Greatest turns in wrestling history.

[Mark Sloan]

I fucking loved Tatanka's when I was a kid you know. Lex Luger was such a pleb, and Tatanka actually looked smart for the first time ever taking the cash and kicking the fuck out of him. "You wanna give him a little more.......let's give him a little more!"

 

 

For me the greatest heel turn has to be

 

 

I was 10 at the time and liked it then

 

These are arguably some of the best stories ever, along with Bret Hart / Austin double turn AND subsequent Bret's slow mega heel turn with the segements/fued with Austin were wrestling gold.

[Snitsky's back acne]

Batista's slow face turn at HHH's expense was a great storyline in my opinion.

 

Never has one person [HHH] done SO much to make another person [batista] look like a star.

[Teq]

I thought the Bret/Austin double turn was perfect. Just absolutely exquisite.

 

Shawn at the Barber Shop too. So cool.

[Devon Malcolm]

Can't believe I forgot these two:-

 

.

 

Turned him from boring and laughable babyface shitarse to, briefly, the coolest heel in the WWE. He's still doing well for himself as well.

 

Shame that the sound is out of sync on these, but....

 

Mr Perfect turns face on WWF Prime Time.

 

The other parts are linked. Incredible stuff from him and Heenan throughout. Vince plays the wind-up merchant nicely as well. Perfect.

[gold76]

Shawn on the Barber shop was amazing..

 

I know we shit on him now, but Virgil's face turn was brilliantly done!

[Your Fight Site]

Can't believe I forgot these two:-

 

.

 

Turned him from boring and laughable babyface shitarse to, briefly, the coolest heel in the WWE. He's still doing well for himself as well.

Yup. Every one wants to be on that bench!

[John Galt]

I DID IT FOR DA ROCK absolutely blew my mind as a kid.

[Devon Malcolm]

Don't be such a cretin all your life, Khemical, have a day off.

[Your Fight Site]

Don't be such a cretin all your life, Khemical, have a day off.

I had 30 a few weeks ago.

[NEWM]

Perfect's deserves extra credit for getting them right out of a jam AND being executed well, and all in the space of one show. Talk about making the best of a bad situation, they came up smelling of roses, and the Savage/Perfect team was a blinding (and better) to mesh with the Flair/Ramon pairing. Inspired stuff.

[mikey whiplash]

There was a fantastic face turn by ted dibiase in Mid South involving Dick Murdoch & Ric Flair, where Flair came in as NWA champion & was ment to defend against a young heel Dibiase. Murdoch was the top heel at the time and had an interview with Dibiase trying to explain that he wasn't ready to face a wrestler of Flairs caliber & he should past the shot over to Murdoch as a veteran could take the belt of flair and he'd remember Dibiases favour down the line. Dibiase declined to which Murdoch beat & left him blooded in the ring, over the course of the show the commentry built up that due to blood lost Ted might not beable to compete. Come match time Flair was waiting in the ring, a 10 count was started but a bandaged up Dibiase made the count proceeded to put up one hell of a fight before going down to Flair & in the course of one show they turned the #2 heel face and in a program with the #1 heel. The booking and execution was beautiful.

[TheBigBoot]

Perfect's seemed a bit rushed at the time. Of course we all know the reason now but at the time I was really looking forward to the Ultimate Maniacs (and I wasn't even a Warrior fan). They made the best of a bad situation no doubt, but at the time it just seemed a bit out of the blue.

 

Heel to Face: Andre the Giant on Bobby Heenan at WrestleMania VI. Granted it was his last match (at the time) but it felt like a really big moment watching it the next day on video.

 

Or live for those of you who stayed up to watch on Sky Movies/were in a nightclub showing it.

 

Face to Heel: I'd say an obvious one that hasn't been mentioned Barry Windham on Lex Luger. There's a reason that always turns up in threads like this For a guy who was such an effective babyface to turn into leather glove wearing Horseman was pretty cool. The way they did it with him double-crossing former Horseman Luger and taking his spot was even better.

