Best Heels?

[littleguns]

My votes are for Rick Rude and Roddy Piper

Rude just looked Shady with that stache...

[Montague]

Rude, definitely!
Piper was an enjoyable heel, but it seemed like he too easily gave in to the face pops and ended up spending the majority of his career as a good guy.

I loved Bundy, Savage, and Terry Funk as a little kid. They were all so damned believable. I still remember Funk using the plastic shopping bag as a “choking weapon” - something Vince would NEVER allow on his programming.
Heel Andre was also bad-ass leading up to WM III.

Nikita Koloff was just incredible!

[GraniteCityDon]

Rude was my first thought followed swiftly by Ted Dibiase.

[The Showstoppa]

Road Warriors as heels in Georgia. 

Nikita actually scared me. 

Greg Valentine was a great heel in the mid-atlantic. 

Abdullah the Butcher.  He always carved your favorite wrestler up, win or lose.

[Montague]

Rude was my first thought followed swiftly by Ted Dibiase.

Ted's character was great.
My only criticism was his ring work - he used a very "text book" style.
It was a solid style, but it may have been better for his gimmick had he wrestled a bit dirtier at times like Flair.

Regardless, he was a great heel, and no one can argue with his success in the business.

[The Showstoppa]

Ted's character was great.
My only criticism was his ring work - he used a very "text book" style.
It was a solid style, but it may have been better for his gimmick had he wrestled a bit dirtier at times like Flair.

Regardless, he was a great heel, and no one can argue with his success in the business.

DiBiase was a much better heel in mid-south and Georgia back in the day, imo.  He was nastier and not the comic relief type stuff like the WWF.

Another heel I forgot was Kevin Sullivan in the 80's and early 90's.  He was pretty scary and believable at that time.

[GraniteCityDon]

Earthquake was half decent when he was pushed against Hogan & Warrior, but King Kong Bundy was terrifying in his prime. Rick Martel was a man everyone loved to hate because he was a terrific heel wrestler, never thought much of him in SF.

[yates fan]

the shiek,the one who threw fire and abdullah the butcher.

[Karl Kox]

Bobby Heenan,  he worked the crowd,  he was good on the stick,  and funny when need be.

[leaky_frog]

Bobby Heenan,  he worked the crowd,  he was good on the stick,  and funny when need be.

This.

[tu_holmes]

Rude.

Nikita.

Jim Cornette.

Heenan.

Flair. (and in turn... the 4 Horsemen)

[Montague]

Good call on Heenan; he could actually work better than some of the guys they put with him.

Flair was a great heel, too, but I consider him one of the first wrestling characters that fans "loved to hate." (Pardon the cliche.)
However, unlike all too many supposed heels over the years, Flair never gave into cheap pops from the fans. As long as he was supposed to be the bad guy, HE PLAYED & STAYED THE BAD GUY.
What I mean is he never abandoned his heel heat by doing things that endeared him to fans as a face - think Scott Hall.


Nikita Koloff legally changed his name to preserve kayfabe. He may have been one of the last of the generation to live their gimmicks.

[The Showstoppa]

Good call on Heenan; he could actually work better than some of the guys they put with him.

Flair was a great heel, too, but I consider him one of the first wrestling characters that fans "loved to hate." (Pardon the cliche.)
However, unlike all too many supposed heels over the years, Flair never gave into cheap pops from the fans. As long as he was supposed to be the bad guy, HE PLAYED & STAYED THE BAD GUY.
What I mean is he never abandoned his heel heat by doing things that endeared him to fans as a face - think Scott Hall.


Nikita Koloff legally changed his name to preserve kayfabe. He may have been one of the last of the generation to live their gimmicks.

Being in NC and growing up at huge Flair fan, it was always hard to understand why he was so hated in other territories in the 80's.  He walked that line FAR better than any wrestler in history.  He was mostly a heel here too, but he was just so cool that the only people who hated him were older fans and young kids who were still 100% marks.  I had older brothers to educate me... 

And as for Nikita, are you saying he wasn't brought to the US by Uncle Ivan? 

[GraniteCityDon]

I dont know if alot of you guys are familiar with old School British wrestling, however we had a guy named Mick McManus that personified the very term heel. He was excellent, he was the snake you wanted to kill every week and he knew how to rile up the crowd.

[Montague]

I dont know if alot of you guys are familiar with old School British wrestling, however we had a guy named Mick McManus that personified the very term heel. He was excellent, he was the snake you wanted to kill every week and he knew how to rile up the crowd.

Nice!
He even just looks like an asshole.

GCD, I don't know how old you are, but did you follow Max & Shirley Crabtree's promotion?

