The Magnificent Seven: The 7 Greatest Faces in WWE History

In last week’s column, I focused on the greatest heels in WWE history. This week is devoted to the flip side of the coin, ranking the greatest faces the promotion has ever seen. This isn’t just a matter of the biggest stars or guys booked as the face of the company (though there is significant overlap).

Like being a great heel, part of being a great face is about drawing power. This is particularly true in WWE which, counter to the traditional wisdom that the money is in the chase, has historically featured a top face fending off heel challengers. Some critics might focus on interpreting faces in the white meat sense, in which Ricky Steamboat, Ricky Morton, and first-year-on-the-main-roster Sami Zayn would be the kinds of names that get featured. While that dynamic is worth considering, for this countdown, I was more interested in faces who found ways of tapping into the zeitgeist of their respective eras getting fans behind them with a fury at the time. I privileged longevity in their face role with WWE, as well as working at or around the top of the card. As always, my personal opinion weighs heavily.

#7. The Undertaker

The Undertaker made sense as a heel. He played an undead character. His size dictated that he’d have a hard time generating sympathy, not to mention the fact that his gimmick’s tendency not to sell much made him all the more natural in a monster heel role.

And yet, as he would in so many ways, The Dead Man blazed his own trail as a face in WWE. For a period of time, he was labeled the conscience of WWE—a moniker befitting one of the best respected stars in WWE history, both on screen and in the locker room. He portrayed a force of justice for decades, working far longer as a face than a heel across three decades. Whether he sought righteous revenge against Yokozuna for burying him or Shawn Michaels or costing him his title, was used by Teddy Long as the consequence for heels who stepped out of line, reluctantly battled his brother, or became the definitive legend and measuring stick for top stars at the biggest show of the year, The Undertaker is that incredibly rare homegrown talent for WWE who not only stood the test of time, but crossed mark, smark, and downright cynic lines to be universally respected and, dare I say, liked.

#6. Daniel Bryan

While Daniel Bryan didn’t have the longevity as a top face in WWE that the other guys on this list enjoyed, few wrestlers have ever demonstrated quite the irresistible magnetism that Bryan did for about a year long period form 2013 into 2014. From his infectious Yes! chant, to his undeniable skill, to his fast-paced offense, to playing the underdog better than just about any wrestler before or since, Bryan positively killed it.

We may never know with certainty where on the spectrum Bryan’s original plans for WrestleMania 30 may have fallen—if fans willed him into the main event picture or WWE only manipulated them into thinking they had. Regardless, there may be no better feelgood story in WWE history than Bryan riding a groundswell of organic crowd support straight into ‘Mania, where he pinned Triple H clean, and later made Batista tap out to win the world title in the main event.

The jury’s still out on what Bryan’s return run will add to his legacy, but if only for electricity of his first promos back, and the joy that he clearly exhibited in hitting the ring again at WrestleMania 34, there is reason for optimism.

#5. The Rock

When you talk about a star connecting with the crowd, there’s The Rock and there’s everybody else. No, Rock wasn’t the white-meat, cookie-cutter star WWE may have wanted for him to be upon his debut. When everything was rougher around the edges during WWE’s Attitude Era, however, The Rock’s foul-mouthed trash talk was a revelation, bolstered by his emergence as a legit star worker as well.

The greatest testament to Rock’s abilities as a face was that when Stone Cold Steve Austin, the face of the company, went down to injury near the peak of WWE’s viewership, and Rock was able to seamlessly slide into his top spot without him or the company missing a beat. All of this established a foundation for The Great One to not only go on to stardom in the movie business, but also to come back to WWE after seven years away and pick up in some ways better than he’d left off, a megastar beyond compare.

#4. Bruno Sammartino

There’s a segment of contemporary fans all too eager to dismiss Bruno Sammartino’s greatness on account of having been the champion of a mostly regional promotion and have gotten opportunities based largely on demographic considerations—namely, an Italian Wrestler, thriving in front of a largely Italian-American fan base. While these mitigating factors do have some merit, you still can’t take away from Sammartino his ability to connect with fans of his era as a dependable good guy and largely unbeatable hero.

No, the Sammartino act as it was may not have translated so well to other eras, but for a time period when wrestling was still sold as a legitimate sport, and exposure was limited, he offered a fine foundation for the then-WWWF to build from, fending off the top heels of the day in blow off matches at Madison Square Garden.

#3. John Cena

From as early as 2005, arguably up to the last couple years, WWE defaulted John Cena as the top face in the company. So, with an over decade-long record of appealing to kids, bearing the weight of the company on his shoulders, and putting on a deceptively great catalog of matches opposite a diverse array of opponents, it’s hard to deny Cena a spot as one of WWE’s all time great faces.

Cena gets the extra nudge to the number three spot for achieving all of this success as a wrestling hero during a particularly difficult time for a performer to do so. In a time when social media, dirt sheets, and publicity appearances are all major considerations, Cena has kept his nose clean, by and large remained a positive role model, and functioned as exactly the representative of the company WWE would want for him to be.

#2. Steve Austin

As I mentioned at the top of the column, for this countdown I was less concerned with people working in pure, traditional face roles, than performers who succeeded in connecting with the unique audience of their unique time. With those criteria in mind, there’s hardly anyone who can compare to Steve Austin. In the cutting edge Attitude Era, with a fan base that had aged out of Hulkamania, Austin tapped into a ethos not unlike that of working man Dusty Rhodes. He was the everyman, pissed at his boss, who just happened to have the ass kicking abilities and appropriate vocation to let a rip.

It helps, of course, that Austin was a veteran performer by the time he became Stone Cold, and he was more than capable of putting on classics in the ring. While he didn’t have the longevity in his face role that some of the other top names on this list did, he crossed over to the mainstream as well, if not better than anyone in his prime, and remains an icon.

#1. Hulk Hogan

There are heroes in WWE lore, and then there’s Hulk Hogan.

Sure, Hogan has fallen out of style. In hindsight, he was never much of an-in ring worker, he had a tendency to squander good will by overstaying his welcome on different WWE tenures, and there are the messy details of his backstage politicking, his sex tape, and the racist language he was recorded using. I don’t mean to diminish the importance, or damning nature of any of these points. However, in a countdown centered on celebrating wrestlers in their primes, and their peak popularity, it’s difficult to deny the draw of Hogan in his original eight-year-or-so Hulkamania run, not to mention the best moments of his nostalgia runs to follow. For those runs, pre-Internet, pre anti-Cena-style snark, no one could really touch The Hulkster, and especially for as long as he remained on top.

In a simpler time, Hogan was the super hero WWE needed, and he was instrumental in carrying the company to the national expansion that would change the business and make WWE synonymous with pro wrestling to an international audience of fans today.

Who would you add to the list? Andre the Giant, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, Bob Backlund, and Randy Savage were among my top runners up. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Read more from Mike Chin at his website and follow him on Twitter @miketchin.