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What is it that makes a compelling villain? Is it an utter lack of mercy? A willingness to wrong to others for self-gain? A twisted sense of morality? Cool clothing?
When designing a villain, it's always important to make sure that he or she resonates with the audience in some form or fashion. This doesn't mean that they are likeable, or that the audience wants them to win. Just that they find something about the villain appealing, even if it amounts to horrid fascination, like Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight.
This is true when it comes to pro wrestling's version of villains, heels. Heel wrestlers in the WWE or elsewhere are supposed to spit in the face of what societal mores consider 'good' behavior, raising the ire of the crowd so that they cheer even louder for the hero, or 'babyface' wrestler.
However, despite the best intentions of different promoters, creative departments, and the wrestlers themselves, there are sometimes those heel wrestlers who the fans just can't stop cheering for.
Here are seven 'bad guy' pro wrestlers who the people just can't stop supporting with their cheers.
#1 Naito
Tetsuya Naito only recently came into the internet wrestling community's crosshairs, but he's a wily veteran with nearly two decades of wrestling experience.
Naito began his career, by his own admission, as a 'generic babyface' who the crowd appreciated, but didn't necessarily cheer for. He gained a great deal of international experience in the mid to late 2000s, working for TNA and CMLL among other promotions.
Eventually, he found his way back to Japan, where he developed a new, roguish attitude that seems to bear a lot of resemblance to Stone Cold Steve Austin without being a straight up rip off of the character. Naito infuses a heavy dose of Gen X "Why should I care?" attitude into his persona, while simultaneously dialling up the intensity of his in-ring work.
These days, Naito has been shifted to babyface position, because NJPW can't stop people from cheering for him. He was even voted the top NJPW star of 2018, despite not being named Okada or Omega.
Why the fans keep cheering for him: A combination of respect for his abilities and the fact that his antihero persona is quite endearing to a lot of people.
#2 Scott Hall and Kevin Nash - The Outsiders
One of the most dynamic things about the advent of the NWO stable was the polarizing effect they had on live audiences. While they were the 'bad guys', the invaders trying to bring down WCW from within, they were also smooth talking, laid back 'cool' characters.
This posed something of a problem because their job was ostensibly to make people hate them. It's hard to work a match where the hero is greeted with apathy but the villains are cheered with great enthusiasm.
To make matters worse, Hall and Nash did nothing to discourage the positive fan reactions, eschewing the normal heel tactics of insulting the crowd or their hometown sports teams.
Why they got cheered instead of booed: Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were just 'too cool' (or perhaps, too sweet) to be booed like a typical wrestling heel. Also, the time period in which they were active -- the 1990s -- tended to treat stereotypical good guys with contempt while praising thuggery and criminal acts.
#3 Rusev
Rusev was brought in because Vince McMahon doesn't seem to realize the cold war is over. He tried several 'Russian' wrestlers, such as Vladimir Kozlov, before he ended up with Rusev, who is technically from Bulgaria and not the Soviet Union -- which no longer exists anyway.
Nonetheless, Rusev had a great deal of heat, mostly because of his massive body and athletic ability. Fans were willing to boo him, because booing the foreign-born heel is what wrestling fandom is wont to do.
However, Rusev's wife Lana wound up working on the Total Divas program on E network. Once fans saw the playful, goofy, and downright likeable side of Rusev, they were no longer willing to greet him with boos. Rusev upped the ante by capitalizing on his reality television fame by using social media and coming up with the novel "It's Rusev Day!" concept and catchphrase.
WWE seems to have seen the light, and are pushing him as a babyface of sorts now, but they don't seem willing to push him to the main event as they did when he was an unstoppable 'Russian' brute.
Why he got cheers instead of boos: Rusev's sunny personality and likeable demeanour shines brighter than the chrome on the Russian tanks he used to ride to the ring. Once fans realized what the 'real' Rusev was like, it was curtains for his heel character.
#4 The Velveteen Dream
Let's go down the wrestling heel checklist to see how the Velveteen Dream matches up.
Arrogant? Check!
Self-centred? Also, check!
Dresses outlandishly in direct opposition to societal mores? Check!
