Greatest face turns

[Guest]

I'm not surprised about his delusions of grandeur in his current state. That pop would fool anybody

[Tommy!]

 

 

Evolution beatdown on Randy Orton after he beat Benoit for the belt was pretty good and solid.

Yeah not sure what the consensus is on this one but I liked the initial stuff a lot. Good character continuation with Orton spitting in the Game's face and running through the crowd. Yeah not a very babyface move but it worked cos it was great to see someone do that to HHH. I think it's a pity they didn't drag out that feud until Mania. I imagine if they kept Batista over as the mostly silent muscle, by Mania 22 time the fans would REALLY wanna see the thumbs down

Orton was cut off at the knees in that feud too quick. By the rumble Orton was cold as ice as a face, not so much by the initial turn post summerslam but every step then on.

 

HHH turned as Orton was a threat, and he proceeded to prove he was nothing but a pleb to fans everywhere. Orton should have been standing strong in that feud untill Evolution shenanigans a couple of months in.

 

That Batista turn was a thing of wonder though, and the follow up cemented it in a way the HHH Orton could only dream of.

[MEGABUCKS]

Yes the Virgil turn was one of the best ever. And he got over big time in 1991. If you watch that match from Summerslam 91, ive never seen MSG pop for a win as big as they did for Virgil when he pinned DiBiase. It is unreal!

[PowerButchi]

You're all dicks for not getting into the one I posted. 100s of kids storm the fucking ring!

[PowerButchi]

Billy Graham's face turn is shit hot. He turns because of not any violent action, but non-action. And has an amazing pre taped promo when Graham replies.

 

[PowerButchi]

This one isn't that bad either. (Let's not get into techincality, he was a heel last time he was there. Thank fuck for VInce putting AWA matches on All-American)

 

[bAzTNM#1]

Virgil one had been building for like six months too, Some action was going on in House Shows. You wouldn't get that these days.

 

Odd story I read, was that after the Virgil feud they were going to turn DiBiase face before he went to team with IRS. Bit strange.

[Guest]

Odd story I read, was that after the Virgil feud they were going to turn DiBiase face before he went to team with IRS. Bit strange.

This is the company that booked Donald Trump as a babyface.

[UK Kat Von D]

Riley turning on Miz was good, those beat downs had so much energy behind them that I really got into Riley after that. He was throwing Miz around like he wanted to kill him and getting great reactions (from what I remember)

 

Went nowhere and Riley was forgotten about as soon as the story was over. I think the success was mainly down to Miz really, the guy is perfect for turning face with

[air_raid]

I actually have a soft spot for the Rock's subtle and gradual initial babyface turn in 1998. He was getting good reactions while booked as a heel, especially notable at SummerSlam where MSG seemed to love him. The noise for his People's Elbow in that match... Jesus.

 

A couple of Raws later while they were in the midst of slowly turning Taker heel by aligning him with his "evil" brother, Rocky cuts his great promo which is part self-deprecating ("The Rock knew he was gonna get his ass kicked" IIRC) but also declaring he was going to beat them both up, with babyface gallantry in the face of scary opposition.

 

One week later, Rock is thrown out with Kane and is cheered upon entrance. With interference from Mickles he gets to achieve the still-rare feat of pinning the Big Red Machine and the pop is huge. By the time he's randomly inserted into a ludicrously midcard Shotgun battle royal on the next broadcast, he's Hogan levels of hero. He wins, of course. Overcoming the terrible odds of Dennis Knight and a DOA. Was so stoked that Rocky was a "goodie" ..... which made his heel turn even more effective.

 

Honourable mention for turning DDP by having him reject assimilation into the nWo. That Diamond Cutter to Scott Hall on Nitro was one of my favourite non-Sting moments of 1997.

 

Virgil turning on the Million Dollar Man is my favorite. If you want to think about angles that stick with you from childhood, that's right up there with the Barber Shop window and Macho getting bitten by the snake for me.

