AEW Stars Who Need to Turn Babyface or Heel in 2022

All Elite Wrestling likes to play loose with shades of gray rather than forcing everyone on the roster to distinctly be a babyface or a heel, but there are still two tunnels to come out from. For the most part, you're one or the other, even as a tweener.

For some, exactly where they are is perfect. Orange Cassidy is in no position to turn heel, nor is Miro gearing up toward a babyface run any time soon.

However, some should consider flipping to the opposite side in 2022.

Here is a list of a few names from AEW whom Tony Khan should keep in mind for possible heel and face turns in the coming months.

Cody Rhodes continues to beat the drum that he will sooner retire than turn heel in AEW. It's admirable he wants to stick to his guns, but it's foolish for him to put himself into a corner like that.

Not only would turning heel give him an out to go back on his promise to never challenge again for the AEW World Championship, it would also allow Rhodes to go with the natural flow of things at the moment.

This past year has not been kind to his babyface character. Fans have booed him, cheered when he's been attacked and thrown his belt back into the ring after he tossed it to them.

Why not turn in to the skid and embrace this reception, rather than something that goes against the narrative?

It's better for him to be an effective heel than an ineffective babyface, even if that's what he currently wants. As executive vice president, he should value AEW over his personal preferences.

Jon Moxley is among the most beloved babyfaces in AEW. It sounds ridiculous that he should turn heel, but it's not without reason.

During his run with the AEW World Championship, he ran through a good portion of the heels to feud with. Many of the leftovers are too low on the totem pole to make for a proper program.

If he were to turn heel, though, new feuds open up. CM Punk would be an obvious pick, as well as Darby Allin, Jungle Boy and Orange Cassidy.

Hangman Adam Page would be a prime feud, too, and Moxley's heel run would make Page look better in comparison. Moxley is a rebellious antihero, and Page has some of those elements but comes off as a less intense version. If both Page and Moxley are faces, the latter could upstage the champion with his more reckless antics.

Moxley might want to freshen things up, too, after playing a babyface for most of his AEW run. It's good to do something different before getting stale.

Adam Cole's first appearance in AEW teased that he would feud with Kenny Omega and The Elite, only for it to be a swerve as he joined the faction.

While they're on fire right now and nothing should be changed for several months, there may come a point in 2022 where it will be time to revisit this idea and split The Elite.

At their full strength with all their associates and allies, the full group is too big to sustain. Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, Brandon Cutler, Michael Nakazawa, Don Callis as a manager and The Good Brothers making appearances was already huge. Adding in Cole, Bobby Fish and the likelihood of Kyle O'Reilly, too, puts this in danger of repeating the nWo's mistake of getting too large.

If anyone were to break off and form their own Wolfpac, in a sense, it would be Cole. He's the next best suited to feud with Omega. Plus, having Fish and O'Reilly by his side not only makes sense given their time as The Undisputed Era in NXT, but it would provide a tag team to work against The Young Bucks.

The Elite and The Undisputed Era are all too popular to stay heel forever. Fans will eat it up if half of them turn babyface and go on to feud with the other half.

Since The Young Bucks are having so much fun as heels, it would make more sense for the babyfaces to be Cole and Fish.

In such a short time in AEW, Matt Hardy has had many character shifts, but none of them have particularly worked.

For the most part, he's stuck to being a heel, leaning on his Big Money Matt persona, which evolved into the Hardy Family Office.

That faction has never fully realized itself. Private Party made sense to be his proteges, but The Butcher, The Blade and The Bunny as well as Angelico and Jack Evans don't fit the mold.

By now, this experiment feels exhausted. It's not so much about finding new members for the team but scrapping it entirely.

Hardy is in the unique position of being past his prime but still able to go. He can give back in all sorts of ways, including using his built-in fandom from his career to be a stepping stone for heels who need the extra boost.

As he's already feuded with some of the top babyfaces like Adam Page and Orange Cassidy, his focus should shift to some of the heels like MJF and Ricky Starks.

In a perfect world, after Page has had a long enough time with the AEW World Championship, he'll drop it to MJF. That's the next logical step in this belt's storyline, as those two have been tied together vying for it since the Casino Battle Royal saw Page last eliminate MJF to win to earn the title shot for the first All Out.

Down the line after that, Wardlow should have grown past being the muscle for The Pinnacle. 

MJF has always taken Wardlow for granted. Let's see what happens when the big man is not only no longer fighting MJF's battles and backing him up, but actively going against him.

Wardlow may eventually be the best possible option to take the title off MJF, if Tony Khan is already thinking ahead for the next two years or so.

It's far too early for Malakai Black to turn babyface, but toward the latter end of 2022, a turn would be interesting.

Many darker characters have started out heel only to find their footing even more so as babyfaces. If not that, it has at least given them some range to play around with.

The Undertaker was always better as a babyface. Kane could go either way but had some of his best work as a face in Team Hell No and such. Even Dark Order went from a serious heel faction that wasn't working out to one of the top groups in the company after they turned babyface.

As it stands, The House of Black should start to gain members and stick with being heels. But eventually, they'll grow to be too cool to be booed.

Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.