 

Also Mark Henry earlier this year. Been a fan for yeas but that was a move that gave him the boost he needed.

 

Double Turn: Sabu-Taz and Hart-Austin in Spring '97.

 

The Demolition-Powers of Pain turn from Survivor Series '88 is an example of how difficult that is to pull off even if it leads to the right result (getting Demos over as the top babyfaces in the company)

 

I know it is fuck all in the grand scheme of things but when The Coach turned it was brilliantly done. A chair shot done off camera, camera pans out to reveal the commentator bloke holding it.

 

Yeah, that was good. A lot of people liked that at the time and Coach is another one that should probably go in the "living the gimmick" thread since I read his heel persona wasn't that different to himself. Came from out of nowhere and created a fun new character for Bischoff to play off. I think the reason it may have been forgotten is because so many people went off him as an announcer and also because of Michael Cole later taking the play-by-play man turned heel gimmick further.

 

Arn Anderson's turn on Dustin in 1994 was ace as well. Dustin asks the face Arn to be his partner against the team of (The Awesome) Bunkhouse Buck and Terry Funk. Arn accepts, but lets Dustin know that in the ring Arn's not a nice guy, and that Dustin needs to know that's he's responsible for the fact he's teaming with the nastiest, coldest, most heartless man in wrestling because he'll be teaming with the old Arn Anderson. Come the match Rhodes tags in Arn, and Arn wasn't lying.

 

That was great, yeah. Remember reading about that at the time and then buying the tape from Rob Butcher because I really wanted to see it. ITV did show that one hour version of Bash at the Beach (which I don't remember them doing for any other event) that I still have on VHS somewhere but it was just Badd/Regal, Austin/Steamer and Hogan/Naitch.

 

Arn's promos leading up to the even were superb but so was the Studd Stable's champagne celebration.

 

Butch, as a proper 90s WCW man, what did you make of Sting getting done over by the new Horsemen in 95? I watched all this retrospectively, and though I love Sting, it's hard to feel sympathy for him getting taken in AGAIN. Especially by Ric Flair, of all people. Plus, is the concensus that Flair and Anderson's entire mini-feud was a set up to lead Sting up the garden path, or what?

 

It's on topic too, as the turn itself was a good one to watch play out. They gave him a right kicking.

 

I'm not Butch obviously but it's not just you who had trouble following that because IIRC it was difficult to do at the time due to the fact a lot of ITV regions had stopped showing WCW around that time. Where I lived in the Midlands at that point I got two ITV regions on TV/cable but between both only showed up to Starrcade, So most of the UK WCWers were really following it in German.

 

The last Worldwide I taped from then had American Males/Otani & Kanemoto, but fortunately even then Chris Cruise would show clips from "the new Nitro show here in the States" so you always knew what the main feuds were but but saw very little of them. Most of my exposure to the angle came through Powerslam, etc. so its hard to say what the consensus was amongst fans. At the time I actually thought they could have run with babyface Flair vs Pillman and Anderson for a while.

 

Then again, I liked that Flair/Anderson feud.

[JNLister]

What makes the Batista turn so great isn't just the months of build-up, but the fact that during the whole thing the commentators never said a word about it, so it felt it was like the viewer being observant in noticing all the little clues. Amazing to thing the whole thing started just with Batista looking at the belt for a second too long.

[air_raid]

Trawling youtube and found an angle that I'd never fully seen - Jake the Snake Roberts attacking The Undertaker on the Funeral Parlour in early 1992.

 

Do you know what this really highlights for me? Jake was so utterly amazing at being despicable, that he was able to turn Undertaker face, who to this point had shown no redeeming or likeable qualities whatsoever.

 

Only slight downside is that Undertaker looks so invincible in the wake of Roberts' attack, it leaves little no doubt who will win their match. But then, that's not too big a deal. No-one beat The Undertaker, ever, apart from that cheating cunt Hulk Hogan.

