The Magnificent Seven: The Top 7 Greatest Heels In WWE History

What makes a great heel? There are a variety of answers to this question. Some will boil it down to generating heat, but then where is the line between making fans desperate to see you beat up and having the much maligned “X-Pac heat” that makes fans legitimately want for you to go away? You can go with intimidation factor, particularly in the case monster heels, as a guy like The Great Khali simply looked like an unbeatable giant as he made his way down the ramp (don’t worry—Khali didn’t make the countdown). We could go with talking game, or all-around talent as a wrestler, focusing on talents who thrived when they happened ot be working heel.

In the end, there’s no one be-all end-all in assessing the greatness of a heel, but for the purposes of this countdown, I did my best to consider all of these factors, with extra credit for longevity and for pulling off the role in high profile situations (thus, someone who frequently main evented like Randy Orton would have an automatic leg up on someone like The Honky Tonk Man who was deceptively great in his role but always booked in the mid-card). While a number of the parties ranked made good faces, too, at one time or another, I’m ranking them based on how effectively they played the heel role, with a focus exclusively on WWE efforts (so, if you’re holding out for Ric Flair, rest assured his NWA and WCW work would have earned him a spot handily, but based on WWE efforts alone, he might just barely crack the top twenty). As always, my personal opinion weights heavily in the ranking.

#7. Andre the Giant

Andre the Giant worked most of his career as a face, most frequently playing the visiting cavalry to help even the odds against local bad guys, before rolling along to the next territory. For a generation of fans like myself, however, who grew up in the 1980s, he’ll remain best remembered as the ultimate monster heel—the guy big enough to actually threaten Hulkamania in its heyday.

Andre was well past his physical prime in this heel role, but still had the overwhelming size and deceptive skill to thrive in this arch-villain capacity. He might not have succeeded in his broken down state on a contemporary wrestling landscape—when I imagine critics might give him more the Great Khali treatment, or look at him a bit like they do Kane nowadays. For his time, however, he was a more than fitting bad guy to main event the biggest WrestleMania of its era at the Pontiac Silverdome, and remain a reasonable threat for years to follow.

#6. Brock Lesnar

While I don’t imagine I’ll get much consensus on this point, there’s a very real way in which I look at Brock Lesnar—particularly post-ending-The-Streak Brock Lesnar—as a modern day adaptation of Andre the Giant. No, their style, temperament, and backstage reception are not the same, but in terms of serving as the ultimate final boss in the video game that is WWE, they were both the dominant forces and ultimate proving grounds of their day.

In Andre’s era, being giant sized and competent in the ring were more than enough to be the top heel. Lesnar is a very big, powerful man, but adds onto that the legitimacy of his MMA and amateur wrestling careers, plus remarkable athleticism and raw strength. You can attribute a great deal of Lesnar’s success to strong booking over a period of years and the mystique of being a part-time monster heel, but make no mistake about it that the Lesnar push would not work as well for just about any other talent. The fact that he is the real deal, with a very real capacity to hurt people has helped him arrive as one of the very best heels to ever work for WWE.

#5. Ted Dibiase

From monster heels, we go to an alternative genre—the conniving heel, more brains than brawn. While Brock Lesnar or Andre the Giant might physically crush the heroes of the day, Dibiase was more about scheming to ruin people’s lives, not to mention get what he wanted. Early on, his machinations saw him pay off an evil twin ref to get the world title off of Hulk Hogan, only to buy the championship from Andre the Giant. Later, he’d be the one to use money to corrupt Sapphire and take her out of Dusty Rhodes’s corner, and would be the bully to pick on Virgil until he had no choice but to stand up for himself. As half of the underrated Money Inc. team with IRS, he’d anchor the tag division for a year and a half. Finally, as a manager, his Million Dollar Corporation didn’t exactly light the WWF on fire, but he was nonetheless the top heel mastermind during a down period.

Dibiase’s Million Dollar Man gimmick was fresh and compelling for its time, and bolstered by Dibiase not only playing it brilliantly, but taking the character even further by being a truly outstanding worker in the ring. Add up all of the factors, and you have a truly elite heel, and one of the all time great stars to never capture the WWE Championship.

#4. Bobby Heenan

It’s difficult to compare managers to wrestlers for the purposes of a countdown like this, but Bobby Heenan is unlike any manager before or after him—particularly in WWE. From the 1980s to early 1990s, Heenan was that genuinely special manager who, by association, could advance any budding heel’s status. Affiliation with Heenan cemented guys’ heel status and got them in the fast lane for challenging Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior, and other top faces of the day.

