Sept. 29th 1985. The Omni in Atlanta, Georgia. Ric Flair is having his blow off match against Nikita Koloff in a steel cage for his world title. After Flair’s victory, Ivan Koloff and Krusher Khrushchev enter the ring and proceed to triple team Flair. When all of a sudden Dusty Rhodes comes in to save his biggest rival. After they chase the Russians off, Ole and Arn Anderson enter and lock the cage. They then unleash holy hell of Dusty Rhodes, and more specifically his ankle. They broke it and Dusty was off TV for a month or so.

When Dusty returned, we were treated with one of if not these most famous promo ever. “It’s hard time blues, Daddy!”



We also got a fake doctor discussing Dusty’s ankle and the special gimmicked boot that could be used as a weapon. The first payoff for this was the main event for Starrcade ‘85. Unfortunately, although the match itself was good, it was marred by a Dusty Finish. It let the people go home happy, and then allowed them to set up the greatest angle ever. For me though, it’s ok once, but it was done to death, and by association drops this down.

Also we got the Four Horsemen out of this which is easily the greatest faction ever. They are so good that I can’t even tell you who number two is. It also set up Dusty vs. The Four Horsemen which will go down as the greatest angle ever. All in all this is probably the pinnacle of professional wrestling.

There's probably never been a wrestler who's been more popular than Junkyard Dog was in Mid-South Wrestling during the 1980's. He and fellow fan favorite Ted DiBiase fought off a who's who of '80's wrestling villains, including Paul Orndorff, Dick Murdoch, One Man Gang, and the Fabulous Freebirds. Not only were they allies in the ring, but best friends outside of it as well, as JYD was the best man in DiBiase's wedding.

Ted DiBiase was in a feud with Bob Roop for the Mid-South North American Heavyweight Championship. Bob Roop defeated DiBiase for the title, and shadily held onto the title in a couple rematches, setting up No-DQ Title Match. Two days before the match, Junkyard Dog defeated Roop for the Title, setting up a JYD-DiBiase match.

What began as a classic face vs. face match-up turned ugly when DiBiase struck JYD with the loaded glove that would become a trademark of his MSW heel run. DiBiase would use the loaded glove again on JYD to secure victory in a Loser Leaves Town match.

This would lead to the well-known masked Stagger Lee angle. The heels of MSW, including DiBiase and The Rat Pack (Jim Duggan and Matt Borne), relentlessly tried unmasking Stagger Lee to prove that it was Junkyard Dog, only to be constantly outmaneuvered by the masked wrestler to fan's delight. JYD would defeat DiBiase for the Mid-South North American Heavyweight Championship as Stagger Lee as the big payoff for the fans at the Superdome. (Couldn't find video, unfortunately.)

In 1995 Flair was feuding with his old friend Arn Anderson. The two had a match together at at Fall Brawl when Anderson won via Brian Pillman interference. Desperate to get revenge on his old partners, Flair turned to his longtime rival Sting, to team with him at Halloween Havoc. Sting agreed and the two were set to face Anderson and Pillman. The night of the PPV Flair was attacked backstage forcing Sting to face the two on his own. During the match Sting is getting beaten badly by Pillman and Anderson when Flair comes in to make the save. Only instead of making the save Flair joins his fellow Horsemen and attacks Sting. The whole angle was perfect because the crowd bought Flair as a babyface. This would lead to a solid feud between Sting and Flair.

In 2005 Shawn Michaels was feuding with Hassan and Davari. During this feud HBK pleaded with Hogan to return to partner with him to take on the two heels. Hogan agreed, but it did not take long for Michael's to turn on Hogan and super kick him. Michaels would go on to have the best character work in his second run. He cut a fantastic promo mocking Hogan on Larry King:
https://youtu.be/iF4jE9InYEE

And would mock Montreal pretending that Bret Hart had returned:https://youtu.be/kgW2G5QoHFY

The heel turn was short lived, which does cause it to lose some value, but for those couple months, Michaels was the best thing in the company, and it was without question the best character work of his second run.