 

Barry Windham's heel turn on Dustin Rhodes in late 1992 was a thing of beauty. It had continuity and everything.

 

It's stuff like this that reminds me why WcW was fucking awesome. It's such a hearty dose of REALITY. Yes, quite often pro wrestling is best when it's as simple as "a good guy" fighting "a bad guy" - but looking at the emotions, experiences and rationale behind Barry attacking Dustin, and it makes such perfect sense from his point of view. Yes, we'd still end up cheering for Dustin, but the art of being a great villain is that he believes he is in the right, and you can certainly understand what Windham did, even if you don't forgive him. Great attention to detail, and it must be said that while old-schooley WWF played a much bigger role overall in my development as a wrestling fan than JCP/WcW, I would take the best of WcW over the best of the WWF any day of the week.

 

Butch, as a proper 90s WCW man, what did you make of Sting getting done over by the new Horsemen in 95?

 

I know you were asking Butch and I'm not him (prayers as to yet unanswered) but I'm going to chip in on this one anyway. Yes, watching that one develop we all feared for Sting, partially because Sting was just so lovely and almost always dying to be turned on, partially because by 1995 "don't trust Flair" was right up there with "Hogan wins" in the glorious Unwritten Rules Of Professional Wrestling. But for me they had done such a good job of portraying Flair as desperate, having been retired and made to look stupid by the Hulk, battered by Vader and abandoned by Uncle Arn, I thought maybe we should give Ric the benefit of the doubt this time. More fool me, and more fool Sting. As a massive Horsemen fan, it made me happy, although it struck me a bit like "well, Stinger will battle the Horsemen for a few months and they'll carry on putting off him vs Hogan until the end of time."

 

I know we shit on him now, but Virgil's face turn was brilliantly done!

 

Arse! I came in here to mention that.

 

Logical, playing with the emotions of we the viewers, and yes, superbly executed - everything a face turn should be. The redemption of Virgil, who had caused so much frustration for us for years interfering in the Million Dollar Man's matches, was amazing for me for three reasons. The red hot Miami crowd were completely into it, the commentary of Roddy Piper sold me 100% on the emotions and inner conflict Virg' was going through, and the fact that it came at the expense of DiBiase, an irredeemable cunt.

 

Here are some of my favourites...

 

turns on Sammartino. It's all about context - Larry Z is Bruno's protege, and to this point the match was a polite little match, almost an exhibition, and it seems Larry got pissed off that there were points were Bruno could have beaten him but didnt. Bit patronizing, that. So Zybyszko goes mental on his mentor and takes him to Larryland. LISTEN to the reaction of the live crowd. It seems so simple, but it's one of my favourite turns and one of the oldest bits of wrestling that I have any real fondness for.

 

Paul Orndorff turns on The Hulkster. Yeah, we all know the story and have seen the matches the feud spawned, in front of some very big crowds, and THAT cage match. But it's so much fun to watch. FUCK the Hulk Hogan.

 

Bob Backlund snaps on the Hitman. Shite quality, but you get the idea. On paper a woeful idea to me, but a brilliant way of transforming a harmless nobody into a compelling psychopath and an interesting character. Awesome. I love it now, but as a 12-year-old Bret Hart fan it upset me greatly.

 

DDP rejects the nWo, instantly becoming a white hot face. OK, after Starrcade it would have seemed a bit strange if DDP had gone "you know what, you cost me the US title but fuck it, you seem like a good bunch." But still, in execution, it was satisfying to see the order get burned. Let's be honest, we didn't want to boo Page. We all marked out too much for THA DIAMOND CUTTER, and the application here on the Bad Guy out of a handshake is beautiful. Bang!

 

It's a pity there isn't really such a thing as a "tweener turn," because that would have given me an excuse to post (yet again) "the only thing for sure about Sting... is nothing's for sure."

[thefallenangel]

Off Topic but Air Raid, i am loving the sig + avatar.

 

On topic Trish turn at WM20 was enjoyable, Hardy joining Immortal and Fortune turning on Immortal.