Sting "turned" heel three times in his career. One was near the end of WCW, when he turned his back on Hulk Hogan, but absolutely nobody bought it. Hogan was trying to do his Hulkamania schtick, but the fans loved Stinger way too much. Two months later and this was dropped, rightfully so. In TNA, he lead the Main Event Mafia, where he was a misunderstood babyface, and then in 2010, he was a babyface disguised as a heel going against Hogan (a pattern?) and his cronies. Yet again, the fans cheered for Sting, even when he was beating up the homegrown guys and RVD.
I always found Edge to be a terrible babyface. When he was on his own on SmackDown in the early 2000's, he was alright, but unspectacular and bland character-wise. After his 2010 face turn, there was a reason he went back to heel within three months - he just couldn't play a convincing good guy. When WWE turned him again later that year, he was outright a terrible human being, trying to kill Paul Bearer and torturing Kane. Nowadays, he's doing the classic "old man who can still go" gimmick, and he's fine, but the Rated R coolness is long gone.
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someone said dolph ziggler has perfect heel personality but moveset like a babyface and I couldn't agree more.
Sammy Guevara's problem. He's so easily hateable but his moveset is pure face.
Same with Justin Gabriel in the Nexus. It was always weird that they'd have these big beat downs that end with a 450 splash
Absolute strong disagree, Gabriel stood on the top rope menacingly before hitting the 450, which was being sold as one of the most devastating moves in the business, was fucking sick. Gabriel could’ve been a top heel at least for a bit if he’d managed to adapt/been booked strongly like Rollins was coming out of the Shield who everyone also thought screamed babyface at the time.
Let’s not get carried away…..TOP HEEL?
IC title level heel ok maybe.
Seth Rollins used to have that issue 'til we all just collectively decided "Fuck it, we're cheering you all the time."
2015 Rollins was something else. I feel like his character worked because we looked at him like “you’re more than good enough not to cheat but you’re just too much of a shithead to realize it”
And he had one of the best booked heel turns in recent memory, really sold him as a heel for me until the Reigns mega push
One of my favorite heel runs, I mean he fucking wrestled STING and held both titles at one time.
It's why I think he wasn't ever going to be a consistent main eventer. He wasn't vicious/crafty enough as a heel but lacked the personality of a face. The guys that could flip seemlessly between the two deserve a lot of credit.
Because he's so vibrant and loud, man acts as if he snorts coke 3 times a day.
We call that combination a Shane Douglas.
Sammy Guevara is literally incapable of being a babyface
I like Sammy, but you stick your tongue out the way he does as a Face it does not work! It makes you want to boo him lol
Babyface fuckboi is a character
I think his vlog squad stuff kinda shows how he works a Babyface. Like, even there he comes off annoying, but with his friends being all underneath guys, you feel that there's a nice dude over the shallowness
Put another way, Sammy is a himbo that loves wrestling and means well. Issue is that they try to portray him as a true Babyface that the crowd will love through think and thin and that will never be him
I've described him as wrestling's Justin Bieber. I'm sure there's people who love that guy but there's far more that hate him. Some without having ever heard his music. That to me describes Guevara to a tee
Conversely, Dalton Castle is literally incapable of being a heel
Well naturally, you silly little goose
Yes he does have one of those faces you’ll never tire of seeing be punched endlessly
The only person I'd allow for a 100-punches in the corner.
I agree, but I think it can still work.
Austin Theory has kind of a punchable face too, but when he was in The Way in NXT, it worked. I don't know if they were truly "faces", but they were getting cheered.
The Way turned face after Indi married Dexter, but Theory got called up pretty much immediately after that so he wasn't really a face for very long
He was very over as a face when he first won the TNT Title but it fizzled out quick. I think in the right circumstances he could do it again, but he's definitely a much more natural heel than a face.
His babyface run died the moment he said he jizzed on the title.
Does this mean Xavier Rhodes is heel?
When did Xavier Woods marry Cody tf
Xavier Rhodes is the most heel-y heel that there ever was, as opposed to the true paragon of virtue Cody Woods.
It's one of those where we assume most wrestlers for some reason do that, just don't actually tell us you have.
I'd say he has the potential to be a great face, and have loved when he has been. The issues are his feuds when face are really lame like ATT, or he just goes right back to being Jericho's sidekick. There's no consistency with his character.
Does he even have a character? His only defining trait is arrogance, and that's not a whole-ass gimmick
He's got the moveset of a babyface and the everything else of a heel.
I think he could pull it off if the circumstances were right though.
Seth overcame this problem if Sammy could get an interesting character that doesn’t involve Jericho people would like him he’s great in the ring
He is a natural heel but, also, he has the same problem a lot of wrestlers have when they try and turn face which is that the things he thinks are cool (leather vests; being over the top horny for his wife; Chris Jericho) are incredibly not cool
I think most of MJF aura went to toilet when he turned face
I enjoyed it but now that it's over, I never want to see it again. Hopefully the lesson he learned from the Devil situation was "don't trust anyone" and he becomes even more dickish in his persona and transactional in his relationships.
I'm conflicted about that run. I still liked his character work, but I fucking hated that he eventually went Super Cena in his in-ring work when he could've leaned on being "everyone's scumbag" during matches and continuing to take shortcuts, but on heels.
Goldberg as a heel failed miserably.
His illegitimate son Ryan Reeves was a great heel though.