That one really stands the test of time. Virgil and Teddy both play their parts wonderfully (aforementioned facial expressions from Virg especially), Miami is hot as fuck for it, and Piper on commentary really adds to it. His ranting and raving sometimes is accused of detracting from the action but here, he totally adds to the emotion of what's unfolding before our eyes. It's a turn that resonated so much with our generation that over Christmas when three of us took turns picking something to watch off the Network, my BFF insisted we watch that turn. We then watched their match at SummerSlam, partially as completionists, partially because we all wanted to look at Sherri.

 

It was even funnier how they did everything opposite to how they treated Orton. One had all the momentum in the world, a poorly booked turn and he went from next top babyface prospect to ice cold.

It's remarkable, isn't it? I think I've covered the shameful hat trick of sins in regards to botching Orton as a face before but.... in Evolution turning on him they made him look stupid. The angle where he spat in Hunter's face then ran from him made him look a coward. Losing the belt at Unforgiven made him a loser. "Stupid cowardly loser" is not your next top hero.

[tiger_rick]

Was scrolling through the first page waiting for someone to pick up on that Orton suggestion. It was absolutely shite. They rushed it, they booked Orton as the chicken shit and then buried him (actually buried him) in short order.

 

Virgil is my pick. It meant something because of the length of time and the characters involved and they booked it perfectly from the subtle vignettes in the second half of 1990 up until SummerSlam 1991. Really timeless story telling.

 

Not sure this one counts because he actually did some heel-ish commentary afterwards but Savage reuniting with Liz at WM7 is a face turn through my eyes. Absolutely loved it. I cheered Savage over Hogan anyway though.

 

Batista is the best modern one. Everything the Orton turn wasn't.

 

I really enjoyed Foley's "Pick me, Steve" phase in 1997. I loved Dude Love too on his "debut" even though I had no idea what it was about having not seen the explanation. The JR sit down interviews are probably the catalyst for the turn. I always liked that. never really got into Foley as a heel afterwards in 1998. He was too nice a character.

 

It was a swerve but the "Old Stonecold" episode of Raw and subsequent arse-kicking return to the arena was great.

[Pinc]

Someone's going to have to help me out but didn't Ziggler and Del Rio do a shockingly effective double turn a few years ago where Del Rio kept kicking Ziggler in the head during a PPV match, then came out afterwards to cement the turn on the mic?

 

I don't care for either man but I remember thinking that was far better than it had any right to be, and how strange it was that they'd book their first double turn since Austin/Bret (I think?) on such a midcard feud (it may have been for the WHC come to think of it, but it was midcard as fuck at that point).

[Lorne Malvo]

Yeah, that was a great double-turn actually. It was for the WHC. Then they had Punk (who had kind of returned as a tweener but the crowd were loving at this point) confront Del Rio on the next episode of Raw to really hammer home the heel turn. And Ziggler got a massive reaction during the Punk/Del Rio match, battering Del Rio to the back. As you say, it was a great turn for such a mid-card feud featuring two wastes of space.

[Lenin]

I don't think it's really possible to beat Batista's in truth. Reason being, it didn't just turn him face, it absolutely made him a star that nobody even comprehended him being before they first teased the turn.

 

He was the fourth wheel in Evolution, always got the least reaction of the bunch and never really showed much to care about or make you think he'd be a top guy. Then on one idle Raw before Survivor Series, Triple H left his belt on the couch and Batista picked it up and looked at it. The buzz in the crowd was nuts, and from then on they started the teases, they always added wrinkles to let you know Triple H was out for himself and scared of Batista. And you just knew what was going to happen, but it didn't matter, the journey was just fun because they would add clever little bits (HHH letting Orton pin Dave at Elimination Chamber was superb, Dave winning the Rumble and teasing picking HHH for a second until JBL pops up on the screen, etc) that delayed the inevitable. And when they finally pulled the trigger, it was in the perfect way with the thumbs down, full circle.

 

I can't emphasize enough just how Batista felt like one of the useless lugs of the era to me until that turn started. It was even funnier how they did everything opposite to how they treated Orton. One had all the momentum in the world, a poorly booked turn and he went from next top babyface prospect to ice cold. Batista went from little momentum to top superstar drawing a massive buyrate for Mania with an awesome storyline.

Exceptionally well put. With the exception of Bryan, I think Batista was THE last big star they made properly. Had a decent match with HHH and then had a few absolute corkers with Undertaker.