Roddy Piper joined Georgia Championship Wrestling in 1983 to do commentary alongside Gordon Solie. Over his first several months as an announcer Piper evolved from a mostly neutral announcer into an increasingly antagonistic and heel one.

After going from complimentary towards the father-son tag team of Bob and Brad Armstrong to critical of first Bob and then Brad, Piper would begin getting involved with the in-ring action with several matches with Bob Armstrong. Although still on the commentary team, Piper started attacking the biggest faces of the company. GCW split into two factions. Piper led a group consisting of Ole Anderson, Buzz Sawyer, Don Muraco, Gary Hart, and the Great Kabuki. The Armstrongs were joined by Tommy Rich, Dick Slater, and Dusty Rhodes. Everything changed, however, when one of his hired guns went too far with Gordon Solie.

https://youtu.be/RUYJpTEdWO0[

He would only be in GCW a few more weeks, but took on his former allies as a lone wolf hero in that time, and returned later to feud with Buzz Sawyer. He took his face persona with him to Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, thereafter, which culminated in a dog-collar match with Greg Valentine.

In the late 70’s and early 80’s, Hull Hogan has been a very successful heel traveling the territory circuit. He even had an incredible run in the WWWF that culminated with a match against Andre the Giant at Shea Stadium that drew a house of over $500k in 1980. Things changed however when he arrived in the AWA. He was introduced as a heel very similar to the Thunderlips character he played in Rocky III. He had Lucious Johnny Valiant as his manager, but for whatever reason, the AWA fans couldn’t accept him as a heel, and began to cheer for him.

It came to a head in mid 1980 when after a match that had Brad Rheingans beat Crusher Blackwell, Blackwell savagely attacked Rheingans. After a couple of jamokes could do nothing to stop Blackwell, Hulk Hogan got into the ring and dispatched Blackwell, cementing his fate as the top face in the AWA.

I think we are all familiar with how Hogan fared after this turn, as it was only 3 years later he would burst on to the WWF and become world champion. This is without a doubt one of the greatest turns in wrestling history.


Side note: If you haven’t done so yet, please watch the video I put up for this. The looks of the jobbers that tried to interfere before Hogan are just priceless.

Kenny Omega turns face to reunite the Golden Lovers

There's no way I could do a better write-up than Simpsons Reference did on twitter so I'm just going to link that here.

https://twitter.com/EffingBoring/sta...45669038260224

After an amazing heel run as leader of the Bullet Club where he won multiple titles and put on some of the greatest wrestling matches of all-time Kenny saw his former best friend (and more?) return to NJPW and at first rejected him. He felt spurned by Ibushi leaving him in the past and wasn't ready to open himself up to another rejection. But faced with the fact that Bullet Club had Ibushi in its sights, Kenny Omega came to the realization that championships didn't matter to him anymore. What mattered most is Ibushi. So after a rift in Bullet Club brewing over time with Cody challenging Kenny for the leadership position it finally boiled over when Bullet Club attacked Kenny after losing the US title. But Ibushi ran in to make the save and Kenny was finally ready to embrace his past. Look at the reaction in that first video. And when they make their first appearance as a tag team in the video below. This is already a successful face turn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GnSvhkS8h0

Macho Man Randy Savage turns face reunites with Miss Elizabeth(1991)
Daniel Bryan turns face and embraces the Yes Movement (2014)
Seth Rollins turns heel and shatters The Shield (2014)
Mankind turns face and pushes WWF ahead for good (1998)
CM Punk turns heel on ROH and kicks off the Summer of Punk (2005)
Kenny Omega turns face and reunites the Golden Lovers (2018)

In late 2013, it was announced that Batista was returning and would enter the Royal Rumble. Nobody wanted that. This was so obviously Daniel Bryan’s match to win, but it was just as obvious that WWE wanted Batista to win.

