Top Five Most Popular Pro Wrestling Heels in History
COMMENTARY | As in all dramatic forms of entertainment, professional wrestling needs heels for fans to hate to set up the conflict with popular babyfaces.
But occasionally, either by design or by accident, some heels become more popular than the babyfaces. When fans go rogue and start cheering for a heel, it can wreak havoc with the creative team’s plans. But popular heels can be the most interesting characters in wrestling and although it puts the babyfaces with which they feud in an awkward position, the increased fan interest is nonetheless a positive development for the business.
Take a look back at the top five most popular heels in wrestling history.
5. CM Punk
For the most part, CM Punk does a great of getting wrestling fans to hate him when he’s a heel. In fact, he has done a number of despicable things as a heel that have pushed the boundaries of the WWE’s PG programming. However, Punk became an instant legend when he delivered his famous worked shoot promo on Raw in 2011. After that, CM Punk was still popular with most adult wrestling fans, even as he was mocking the recently deceased Paul Bearer.
4. Jake Roberts
Long before blurring the lines between good and evil became a conscious creative direction in the WWF, Jake Roberts was an extremely popular heel. In fact, Roberts’ brand of cryptic promos and sinister ring psychology had wrestling fans enraptured in Mid-South in the early 1980s. I remember countless episodes of Mid-South with Jake Roberts standing in the heel corner while the rough crowd gave him thunderous approval over the stale babyface.
3. Roddy Piper
Admittedly, most wrestling fans were cheering the popular Hulk Hogan over Roddy Piper in the mid-1980s. Piper’s stance against rock music added fuel to his heel character. However, wrestling fans hadn’t fully grasped the new entertainment style of the WWF and Piper became the popular choice in his feud with Mr. T. After the actor threw the worst punch in the history of the human race at WrestleMania II, fans got behind Piper as he angrily attacked Mr. T.
2. NWO
Revisionist history hasn’t been kind to the NWO, especially after about 100 wrestlers joined the stable. But I vividly remember how these heels revolutionized the wrestling business at the beginning of their run. Week after week, most WCW Nitro crowds strongly supported the NWO over WCW. In fact, the NWO was so popular that more fans were wearing NWO t-shirts than anything else. The NWO even dwarfed the popularity of WCW’s Four Horsemen.
1. Ric Flair
Like others on this list, Ric Flair spent part of his wrestling career as a babyface. However, Flair was at the height of his genius when he was a heel. In the NWA and WCW, Flair was a charisma machine and wrestling fans couldn’t help but support him. Even as a heel, Flair’s promos were popular and his in-ring antics, such as knife-edge chops, flipping over the top turnbuckle, and face plants in the middle of the ring helped make him the most popular heel in wrestling history.
Honorable mention popular heels
AJ Lee, Iron Sheik, Road Warriors, Rick Rude, RVD, Sabu, Shawn Michaels
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