Greatest turns in wrestling history.

[King Pitcos]

Batistas on rey was great. I loved the whole serious level of disapointment in his voice, followed up by how scary he actually is in real life. It sounds stupid, but I didnt realise how "Large" he was until he said "Thats it Rey, I'm going to rip your head off...." with that crazy smile on his face.

 

Awesome stuff.

That's one of my favourites. I still scream "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE MY FRIEND!" whenever the Mrs doesn't do something I ask.

[ShortOrderCook]

Yeah, some great shouts here. Many mentioned already which i concur with. Particularly Brets turn in '97. Brets character arc from Wrestlemania XII to Wrestlemania 13 and beyond, throughout the rest of '97 is basically my favourite thing in wrestling. Probably because it's rarely felt so real, everything Bret did and especially the emotions he conveyed in this time, you believed every bit of it.

 

Others mentioned that i enjoyed - Of course, The Rock at Survivor Series '98 and someone else mentioned the double/treble turn at WrestleMania XV with Triple H, Chyna and Kane. Agreed in that i thought they both unfolded masterfully and in both cases showed some serious logical booking. Great move with each turn there.

 

Undertaker in 2001 also came to mind for me, mainly because it made for some oddly, captivating viewing. It was peculiar seeing Taker turn on Jim Ross and in this way but it totally worked. Speaking of turns involving Jim Ross, something yet to be mentioned is Jerry Lawlers full on official face turn when he fought for his long time colleague and planted Tazz with a sweet fist in retaliation to his insutls, taunting and baiting of Ol' J.R. He'd more or less become a face generally anyway but this made it totally official you can cheer him now. Shame it went on to lead to the very end of Lawler as a tremendous colour man but, i absolutely loved that moment.

 

And also... ;

 

'When i came here two years ago and i was Mankind, you know there was always people saying 'hey, why don't you just be Cactus Jack?', then i came out in tye-dye and some white boots and they said 'you know why don't you just be Cactus Jack?'...Well i gave you Cactus Jack! I gave you every Goddamn bit of energy i had! And when i was laying here helpless...you chanted someone elses name. This is not a knock on Stone Cold Steve Austin, hey i'm happy he's the champion, and he may not admit it but we've known eachother a long time and he's been my friend. But what you did to me and Terry Funk laying here in the middle of the ring was not only distasteful and disrespectul, it was Goddamn disgusting, and i'm going to give you the chance to make it up to me, because i'm going to accept a group apology right now (waits for reaction). . . Well, i can finally say, for the first time, after thirteen years of blood sweat and tears, that it's not worth it anymore. It's going to be a long time before you see Cacus Jack in the ring again.'

 

And then a few weeks later he returns as Dude Love, interrupting the big Austin vs McMahon showdown and turns on Austin. Another that made for really surreal viewing but went on to lead to some great moments and great television and another interesting character arc with Foley throughout '98 going on to instigate some other great turns.

 

 

Paul Bearer at Summerslam '96 was good too.

[air_raid]

And then a few weeks later he returns as Dude Love, interrupting the big Austin vs McMahon showdown and turns on Austin. Another that made for really surreal viewing but went on to lead to some great moments and great television and another interesting character arc with Foley throughout '98 going on to instigate some other great turns.

 

I really like how the night after Over The Edge he returned as Mankind to cost Undertaker the top contenders' match against Kane, after Dude Love had been "fired" earlier in the evening. It absolutely smacked of desperation. Cactus Jack was gone by Foley's own choosing, Dude was fired, Mankind was all he had left. No small irony that it was that Mankind run which finally took him to the World title.

[Pier Six Brawler]

Nikita Koloff turning face after Magnum TA's career ending accident. Not only a great turn on TV, but produced one of the all-time great wrestling magazine covers.

 

[air_raid]

Look at the headlines there. Hogan and Orndorff snuck into a mention across the top, the Bulldogs only mentioned in comparison to the Roadies - a comparison the Roadies won, no doubt. Looking at that one might think the WWF was relatively unimportant.

[wandshogun09]

Just thought of one I don't think's been mentioned yet

 

Diesel turns on HBK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ_ShJxqB_U

 

Looking back on this there were clear signs of Big Daddy Cool turning into a 'baddy' ever since Surivor Series 95 when he attacked Bret Hart post match and chucked a load of refs about. Then he was acting quite heelish in the feud with Taker in early 96. But at the time this still seemed out of the blue to me. I never expected it to happen.

 

And that month or so of heel Diesel was tremendous. He was much better as the cocky prick shoving people around imo than in his silent bodyguard days in his first heel run in the company. He was great in that role of the big bully and it led to one of my favourite matches with HBK in the No Holds Barred match.

 

The HBK/Diesel promo from that PPV is top notch aswell

[Foale]

 

This was cool.

[Up Chuck]

I liked when he went kind of tweener towards his face turn as well, where he would be respectful and fair to some of the younger talent like Orton, Jeff Hardy etc but be full on heel with the Main eventers like HHH and the Rock. Shame it ended so soon as there were a string of great tag main events on smackdown

 

I was well into that ladder match he had with Hardy for the title. For an angle featuring Tommy Dreamer's vomit (I think), that was pretty good.

[insert_name_here]

Although the subsequent feud was a slight let down Christian's heel turn on Edge was pretty sweet.

I loved the slow build up starting with Edge winning the King Of The Ring and Christian carrying his trophy with him everywhere.

Then Christian almost costing him the Intercontinetal Title at SummerSlam with a miss-timed Spear and then failing to win the WCW Title from The Rock on RAW the week after and running out to save Edge from a beat down later in the night and hugging him, only to turn around and go totally bezerk and give Edge one hell of a beating.