Roman Reigns and the 10 Best Heel Turns in Wrestling History

For years WWE has pushed Roman Reigns as a top star, the heir apparent to John Cena's babyface throne.

Unfortunately for him, the fans have pushed back. 

Over and over again, the WWE Universe has rejected Reigns as their hero. It's nothing personal—it's just that fans prefer to choose their protagonists for themselves. When it feels like a wrestler is being shoved at us, affections can turn cold. 

The Rock himself has felt that cold shoulder. So have many others over the years. WWE's solution in The Great One's case was to recast him as the villain. Only then, after a scintillating run as the bad guy fans loved to hate, could he truly feel their loving embrace.

In Reigns' case, the promotion has been hesitant to shift gears. It's been the obvious solution for some time, but one it didn't seem willing to try until his explosive return at SummerSlam after a six-month absence from the scene.

The result has been a spectacular success, on pace to be one of the greatest heel turns of the decade. Does it have what it takes to join the list of the most memorable story arcs in modern wrestling history? Time will tell, but the competition is fierce. 

What follows are 10 of the best heel turns the wrestling world has seen. Got another one that blew your socks off? Tell us about it in the app.

Kevin Owens wasn't sure he'd ever get a shot in WWE. After more than a decade on the independent scene, it felt like his time had come and gone. If he was going to make it, he would have made it already. The opportunity, it seemed, to be a big wrestling star had passed.

So, when KO finally made it to NXT, he wasn't willing to wait a second longer than necessary to make his mark. He watched his best friend, Sami Zayn, win NXT gold, felt joy for his pal and then laid him out anyway. For Owens, it wasn't just Zayn's moment—it was an opportunity. 

To indie fans, it may have been deja vu. But it was a shocking, powerful, well-acted piece of business and established KO as a future main roster player in one night.

Tired of living in his brother's shadow, the amazingly talented Owen Hart attacked an injured Bret's leg after their Royal Rumble tag match in 1994, launching a family feud for the ages.

It's a tale of jealousy, paranoia and comeuppance, about wanting so hard to forge your own path that you end up on a road you may have never intended to walk.  

It turns out Bret's baby brother bit off more than he could chew, but the battle between the two made for some of the most memorable matches in WWE history.

Ric Flair beat Ricky Steamboat at WrestleWar in 1989 to become the NWA world heavyweight champion in a grueling, iconic, legendary battle of both will and transcendent mat skill. It was, simply put, one of the greatest matches in wrestling history, a springboard to a title reign that would last more than 400 days.

But, by the end of the night, Steamboat was the furthest thing from anyone's mind. In five brutal, reckless and unhinged minutes, Terry Funk returned to rewrite the book on what a wrestling feud was supposed to look like. 

First into the ring to congratulate Flair, the former champion was quite complimentary—until The Nature Boy suggested that he'd need to earn a title shot after spending several years in Hollywood. The 44-year-old Funk snapped, attacking Flair, piledriving him through a table and whacking him with a steel chair.

Today, this is just what wrestling is. In 1989, it was a sea change, an escalation of violence and the invention of hardcore on the national stage. Not only did it launch an epic feud between two men, but it also eventually provided the template for the entire ECW movement. 

Tired of playing second fiddle to Hulk Hogan, the already legendary Andre the Giant shocked the wrestling world by showing up on "Piper's Pit" with the dastardly Bobby Heenan as his new manager. The big man demanded a title shot, suggesting Hogan had been ducking him for years.

The Hulkster tried to talk some sense into his friend but it was too late—Heenan was already deep in the Giant's head and his course was charted. Andre eventually ripped Hogan's shirt and the gold crucifix right off the champion's neck, drawing both blood and the champion's ire.

The resulting feud between the two not only featured wacky shenanigans like twin referees and selling the title belt to The Million Dollar Man, but it also rewrote the box-office record books and sold out the Silverdome for WrestleMania 3, one of the most important matches in WWE history.