[GraniteCityDon]

My friend i am but 30 years old, however i am assuming that you are referring to the great Big Daddy?! I was fortunate enough to get an autographed photo of him & Giant Haystacks as a child when i met them, great people. McManus was just hated, i really mean that! His big thing was he couldnt stand people grabbing his ears and so when the faces got the chance they would try their best to pull them off and get the crowd going.

I followed all of British wrestling m8, even when McManus brought back a company a few years back. WOS was hilarious, i remember watching Spiderman wrestle and thought "theres no danger hes gonna lose" ha ha. My favourite from that era was a guy named Johnny Saint - the man just had it all! Looks, ability - he was born to be a champion.

[Montague]

My friend i am but 30 years old, however i am assuming that you are referring to the great Big Daddy?! I was fortunate enough to get an autographed photo of him & Giant Haystacks as a child when i met them, great people. McManus was just hated, i really mean that! His big thing was he couldnt stand people grabbing his ears and so when the faces got the chance they would try their best to pull them off and get the crowd going.

I followed all of British wrestling m8, even when McManus brought back a company a few years back. WOS was hilarious, i remember watching Spiderman wrestle and thought "theres no danger hes gonna lose" ha ha. My favourite from that era was a guy named Johnny Saint - the man just had it all! Looks, ability - he was born to be a champion.

Yes, Big Daddy. Like the Harts in Calgary, most/all of the Crabtree family was involved in some way with the promotion.
Wigan has a very rich history of catch-style wrestling that evolved with the coal miners.
Bill Riley had a gym known as the "Snake Pit." He trained a lot of legit shooters over the years - most notably, Billy Robinson & Karl Gotch.

Ted Betley took a young Dynamite Kid there, but only for a couple of sessions.
Ted felt the regulars took too many liberties with young Tom, so he pulled him out and trained Dynamite himself.

[io856]

I know its part of the job and all but does being a heel end up psychologically affecting some of the wrestlers? I mean you would have people marking out constantly at the person.

[Montague]

I know its part of the job and all but does being a heel end up psychologically affecting some of the wrestlers? I mean you would have people marking out constantly at the person.

Maybe thirty years ago, before the general public was smartened up and guys kayfabed above all else.

Shortly after they were paired, The Missing Link asked Bobby Heenan to meet him early at the airport to purchase his ticket since Link's gimmick was he couldn't talk.
Heenan just looked at him and said, "Well, you'd better start! I'm only your manager for 30-minutes a night."

[Karl Kox]

I know its part of the job and all but does being a heel end up psychologically affecting some of the wrestlers? I mean you would have people marking out constantly at the person.

What do you mean effect them psychologically?

[io856]

What do you mean effect them psychologically? Back when wrestlers never broke kayfabe they stayed in character all the time. If a fan asked a heel for a autograph then he might throw their pen and tell them to piss off. But that's back when heels were heels and caused riots. My dad said that's one thing he would never do is be mean to a child fan, and he was one of the heels of his time.  He knew how to cause a riot and always had trouble leaving the building but while away from there.

I mean like enter a depression

[Karl Kox]

Oh,  good question.  I know my dad enjoyed being a heel and doing the thing that went with it.  That's something I would like to ask other wrestlers I can see how it would.

[GraniteCityDon]

One thing i always wondered was if being constantly perceived as a heel changed the mentality of some of these guys. For example, some of them had to have ended up living the role 24/7 and the danger of that is that with this could come an increased hatred / bad attitude towards others in general as well as a new found level of violence (primarily due to the continuous actions a heel would do to win - in a sense these actions becoming a part of a characters reality). Loving family men becoming wife beaters, popular guys becoming singled out for their belief that there is a real beef between himself and his opponent..............

Were guys like HBK & Jake Roberts ever good guys backstage or did they always have this arsehole quality to them? Is it down to the characters they were chosen to play?

[Andy Griffin]

I liked the Masked Superstar in Mid-Atlantic.  The cerebral, calm, matter-of-fact manner he used in his interviews made it pop when he got emotional.  I know he was also one of the Demolition guys but to me he is always Superstar.

Regarding an earlier question about heel wrestlers having emotional issues because they might internalize the crowd's "hatred," I do remember actor Kevin Spacey saying he had gotten very depressed filming "Glengarry Glen Ross" because he internalized all the verbal abuse his character absorbed in the movie.

[Montague]

I do remember actor Kevin Spacey saying he had gotten very depressed filming "Glengarry Glen Ross" because he internalized all the verbal abuse his character absorbed in the movie.

Yeah, Spacey leads a tough life.