Heenan had the gift for gab—an asset as a manager, and a tool he repurposed to become an all time great color commentator. Additionally, he lived by his adage to wrestle like a manager and manage like a wrestler, demonstrating a brilliant combination of physicality, cowardice, conniving, and comedy to arrive as the greatest manager in WWE history, if not all of wrestling.

#3. Roddy Piper

I had a difficult time ranking Roddy Piper for this countdown. In WWE, and particularly post-national expansion, he spent more time as a face than a heel, and was quite good in that role as well. But what the Rowdy Scotsman lacked in longevity, he made up for in importance. While Hulkamania might have worked with Hogan pitted against a number of different antagonists, loud-mouthed Piper posed a near-perfect contrast to the musclebound, wholesome super hero of the day. His willingness to go at celebrity visitors like Cyndi Lauper and Mr. T, his gift for gab, and his strong kayfabe won-loss record all positioned him as an optimal guy to chase Hogan’s title, and for Hogan to constantly have one reason or another to pursue revenge against.

In true super-villain fashion, Piper was never truly overcome. Some, including Hogan, have cited that Piper protected his character to a fault and that his unwillingness to take a loss meant Hogan could never trust losing to him in turn. Piper never losing decisively also befit the time, though, as WWE anchored its business around giving decisive finishes at house shows, and using TV as a prop to build that business.

You can tack on Piper’s brief heel run in the mid-2000s to bolster his placement on this countdown—not exactly groundbreaking work, but serviceable enough nostalgia-based promo work to further Hogan’s nostalgia-driven act of his own in that period.

#2. Triple H

This pick may be met with some controversy. Triple H was widely rumored to be quite the politician in his prime (and arguably even more recently), and it’s not uncommon for folks to suggest WWE has inflated his legacy based on where he wound up with the company. Nevertheless, Triple H was also the antagonist in chief during the white hot Attitude Era—a heel who could hold his own with no lesser heroes than Steve Austin and The Rock. You can add onto that longevity, as he not only hung around but stayed in peak physical condition to play arch-villain opposite the next generations of top faces and up and comers, including Randy Orton, Batista, and John Cena.

And then there’s the matter of Triple H as a heel authority figure. Paired with his wife, he’s filled this role off and on for the last five years. Critics aren’t unjustified in suggesting the gimmick has been over-exposed, or shaking their head at choices like him pinning Sting at WrestleMania 31, winning the 2016 Royal Rumble, or surviving the 2017 Survivor Series main event. Just the same, it’s those acomplishments that have furthered a legacy of doing what a truly great heel oes—actually drawing heat from the audience and making them want to see him defeated. You can add onto that, even semi-retired and in his mid-forties, he was able to keep up with Daniel Bryan for a match of the year contender at WrestleMania 30—that’s fourteen years after he starred in his first ‘Mania main event.

For ability, length of tenure, and genuinely drawing the ire of fans, and The Game arrives as my pick for the number two WWE heel of all time.

#1. Vince McMahon

There was a time when Vince McMahon playing a heel seemed unthinkable. He played the on-screen role of affable play-by-play man and interviewer, while running the WWF behind the scenes. Long before WWE’s so-called reality era took hold, McMahon made the most of what fans knew from behind the scenes, the drama of the Montreal Screwjob, and his rebellious rising star Steve Austin, by biting the bullet and becoming the ultimate heel authority figure and evil mastermind heel, Mr. McMahon.

McMahon was never much of a wrestler, though he was serviceable in his occasional wrestling role, combining heel cowardice and the knowledge he was out of his element, with the edge of him actually having a killer physique and thus looking like he might do some damage. He was at his best, though, in actively playing the role of authority figure and manager. In serving as McMahon’s proxy, a number of stars were elevated—in particular, before he truly established himself at the highest echelon of the wrestling business, it was acting as McMahon’s chosen one that got The Rock over as a worthy rival to Steve Austin.

McMahon’s act grew a bit uneven over the years as the novelty wore off, and work opposite Bobby Lashley, for example, felt like a clunky retread of better storylines. Still, particularly as he has transitioned away from a regular role on air, when he does make his guest appearances, he carries an extra bit of gravitas. We can balk at him showing up to thwart Roman Reigns in 2016 (and all the more so in 2018), when smart fans were ultra-aware of Reigns as McMahon’s actual chosen one. Still, Reigns never felt more like a star than when punched out McMahon that December, and went on to win his second world championship. A moment like that confirms the weight McMahon still carries, and recalls his best days in the Attitude Era, as the greatest heel WWE has ever had.

Who would you add to the list? Shawn Michaels, Edge, Rick Rude, The Rock, The Iron Sheik, Mr. Perfect, and CM Punk 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.