Eschews any companionship from fellow talent? Check!
Gets booed by crowd? Absolutely not!
If Velveteen Dream had made his debut fifteen years ago, he would have been booed relentlessly at best, or treated as a laughingstock at worse.
However, this very young talent (he's still in his early twenties) is one of the most dynamic, compelling, and popular wrestlers on the NXT roster. His ability in the ring is matched by his smoothness on the mic -- could we say he's smooth as Velvet? I think we can.
Why he gets cheers instead of boos: Firstly, the Velveteen Dream is insanely talented in respect to both his technical wrestling and athletic ability. Fans recognize and respect this. Add in the fact that he has a golden voice and the gift of gab, and some of the best facial expressions we've seen in sports entertainment, and you have a slam dunk babyface who the fans can't get enough of.
#5 "Evil" Sting
The Stinger has been through a lot of different looks over the years, from his days as a bleached blonde surfer dude to his darker turn as the 'crow' Sting, to variations combining elements from all of his varied personas.
For most of his career, Sting has been a dyed in the wool Babyface, someone who the fans love to cheer for, root for, and paint their faces in reverence for.
However, post-Crow Sting, post "Tomato" Sting from NWO Wolfpac, there was a short period of time where WCW tried -- and failed -- to turn the Stinger into a bad guy. He insulted the crowd, he beat down fan favorites like the legendary Nature Boy Ric Flair, and he cheated to win.
But instead of booing, the fans simply amended their signs from "Sting Rules" to "Evil Sting Rules." Sometimes you just can't fight fate.
Why he was cheered instead of booed: By the time Sting got around to trying a heel run, he was already a man who many fans had literally grown up watching, and he was their hero during that time more often than not.
With so many years, even decades, of playing the babyface, fans refused to turn their backs on him even when he acted like a genuine villain.
#6 Adam Cole
When it comes to NXT, the Undisputed Era is an unabashed Four Horsemen clone. They are finely honed technical wrestlers, just like the Horsemen were. They are also unabashed rule breakers for whom no dirty trick is too low to achieve victory, again like the Horsemen.
However, unlike the Four Horsemen, the Undisputed Era seems to get a lot of cheers from the NXT audience, most especially their defacto leader Adam Cole. No matter how wicked he acts, no matter how much he insults the intelligence of the capacity NXT crowds, no matter how many rules he breaks in pursuit of victory, and no matter how many beatdowns his faction hands out, people still raise their arms in the air and shout "ADAM COLE, BAY BAY!"
The question is, why?
Why he gets cheers instead of boos: Adam Cole is a relatively young wrestler who is also a ten-year veteran. A lot of fans feel like they watched his career develop from the beginning, and they are aware of how hard he has worked to get where he is on NXT.
Add in the fact that he's one of the best, smoothest technical performers not just in the WWE, but all of Sports Entertainment.
#7 Stone Cold Steve Austin
Stone Cold Steve Austin will go down, without a shadow of a doubt, as one of the most wildly popular superstars in wrestling history.
He basically won the Monday Night War for WWE, as he was the only thing that seemed to be able to win ratings when put against the NWO. His influence can be felt all throughout the WWE, and all of sports entertainment.
However, his character was much more aligned with what one would find in a heel wrestler. Stone Cold Steve Austin blatantly cheated -- Jim Ross would refer to it as 'bending the rules' -- to win when it suited him. He even sneaked back into the Royal Rumble after being eliminated!
Not only did Austin cheat, even at the heights of his babyface popularity, but he also exhibited a lot of other bad guy traits. He didn't tell fans to take their vitamins and say their prayers; rather, he encouraged them to give the approval to beat downs and violent acts. Not only that, he cursed constantly, and had a penchant for downing huge quantities of alcohol on live television... not exactly role model material. Yet he was insanely popular. Why?
Why he was cheered instead of booed: Stone Cold Steve Austin was another product of the 1990s that also gave Hall and Nash a babyface reaction. His antihero, anti-establishment character was the perfect foil for the corporate evil personified by Vince McMahon. He was a great orator and a criminally underrated technical wrestler, and the fans appreciated these traits.
