells his brother Ace that audiences come to see wrestling because they “trust me to tell them a better story than they have to live with every day.”

This is important because it establishes that the sport is completely scripted. Jack’s words gives us a good take on why we enjoy this sort of a scripted entertainment. That’s when I began wondering whether all of this is real.

Then we come to the brilliantly written climax. Throughout the episode, the brother-brother rivalry is built upon, and we understand the dynamics between the two. This build up contributes to making the climax of the premiere as cool as it was.

Jack comes up with a totally unexpected ending to the Sunday night face-off between Ace and him. He basically predicted the events of the night pretty well and managed to write Ace into a DWL corner.

So the cliff-hanger is if Ace is finally going to stand up and be the partner his brother and his business needs. With all of the tension and excitement, I guess we all wanted to know if this stuff is real or not.

Well, the stuff isn’t real it seems. Hard to believe? IKR!

The drama is completely fictional, but it also portrays the struggles that these growing sports stars face while trying to make it big in a world of politics and privilege. So like any other movie or show, it is of course a depiction of real life struggles and events.

For instance, in the show we see Jack trying to balance his time as a lawnmower salesman and the main writer of his league’s matches just to keep his father’s dream alive, which is a very sensitive portrayal of the struggles of such people.

A veteran is seen exposing the realities of prejudice in the sports world as well. The show, though fictional depicts the politics of the athletic world quite well.

The show also gives a picture of what can be the consequence when one cannot separate the fictional world inside the ring with the reality outside, which tells us a lot about work-life balance and the importance of it.

So all in all, the sports drama is fictional in nature, but very realistic in approach IMO.

Will There Be A Heels Season 2?

As of writing this article, Heels has not yet been renewed for a season 2. The season 1 ratings are an average of 0.02 rating in the 18-49 demographic, which could definitely do better.

But again, there are other factors involved behind the decision of renewal or cancellation of a show, so I guess we should wait to find out if we’ll be getting another season of Heels or not.

About Heels

Heels is an American drama television series created by Michael Waldron that premiered on August 15, 2021, on Starz.

Two brothers and rivals, one a villain, or “heel” in professional wrestling, the other a hero, or “face” play out scripted matches as they war over their late father’s wrestling promotion and vie for national attention in small town Georgia.