We all know that turning a talent heel can be a great turnaround in a guy’s floundering career, but there are those wrestlers that can’t turn heel. There are guys like Billy Kidman, Tommy Dreamer, and Eugene that were horrible in their efforts to break the rules. So I thought I’d point out some of the very worst heels that should’ve just stayed hero.
Hacksaw Jim Duggan: During the twilight months of WCW Lance Storm’s Team Canada was a faction to be reckoned with. At the time Duggan played mentor to a faction called MIA (Misfits in Action). He played special enforcer for a match pitting US Champion Hugh E.Reaction (Hugh Morris and MIA leader) against Team Canada leader Lance Storm. Duggan turned on Hugh and cost him his United States Championship. Duggan then enter waving a Canadian flag, and wearing a sweet track suit from the Great White North. Duggan just wasn’t good at agitating the crowd though. He couldn’t even play the role of obnoxious coach. He came off looking like a goof, and was hurting Lance Storm’s serious heel gimmick.
4) Sgt Slaughter: Speaking of un-American goofball heels, here’s Sgt Slaughter The Real Iraqi Hero. In the late 70’s/early 80’s , Sgt Slaughter was great as the evil hardass drill Sargent. By 1990 Slaughter was literally a GI Joe, cementing that he was a real American Hero, Sarge turned on America than except the newly turned face Nikoli Volkoff. Sounds reasonable. He then went totally nuts and basically defected to Iraq, and teamed with fellow AWA fossil General Adnan(Sheik Adnan Al- Kaissie). He won the WWE for Saddam Hussein, and pretty much held his Iraqi together better than Saddam’s real generals did. By 1991 the Iron Sheik (an Iranian , the sworn enemies of Iraqis) had joined this mess. Thankfully Sarge last his WWE belt to Hogan, and declared months later that he wanted his country back! This was all kinds of wacky, and Slaughter’s reign as evil Iraqi champ lasted longer than the first Iraq war. Slaughter was also playing a larger than life cartoon the whole time, and couldn’t compete with other evil heels at the time. We still had guys like Ted DiBiase and the Randy Savage attacking Ultimate Warrior with his scepter. In the end this was a fun feud, but Slaughter was the wrong guy to turn into a user anti-American. BTW I would’ve used Tony Atlas, or a non-IRS Mike Rotunda, etc.
3) Bill Goldberg: During Vince Russo’s crisis on alternate WCW’s PPV ( known as Great American Bash 2000), Goldberg cost Kevin Nash his WCW title shot. Goldberg had officially joined the New Blood (Russo’s heel faction of young stars). Russo’s 2000 reign had one rule, “Turn him heel. You know to fuck with the IWC?”, at the time Russo had notable success doing this in WWE, and his first WCW stint. The problem wasn’t Russo here, it was the fact that Goldberg is a one-dimensional guy. He can only play a pissed off mysterious badass, and you just call him a heel or face based on that. Heel Goldberg did the same shit that face Goldberg did. Goldberg also began whining about not enjoying his heel status. He finally turned on Russo, and returned as a big hero. What a jerk.
2)Sting: As far as I know Sting has only played a heel twice on the national stage. Both times it happend, Steve Borden was quietly turned face, and all his heel hijinks forgotten. The first turn was during a WCW title bout against the newly face Hulk Hogan. Sting used his black bat to hit Hogan, and win the World Championship. He even began to not wear his make-up, and ally himself with low life heels like DDP and Lex Luger. This lasted until sometime after Halloween Havoc 1999, and the beginning of his fued with fellow heel buddy Lex Luger. We never saw evil Sting in WCW again. In TNA Kevin Nash helped Sting win The TNA World Belt, setting up a faction called the Main Event Mafia. The faction consisted of all former World Champs, that had no problem making their enemies bleed. The problem was that Sting took part in none of the dirty tactics. He was leader of the top heel faction in TNA, and pretended like nothing wrong was going on. In the end TNA made it seem like Sting bad know idea he was leader of a top heel stable. Sting was finally thrown out of Main Event Mafia during Kurt Angle’s coup for leadership. Since TNA doesn’t acknowledge its own continuity it was easy to forget all this.
1) Miss Elizabeth: This is an example of someone who was a perfect face talent. No matter what Liz did we loved her. We always had sympathy for her, and gave her the benefit of the doubt when she did wrong. She was actually a protected face in WWE, and was never involved in any heel shenanigans. In WCW she joined Ric Flair against Randy Savage, but we found that she did so out of anger. She hadn’t meant to hurt Randy. We bought that hook, line, and sinker. When Liz joined the NWO, she was mostly kept in the background and quiet, pretty much the only female member. Finally in the late 90’s, Liz began showing her heel side by pepper spraying Sting on Lex Luger’s behalf. Sadly this wouldn’t last beyond the winter of 99 and 2000. She would later pass away, and we would lose wrestling’s most loved manager.
