A Turn You Didn't See Coming

[Trill Co$by]

For me it was the Austin heel turn at WM17. I know some people "claim" it was obvious and all but looking back at it. Austin/McMahon hated each other on screen. Rock and Vince had a previous partnership and if anyone could run as a heel it would be Rock. When Vince walked that aisle at WM17 and stood/sat ringside for those brief moments I honestly had no idea what was happening. Even when he helped Steve win I was still skeptical about the whole thing. Then they shook hands. JR flipped his top went absolutely bonkers at the announce table and everything.
Then the following night on Raw Austin played to the crowd for a moment that he was just using Vince to get the title. I thought Austin would return to his face ways and annihilate Vince in the ring, BUT he completed the heel transformation. Then joined up with HHH as well. NEVER expected that.

For once, we agree here... not that it was the most shocking, but that it was completely unexpected.

I never saw the Vince & Austin angle coming. In fact, I felt that Vince was going to Reunite with The Rock and rebuild the Corporation, which would've been cool. But then, he smashed that chair over The Rock's head and it just changed my out view on wrestling completely because I believe that was the moment when I started to really like the story telling inside the ring.


As for the turn that I never saw coming, I'm going to have to be the TNA schmuck here and give it to James Storm turning on Chris Harris. I don't care what anybody says, Chris Harris and James Storm were TNA's bread and butter tag team. They were the team that paved the way for teams like Beer Money, MCMG, The Naturals, and even Styles & Daniels... they were the cream of the crop and a damn good reason for people to watch TNA. They went toe to toe with the best tag teams around. And even though they were having problems, it felt as if TNA was going to patch them back together and then BAM! beer bottle to the skull of Chris Harris.


Irony of that angle is that Harris was set to be pushed as the big face, similar to Jennetty, but it turns out that Miz came out to be the HBK of that team. Also, James Storm did a damn good job of making Gail Kim look decent. And he even brought back Jackie Moore

 

[RD_21]

For me it would be the Chyna double turn and HHH turn. At Wrestlemania 15 Kane was facing HHH.

Chyna had turned on D-X and joined Kane before the event (think it had been a good while but it may not have been). During the match Chyna came out and she came in the ring with a chair at some point. She asked Kane to let her hit HHH with it and Kane let her enter the ring only for Chyna to smack him in the back with it. HHH then finish the job and Chyna jumped in HHH's arm. It was perfect, Chyna had rejoin D-X and my favorite faction was complete again.

Then later X-Pac was facing Shane McMhaon and HHH came out with Chyna, stopped Test (I think it was him) from interfering in the match and then entered the ring while Chyna distracted the ref allowing HHH to Pedigree X-Pac and put Shane on top.

I hated that at the time.

 

[justin71]

I'd go with Barry Windham joining the 4 Horsemen because he droped the NWA Tag Titles on purpose and it was the one time I felt for Lex Lugar.

 

[Henhouse]

I'm not that big a Punk mark, but I was surprised when he turned face earlier this year. I just thought he'd lose a Career vs Title match at MITB and leave as a heel but he certainly shocked me. Pancakes.

 

[svsuperfly]

I thought of some more and here are a few.

The double turn of Demolition and the Powers of Pain. It had me and my friends debating after the match, who was the face and who was the heel.

Mr. Wonderful Turning on Hulk. I was a kid and it broke my heart. As a kid I didn't see it coming, but looking back at the old footage it was obvious.

Monday Night WWF wrestling before it was RAW. Randy Savage announcing that he's picking a partner for Summerslam and kept hinting it was Mr. Perfect who was sitting right next to Bobby Heenan and was a full fledged heel at the time with no hint otherwise. Heenan started to talk crap about how Ric Flair was better than Mr. Perfect and Mr Perfect Snapped and told Savage that he would be his partner. That turn made me excited.

 

[jimbo77]

Gotta go with the rock at survivor 98, vince seemed to be backing mankind to win the title tournament then when he teamed with rock at the end and turned him heel that was great WOW tv, the rocks promo on raw the next night was legendary aswell

Steph turning on vince and hugging HHH got me aswell, man i miss those days when ppv's and raw was must see tv

 

[RoadhogJ]

A turn i never saw coming was Batistas heel turn when he attacked rey! They were meant to be the best of friends then Batista just attacked him over a pin, it just took me by surprise as i was watching it on PPV

 

[CleverName51]

Dave Batista turning heel in 2009 on Rey Mysterio. I never thought that was gonna happen, I thought Dave was gonna get a send off feud as a face or just be written off in an injury angle to take time off before returning...

 

[Miakisaki]

Hogan turning on WCW will always be the big one. It was the one absolutely nobody saw coming, and was one of the most gutsy moves WCW could have ever made booking wise. The Rock joining the Corporation, Austin joining the Alliance, and Scott Steiner turning on Rick Steiner are all suitable runners up.