At WWE Payback 2014, The Shield (Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins) ran the table against Triple H's Evolution, establishing themselves as the dominant faction of an era. It was the circle of life—out with the old, in with the new, wrestling's life force powered by the blood of its elders.

The celebration lasted exactly 24 hours.

The next night The King of Kings unveiled his Plan B, crumbling the opposition from the inside by recruiting Rollins to the dark side. If you listen closely, you can still hear echoes of the chair shot he delivered to Reigns ringing through the WWE Universe.

Rollins has been through several characters since, but fans may never truly forgive him for his actions here—the brutal attack on his brothers defining who he is in such a permanent way that redemption is all but impossible.

This wasn't just any old heel turn. It may have made Rollins a heel for life, no matter what role he tries to play going forward.

Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage formed the most potent tag team in WWE history, combining their unique energy to create the aptly named Mega Powers.

Few could match them inside a wrestling ring, where Hogan's power and will meshed perfectly with Savage's killer instinct and instinctual violence.

Instead, like many great duos, their demise was self-induced. Savage's paranoia and jealousy, it turns out, were the only things more potent than their wrestling prowess.

The Macho Man couldn't get over his lingering doubts about Hogan's intentions toward Miss Elizabeth. Citing The Hulkster's "jealous eyes," he declared Hulkamania dead. The resulting feud headlined WrestleMania 5 and created memes from moments that will now live forever in wrestling history.

For years, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin was the beer-swilling embodiment of the working man, standing up to his billionaire boss, an avatar for everyone who ever wanted to tell his supervisor to "take this job and shove it."

If not exactly a force for good, he could be counted on to at least fight the good fight against Mr. McMahon's embodiment of evil and corporate greed.

When the two shook hands at the end of WrestleMania 17 in 2001, standing over the body of the vanquished Rock, it was a truly shocking moment.

While the eventual heel turn never resonated the way WWE hoped, for one night at least, they could happily bask in the boos that indicated a job well done.

The Rockers had been a staple of WWE's tag team division for years, consistently providing an exciting match in the middle of the card and becoming comfortable, steady hands. But it's not just that familiarity that made Shawn Michaels' epic turn so memorable. 

Before the Attitude Era, WWE was most definitely family-friendly programming. The visceral violence of Jannety flying through the barbershop window, bleeding his own blood as a shirtless Michaels sneered in his leather jacket and preened for the camera, was shocking at the time—the perfect moment to launch HBK into a Hall of Fame singles run.

At Survivor Series 1997, WWE boss Vince McMahon orchestrated a complex, dastardly and utterly ingenious double cross of the departing Bret Hart, lifting the WWE Championship right out of his hands. Hart went in expecting tomfoolery and shenanigans—and got finessed anyway.

The public nature of the real-life drama forced McMahon, previously presented as merely an announcer, to take a more prominent position on WWE television. He would eventually become the lead heel opposite Steve Austin during the hottest run in company history. But it all began with a sitdown interview with Jim Ross the night after his televised larceny and a promo that set the tone for all that followed.

"Bret Hart screwed Bret Hart," McMahon said. "...there's a time-honored tradition in the wrestling business, when someone is leaving, that they show the right amount of respect. To the WWF superstars, in this case, who helped make you that superstar. You show the proper respect to the organization that helped you become who you are today. It's a time-honored tradition. And Bret Hart didn't want to honor that tradition."

Hulkamania had been running wild for so long by 1996 that fans couldn't even process the idea of the "Immortal" Hulk Hogan as a villain. When he walked that aisle at Bash at the Beach, few even imagined he might be the NWO's third man, instead assuming he'd come to set things right in the wrestling world. 

When he dropped his big right leg on Randy Savage's neck that night, turning on both WCW and the fans, wrestling changed forever.

"What the hell is going on here," Dusty Rhodes said on commentary, unable to process the moment. "...you just sold your soul to the devil."

The "Hollywood" Hogan character helped make the New World Order one of the hottest acts wrestling had ever seen, pushing WWE out of the top spot and creating the "cool heel" that would come to define wrestling villainy for the next decade.