“Goldberg… failed miserably.” - Brett Hart, probably.
*Bill Goldberg
Two of the four horsewomen, Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks/Mercedes Moné, are great as heels and pretty lousy as babyfaces. You could maybe argue that Becky is the opposite, though in her case I feel like it's less that she can't be a good heel and more just that she was pushed heel at the wrong time.
Charlotte doesn’t work as a face for me because of how she is pushed. I get why she is, but it’s hard to believe a good guy that shows up every few months, declare herself the queen and she should get an automatic title shot.
That’s what an egotistical bad guy does.
Not to mention, she's a 15-time(?) champion or something like that already? They hot spotted those titles around so much that it hardly felt like she earned even half of those.
I also think that besides that, she’s also taller and more imposing comparing to most of the women in WWE and is a nepo baby. It’s hard to feel sympathy for an athlete who has every advantage a person can have
Think of all the high school dramas - the antagonist is typically the cheerleader captain who happens to be athletic, gorgeous, from the richest family in town, and my god does she let everyone around her know it. Her ego and entitlement are off the charts, but she is indeed formidable and can back it up to some degree.
That pretty much describes Charlotte to a tee. Her on-screen persona is just not someone the fans can identify with.
Charlotte herself said that she didn't know why she was being pushed as face.
It always feels like they're trying to make the fans root for Regina George whenever they push her as a face.
At first I read this as Regina Reigns - which Charlotte is basically a female version of the over pushed/pre Bloodline Roman Reigns.
basically. swear the was a thing calling her genetically superior. her character is so vain, its kinda impossible to see her as a babyface.
I grew up watching WCW. Never trust a Flair.
Sasha was very popular as a babyface though so how does this check out?
Mercedes is great as babyface, it's just recency bias because of the last two months. She was one of the most over babyfaces in WWE, her problem was that they made her lose every single big match so she lost a lot of credibility
People have always been saying that she has a naturally heelish demeanor, and there have always been people saying they don't really "get" her as a babyface. That's not just a recent thing. I would also observe that she was most over when she was working opposite Charlotte, who is undoubtedly a great heel.
Sasha was a good face imo
Becky's first heel turn got her huge cheers from the crowd and is what led to her eventual huge push. Though it was less because she can't play a heel, and more because fans were glad to see her stop playing the "smiling underdog who's okay with losing all the time" role. It didn't help that her main feud as a heel was against a babyface Charlotte Flair.
Her "Big Time Becks" heel run also didn't work because people weren't booing her as a heel. They were booing the booking of her going over Bianca Belair.
I mean, who tf wants to boo Sting?
If Sting has a problem with you, you’re definitely at fault.
The Four Horsemen
Matthew and Nicholas Jackson.
Outside of DX on occasion, HHH was a pretty terrible babyface. It was pretty much reduced to cheering him because he was a big deal rather than him having a good babyface character.
I agree with OP that Edge is a poor babyface. As Adam Copeland he seems to be better, ironically, but Edge whether it was the rising IC version or the main event version just was a poor babyface character.
Booker T was a natural babyface who really struggled to be a heel in and post the Invasion angle and at any time until he developed the King Booker persona.
Edge and Christian worked as a face team
To be fair that wasn't until much later. When they won all those titles during the attitude era it was like in a year & a half or some crazy shit & they were heels.
I felt Booker T's heel turn after he was angry over being traded to Smackdown could've worked, had they gone further with it. I viewed it as him being an egomaniacal star athlete who thought he was too good for that locker room, but they didn't lean into it as much as they could've and just had him being mean and grumpy instead.
I got into WWE in 2008, which was Triple H’s year, and his persona was basically “I’m the champion and I fight the bad guys, cheer me” which to be fair worked
It helps that aside from Cena he's the only babyface that was witty at the time.
That's more to do with Triple H being a good champion than it is him being a good babyface, though.
To be fair that was because Randy was such a great heel. I definitely agree in the overall sentiment about trips, but whenever he is face he has really good heels to balance it out. And Prime heel Randy was a whole other monster
2009-2010 Randy Orton might be one of the top heels ever. He eventually turned because folks loved him but he was so good.
Triple H’s later baby face run coasted on him being one of the big deals in wwe. Which tbf works for kids in a pg era
Tenure Pop is a thing.
See Randy Orton.
His whole thing is that he can’t be trusted and could RKO anyone at any time for any reason, but no matter what he’s always gonna get cheered for doing so
It’s amusing that when he inevitably “turns heel”, probably when he ends up having a feud with Cody, that he’s probably still gonna be acting the same as he does now.
snek gonna snek *shrug*
Ironically I find HHH plays a great babyface as on screen authority in recent years, with his senior statesman like image from real life backstage roles cemented over the past decade from COO to NXT Papa H to post Vince. A natural evolution, he’s more Paul Lesveque now than The Game.
He was too evil to just basically go "shrug...I'm a nice guy now I'll be a hero " and tbf he understood that. It was so fucking funny to me when he was promo'ing in 2002 after his big return and he just flat out said to someone that he's an asshole and the crowd cheered loudly.
I rewatched parts of his tweener/antihero runs in late 2000 & early 2006 and I feel like those were the closest he could get to being a being a face while not losing the best of his heel traits
Yeah i never took him serious as a babyface, he was too damn good as a heel and i was always waiting for him to turn and he did, always lol.