But none will ever be as big as the leg drop to Savage and WCW.

 

[Radical Canadian Goose]

Great Post as always Brain. Ok so I've got four. 2 have been mentioned , the other two I don't think have been. They are all heel turns as I really don't find face turns all that exciting. Ok the two that have already been mentioned are Hogan turning heel and joining NWO and Slaughter turning heel

Now for the two I haven't seen yet:

Rikishi running over Austin: Yes this was a horrible horrible angle, but to throw Rikishi of all people out there as the attacker could have been a great turn if done properly... However it was done horribly and he was back to dancing Rikishi shortly after

JBL after APA goes there seperate ways... Faarooq retires and he and Bradshaw hug it out and go their seperate ways.... Bam 2 weeks later JBL comes out in the main event and attacks Eddy Guerrero (?) catapulting him as a legit heel force and making him one of the greatest heels of the past 20 years.

I'm not sure if I was exactly accurate with my descriptions (sure someone will point it out) , my memory sucks lately, but this is what I think happened. Also , other than Hogan, I don't think that anybody that joined the NWO was that shocking because it seemed to happen on a weekly basis

 

[Midnite Express 2009]

Two come to mind that at the time you just did NOT see coming, even though you should have: The 1st was in 1980 when Ole Anderson turned on Dusty Rhodes and the 2nd was when Ted DiBiase turned in Mid-South in 1985.

1st of all, Dusty Rhodes was in a major program with The Assassins and Ivan Koloff for quite a while heading into 1980 and was trying to find the right partner to help in his quest to rid the Georgia Championship Wrestling territory of the Russian & big masked men. Finally, Ole Anderson agreed to help Dusty, despite their history of being at odds against each other. A cage match was set up between Ole & Dusty against the Assassins with none other than Ivan Koloff as the special guest referee. For one reason or another Rhodes agreed to this, thinking at least Ole Anderson would help if things got shaky. Apparently, he didn't get the memo:

Ole Anderson was finally tagged in after Rhodes went through most of the bout battling the Assassins by himself and out of nowhere Anderson viciously attacked with the aid of the tag team AND Koloff. The fans did NOT see this coming whatsoever, nor did Dusty Rhodes. In fact, the fans tried to strom the ring, literally, and tear apart the cage to aid Dusty and get to the villians. It was one of the most incredible and remarkable sights ever in wrestling, something that may never be seen again. Rhodes went on TV the next few weeks complaining about it, knowing damn well he should have never picked Anderson as a partner. If you wanna know what this whole situtaion looked like, please go to youtube and search The Biggest Turn of 1980.

The next on my list is when Ted DiBiase turned face in 1985 in Mid-South Wrestling after years of being a heel. This is widely considered the greatest turn (face or heel) ever, due to the way it was done, the amount of time it was done and who all was invloved, which included then NWA World Champion Ric Flair, Butch Reed, Dick Murdock & Dick Slater. Yes, all these people, in 1 hour created one of the greatest turns ever...

Without getting too deep into everything, what happened was that Flair decided he was only going to defend the World Title against the number one contender, which at that time was the North American Champion who happened to be Dick Murdock. Butch Reed said he wanted a shot, and thus he needed to beat Murdock to be the new number one contender. After interrupting Reed's interview time, Murdock was forced to face him in a title match, which Butch Reed won, which made him the new number one contender and new North American Champion.

Flair tried to hire Dick Slater to injure Reed, which led to a non-title match, Reed won but after the match Flair & Slater gave a spike piledriver to Reed, inujring his neck and tossing him out of the title picture. The next week Bill Watts said Flair had to defend his title on Mid-South TV. Enter Ted DiBiase.

Watts said that since Ted had waited a year for a World Title match, the match that Reed was supposed to have was now his. This enflamed Dick Murdock who at 1st asked DiBiase to step aside, and when he didn't Murdock attacked Ted DiBiase, slamming his head on the outside ring post and busting him open, this was only the 1st hour.

As the night went on Flair assumed he wasn't going to have to defend his title, but then out come Ted DiBiase, all banged up to wrestle Flair anyway. The fans ate it up as Ted's face turn was complete and the rest they say, is history...ah, the good ole days of pro wrestling. Gotta love it!

 

[SaveUsCMPunk]

Chyna leaving DX to join the Corporation. It was an "I Quit" match between Triple H and The Rock. The Corporation threatened bodily harm on Chyna and made Triple H say "I Quit." They let her go and afterwards she hit Triple H with a low blow. I think I might have been somewhat surprised by that. I can't remember.

