The biggest argument that my friends and I have every time we talk about professional wrestling, is that there aren't enough heels in the business today.
I'm not talking about Seth Rollins or Kevin Owens or someone like AJ Styles. I'm talking about heels, characters with backstory. Characters who make you lie awake at night and wonder if they're going to come out of the closet and get you. Professional wrestling is so much different than it was 30 years ago. The lack of quality heels has diminished the value of the product today.
One of the basic concepts a professional wrestling for decades has been the "Us Versus Them" theme that has worked when he came to foreign heels. Mean, rash, bold performers who said what they meant and meant what they said and when I got in the ring, fans gasped at their ability. This is not about the Attitude Era, this is way before that.
While there aren't many heels you can hang your hat on today - with Bray Wyatt and Undertaker being the exception to the rule – the lack of the foreign heel has crippled what we watch on television.
The foreign heel is simply a foreign concept.
Here is a look at 10 of the greatest foreign heels in WWE history.
10: Rusev
The Bulgarian Brute is the company’s best heel today. A throwback of sorts to the days of Koloff and other brawlers. The current United States Champion has come to the company to prove Americans are the weaker wrestlers. So far, he has succeeded.
Aided by his beautiful wife Lana, they are the perfect combination of beauty and brawn. The backstory of Rusev and the build is exactly how WWE should have been promoting its imports. In most cases, this has failed. But the fact the US Champion came into the company bashing the success of American wrestling makes him the best in the business today.
9: Ivan Koloff
The raspy voice. The squatty, burly wrestler. The fact he wore a singlet supporting Russia and also carried a chain around his neck. Koloff was one of the best foreign heels in professional wrestling, period. In 1971, Koloff ending Bruno Sammartino’s reign as champion by beating him, which led to the Russian Bear becoming a go-between champion for Pedro Morales.
After his time in the WWWF, he moved on the NWA and was a successful regional and national champion in both singles and tag team wrestling. He “brought” his nephew Nikita Koloff to the states to cause all kinds of havoc before the Russian Nightmare became a babyface.
8: The Iron Sheik
The best way to capitalise on how Americans felt about the Iran hostage crisis was to put the WWF belt on the Iron Sheik. The barrel-chested bald man with curved boots and the sinister moustache. The man who was an accomplished amateur wrestler will go down in history as the WWF’s greatest heel of all time.
First, he feuded with Sgt. Slaughter and then with Bob Backlund, taking the company title from him. Then he helped usher in the start of Hulkamania, dropping the belt to Hulk Hogan and later became a solid tag team partner of Nikolai Volkoff. In a time when characters matter in the business, he was the best.
7: Bret Hart
The Canadian who was a member of the famed Hart Family was great both as a heel and babyface. When he played the role of heel, there were few who succeeded as he did in the WWF in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A member of the Hart Foundation with Jim Neidhart and Jimmy Hart, he was a world tag team champion and later an Intercontinental Champion and World Heavyweight Champion.
Despite the role as a bad guy, there were few in the business who were as solid a technical wrestler as Hart, who proved he is one of the best chain wrestlers to ever get in a ring. Hart was successful as well in WCW after he left the company because of the infamous “Montreal Screw Job.”
6: Mr. Fuji
Mr.Fuji was one of my favourite wrestlers growing up. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the Japanese wrestler was a major part of promotions nationwide, bringing a different style to the ring. Fuji was a solid competitor who always had a trick up his sleeve. And who could forget salt thrown in the eyes of his competitors.
Whether he was wrestling alone or in a tag team with Mr.Saito or Mr.Pogo, he was exactly what Vince McMahon Dr. wanted in a performer. After his days in the ring, he because a solid manager with boiler hat and cane, which added to his persona and used those objects to help his associates get over for the win.
5: Chris Jericho
Don’t “EVER” question this Canadian’s ability in the ring. A six-time world champion, the first ever unified heavyweight champion and one of the most underrated superstars in the company and the business. Jericho is still at his best taking jabs at the fans and at his opponents.
When it comes to helping new talent get over, Jericho is the guy WWE counts on, including the likes of AJ Styles, Dean Ambrose and back in the day, CM Punk. Jericho flaunts excellence in the ring and still proves he can take heat with the best of them.
4: Alberto Del Rio
Although his time in WWE was relatively short, Del Rio was everything a heel should be in professional wrestling. Brash, handsome, and better than most in the ring. Del Rio, who was originally known as the “Mexican Aristocrat” grabbed the fans attention and held onto it, walking into WWE and winning immediately.
He detested the “American Way” and promoted himself as being better than anyone. And when he was in the ring with the likes of John Cena and Edge, he was at his best. Unfortunately, his return to the company in 2015 yielded very little results and he eventually left earlier this month.
3: Roddy Piper
The man who changes the questions just when you had all the answers. Was there a better heel to play opposite Hulk Hogan and the birth of Hulkamania? Piper was a great heel in the NWA before moving up north where he feuded with Jimmy Snuka, Hogan, Mr.T and others.
Even when Piper became a babyface, there were few wrestlers adept at stirring the crowds as he did. Piper was Canadian, because of his Scottish heritage he was billed as coming from Glasgow and was known for his signature kilt and bagpipe entrance music.
2: Kamala
As a child, Kamala scared the daylights out of me. Billed as the “Ugandan Giant” he was unlike other wrestlers. Fleet on his feet at over 300 pounds and painted symbols on his belly and face. Kamala came to the ring with his handlers “Friday” and Freddie Blassie and got in the ring slapping his belly and manhandled his opponents.
Kamala wrestled for Mid-South Wrestling, Memphis, and World Class Championship Wrestling in the early 1980s. In Mid-South Wrestling, Kamala was nicknamed "The Ugandan Giant", managed by General Skandor Akbar and billed as a former bodyguard of President of Uganda Idi Amin.
1: Baron Von Raschke
My father watched Championship Wrestling from Florida when I was a child. The first “heel” I was introduced to was Von Raschke, the bald German wrestler who looked like a gangly old man with a hoarse voice and a finishing move called “The Claw”.
Von Raschke spent time in the old WWWF, AWA and NWA. He did compete as a babyface (hard to believe) but his best role was his German wrestling role. You knew the end was near when he would do a goose-step and then put his finisher he called the "brainclaw"