Batista came out at #28 and was booed instantly.

On the other hand, Bryan got the curtain jerker match against charisma magnet Bray Wyatt (and lost). But he could still enter the rumble, right? Right?

http://i.imgur.com/pV9KVzG.gif

Nope, Rey Mysterio comes out at #30 to a CHORUS of boos. People were pretty pissed. This forum was no different.

It came down to Reigns and Batista as the final two, and Roman got the biggest cheers of his career. I always wondered what would have happened if Reigns had won that match.

But as we know, Batista was victorious. The boos were out in full force and essentially no one was happy.

Over the next few Raws, WWE desperately tried to get Batista some cheers by facing him off against Alberto Del Rio, who was pretty much hated by the entire mark-smark continuum.

It didn’t work. “Boo-tista” signs and chants started up during his matches. And at the Target Center at Elimination Chamber, holy ****. ADR started getting cheered during his pre-match beat down of Batista. At the first bit of offense, Batista was booed mercilessly. Then, less than one minute into the match, clear as could be, “BOO-TIS-TA! BOO-TIS-TA!”

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1npn6k

It was incredible. Considering the crowd size and how clear it was BOO-tista and not BA-tista, this has to go down as one of the greatest chants of all time. Batista would win (no one gave a damn). Orton would retain his title and the Wrestlemania match was set.

But everyone hated it. WWE had network subscriptions to sell. They had to change something. FINALLY, on the February 28 Smackdown, Batista fully turned heel.

We all know what happened from there. Occupy Raw, Bryan vs HHH, Bryan submits Batista, and the crowd goes home happy. It’s a big reason why WM XXX is thought of as one of the best of all time.
I’ll always be grateful to those PPV crowds in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis that made damn sure that a Batista face run at the top of the card was not happening if they had anything to say about it.

Mr Perfect face turn (1992)
Kevin Owens heel turn (2013)
John Cena face turn (2003)
The Rock face turn (1999)
Tommaso Ciampa heel turn (2017)
Batista heel turn (2014)

The year is 1990. The legendary Andre the Giant has unfortunately continued to physically deteriorate, and he was relegated to a tag team with Haku where he mostly just stood on the apron and let Haku do the work. Andre and Haku, dubbed the Colossal Connection, won the Tag Team Titles from Demolition on TV, but Demolition got their big rematch at WrestleMania. At the end of the match, Andre did one of his signature spots as he got tied up in the ropes...he watched on helplessly as Haku fell victim to the Demolition Decapitation, and could not get unstuck to help out. Demolition became the champions for a third time to a massive pop.

After the match, as Demolition left the ring triumphantly, manager Bobby Heenan was irate about the loss, and he blamed Andre for it. Heenan read the Giant the riot act, yelling, then pointing, and then...he crossed the line.



Heenan actually slaps Andre, and immediately realizes that he has made a dire mistake. Andre grabs him by the collar, and the crowd goes crazy. Andre lets the moment breathe, then attacks his manager, knocking him from the ring.



Haku tries to come to Bobby's aid, and attempts to attack the Giant from behind, but to no avail.



Andre was clearly at the end of his rope here, and his offense on Heenan and Haku does not look good at all, but I don't think it detracts from the moment too much. A legend of the ring, whose big heel turn really helped elevate the WWF and wrestling in general to a new level a few years prior, gets a proper babyface sendoff as he leaves to the approving roars of the Skydome crowd.



Just one of those feel-good moments that will forever stick in my memory as a wrestling fan. RIP to the most iconic big man of all time.

Shawn Michaels 1992 heel turn
Jake Roberts 1991 heel turn
CM Punk 2011 face turn
The Undertaker 1992 face turn
Mick Foley 1997 face turn
Andre the Giant 1990 face turn

Nikita Koloff forms the Superpowers with Dusty Rhodes

Lex Luger body slams Yokozuna

Undertaker turns heel on Jim Ross