Going back further, I'd probably say Bob Backlund turning heel after losing a match to Bret Hart. I don't think Backlund was doing much at all before this turn. He seemed like the guy who would never be a heel because he was all about sportsmanship and being a good role model. But man, did he ever pull that turn off and did a damn good job of portraying a crazy lunatic!

 

[willross]

Hogan's heel turn is on a level of its own....THE TOP. It was unheard of for such a clean cut babyface to turn let alone THE BIGGEST FACE IN THE BUSINESS, probably the BIGGEST FACE EVER (clean cut face of course, Austin wasn't clean cut).

Including everything other than that, Trish had a solid heel turn at WM20but the one that had me dropping my mouth was HHH at WM15 and HHH on RAW in 2002 on HBK.

At WM15, I was actually pretty smart to the business already even at 10 yrs old, and I didn't think HHH would do anything after leaving DX and that he was not World Champion material.

In 2002, I was unaware HBK was healthy enough to wrestle and that HHH had not been a babyface that long so I was convinced they would reunite DX and have HBK as his manager.

I give an honorable mention to Austin at WM17, but I was too loyal to him to treat him as a heel like most of the audience (which is why this heel turn did not work)

 

[Wolf Pac]

If I was watching wrestling at the time, I would go with Hogan's turn. I'll go with The Rock's turn at Survivor Series 98. Thing is though I wasn't watching Raw at the time, just PPV's only, so I didn't know there was a small feud going on between Rock & Vince on Raw prior to Survivor Series. It was like a random out of the blue heel turn for me at the time. But now that I've seen Rock & Vince's Raw feud prior to SS on Youtube, you still wouldn't have been able to guess that Rock wasn't gonna join Vince anyway.

Other heel turns I didn't see coming were...

-Shane McMahon's heel turn at Survivor Series 98 aswell
-Stephanie McMahon's heel turn at Armageddon 99
-Rikishi revealing himself as the man who ran over Austin thus turning heel
-Austin's WM 17 heel turn
-Taker's heel turn at the end of 2001
-Flair's heel turn at Unforgiven 2002
-Coach's heel turn at Summerslam 2003
-HBK's heel turn on Hogan in 2005

 

[Chadmw]

An oldie but a favourite of mine was when Yokozuna challenged anyone to try and bodyslam him on the 4th of july on a US Battle carrier (I can't remember which). Everybody from wrestlers to professional football players tried to slam him and couldn't. When it seemed like the contest was over and no one could do it, a helicopter lands on the ship and out comes Lex Lugar, who up to this point at been a full fledged heel

He came out and slammed Yokozuna, turning himself into one of the biggest faces of the company at that time

 

[Tattooed Jesus]

I was always pretty good at being able to predict what was gonna happen with wrestling, since I have been watching pretty much as long as I have been alive. One of my all time favorite turns that I never saw coming was when Lex Luger turned face and left the 4 Horsemen. I remember they were having one of the Bunkhouse Stampede Battle Royal Matches. JJ Dillon, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, and Lex Luger were the last 4 in the ring. Arn and Tully eliminate themselves just climbing over the top ropes. Dillon turns to Luger expecting him to do the same but Luger then throws Dillon over the top rope onto Arn and Tully! I was so excited, I thought it was awesome!

I also loved when Nikita Koloff turned faced teaming the Russian Nightmare with the American Dream Dusty Rhodes! Koloff had been having an amazing feud with Magnum TA and then Magnum had his career ending car accident. I was shocked to see Koloff who was this amazing monster heel, even garnering Flair cheers when Flair was the top heel, but Koloff got such amazing Russian Heel Heat, to see him turn face was just unbelievable to me at the time.

 

[D. Nocturnal]

Here's my list

Rock turn at Survivor Series - After killing off the dreadful Rocky Mavia character the WWF/E hit pay dirt with The Rock character and looked like they were going to make him one of the top faces of the company before calling everyone trailer park trash. Classic.

Barry Windhman - Turning on Lex Luger. At that time I hated the Horseman and was a big Windham fan and his turn was truly shocking. Now I look upon Flair, Windham, Anderson and Blanchard as being the best Horesmen unit of all times.

Chris Adams - Turning on the Von Erichs. Who would have thought Adams would have ever turned against the beloved Von Erichs.

 

[The Idiot]

I never saw the Crush heel turn coming.

I remember Yoko vs Crush for the title on Monday Night Raw, and Yoko putting him out of action for a few months by giving him 4 Bansai drops. When Crush returned he attacked Savage and blamed him for not helping. Not only did I not see that coming, when Crush walked out to the ring for an interview he came out with Mr. Fuji....didn't really make sense but it was definitely a heel turn I did not see coming.

If anyone has the actual video of Crush attacking Savage for the first time I'd like to see it. My memory is a little foggy on what exactly went down.