10 Heel Turns That MASSIVELY Backfired

8. Putting A ‘Same Old S’ In Front of ‘Hit, Man’

1997 was a tough year for WWE. After a few years of house shows underperforming, world champions underperforming, and WCW OVER-performing, the company was in financial straits. These matters were made worse when, unable to afford Bret Hart’s expensive contract, Vince finally agreed to let one of his two biggest stars defect to WCW. 

After the well-documented Montreal Screwjob, Hart’s arrival in WCW was hotly anticipated. After being screwed out of his WWF Championship, what the hell was he going to do when given a spotlight and a microphone? 

Answer: have the screwjob parodied in an awful Starrcade main event, then turn heel and become just another member of the already tired nWo. Instead of getting Hart vs Hogan on PPV, he became one of Hollywood’s lackeys and didn’t really have long-term major feuds with anyone. Utterly baffling when you consider all the money they could have made by treating Bret like the huge star that he, you know, was. In the end, Bret Hart vs Hulk Hogan only happened once in the entire time they shared a promotion. It happened on Nitro, and it ended in a non-finish. Well done everyone.

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7. SHUT UP, MICHAEL

If the purpose of a heel is to be legitimately hated enough that we want to pay money to see a babyface beat them up, was Michael Cole in 2010 the greatest heel of all time? 

During his run as a heel commentator, Michael Cole was so loathsome, so irritating, such a swaggering arse, that most fans would have re-mortgaged their homes to see someone take him to the woodshed. The man was able to draw huge heat from three simple words, “And I quote” so evidently he was doing something right. However, the fact that Cole was both a) 100% toxic awful, and b) on play-by-play and therefore audible throughout the entire viewing experience time was something incredibly wrong. 

Michael Cole was such a good heel that he broke Monday Night Raw, with incensed fans unable to bear 2 full hours of his legitimate awfulness.

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6. JR & His Stupid Trademarked Wrestle Boys

The year was 1996, also known as the year that Kevin Nash and Scott Hall defected to WCW. Part of  that angle’s initial appeal is that Nash and Hall heavily implied that they were invaders from WWE, capitalising on their established characters of Diesel and Razor Ramon. 

In retaliation WWE sued, but also, since they still owned the trademark, re-introduced the characters of Diesel and Razor, but this time played by two totally different wrestlers, Glenn ‘Kane’ Jacobs and Rick ‘Never Had A More Recognisable Gimmick’ Bognar. It would be like if I wrote the word ‘Money’ on a piece of paper and tried to buy a coffee with it. 

In an even more baffling move, they tried to sell this by turning JR heel and tasking him with managing this doomed pairing. It’s hard to say what WWE hoped would happen when they saddled these imposters with a heel commentator, instructed the face commentators to constantly say “that’s not Diesel and Razor” and have JR only ever respond “shut up.” Naturally, the copycats didn’t get over, JR and WWE looked foolish for being associated with such an awful idea, and fans were driven to much-edgier-in-comparison WCW in their droves.

• WCW
• Adam Blampied
• heel turns
• wwe

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