Who would you turn?

[Savior with faith 101]

So Edges retirement has reportedly thrown WWE so much that they have moved the Draft from its reported June slot to next weeks Raw. This is going to give them an opportunity to mix up the roster and also give them an opportunity to address some real Heel/Face balance issues. We have seen people in the past change brands and instantly turn from heel/face just because they have moved brands and use the "im delighted to be on this show" line to do this (and lets be honest it often works)

Raw wrestlers:

Alex Riley
CM Punk
Daniel Bryan
David Hart Smith
David Otunga
Dolph Ziggler
Evan Bourne
Jey Uso
Jimmy Uso
John Cena
John Morrison
Mark Henry
Mason Ryan
Michael McGillicutty
The Miz
Primo
Randy Orton
R-Truth
Santino
Sheamus
Sin Cara
Skip Sheffield
Ted Dibiase
HHH
Tyson Kidd
Vladimir Kozlov
Yoshi Tatsu
Zack Ryder

Smackdown Roster

Alberto Del Rio
Big Show
Brodus Clay
Chavo Guerrero
Chris Masters
Christian
Cody Rhodes
Curt Hawkins
Drew McIntyre
Ezekiel Jackson
Heath Slater
Jack Swagger
JTG
Justin Gabriel
Kane
Kofi Kingston
Rey Mysterio
Trent Barreta
Tyler Reks
Undertaker
Wade Barrett

So with those listed in black as heels we take a look at the remaining faces who are in and around the WWE/WHC title or could be believable in that role. On Raw you have Cena, Orton and Morrison. On Smackdown there is Kofi, Christian, Big Show, Rey Mysterio.

Now out of those Cena and Orton have been in the WWE Title race for long periods of time as faces, whereas Big Show and Rey on Smackdown are winding down their careers. I havent included Taker/HHH as i dont think either of these will be in the title hunt again. Which leaves us with Kofi, Christian and Morrison, none of whom have held one of the big two titles.

To me this points to the fact that WWE needs a top heel to turn face so they have someone who can go to Smackdown and hold a top spot, or to cover for Orton and/or Cena should they be traded.

With this in mind, who would you turn? How would you do it? and when would you do it?

I would personally turn Wade Barrett, yes he hasnt held one of the top titles, but he came hellishly close and was the leader of The Nexus while they were really making Raw interesting. He was in the main event of several PPV's, had high profile matches with John Cena and Randy Orton before somewhat fading away as part of The Corre.

I would have the other members of The Corre start randomly attacking superstars to make an impact without Wade, then have him turn on them due to them not following him, but have him come out while they are attacking someone like Rey/Kofi/Christian. Run interference leading to a 3 on 3 match at Over the Limit.

Yeah its a lazy way to turn someone, but its simple and effective. The Corre storyline is dying rapidly, so get it done, move on and send Wade to the top where he belongs. He is more than good enough on the mic to win over the crowd, and Gabriel/Slater/Jackson are hateable enough to turn him. By Capitol Punishment in June you (hopefully) have a top face to step into the main event with Christian and Del Rio.

 

[The Sparks]

The most obvious to me would be CM Punk because he's been face, he's getting a lot of cheers right now with his character and it would be a nice split from the "New Nexus", which is why it won't happen.

Sheamus is my pick. Moving him to Smackdown as our United States Champion could lead to an impressive face turn if handled right. I'd start with him introducing himself and having Wade Barrett interupt him. Since Barrett is the Intercontinental Champion it leads to which mid-card belt is better and gives Barrett a chance to rip on the United State and how being the champion of the US is pitiful and how could someone from the UK be happy about that. This lead to Sheamus defending America, using some clever Irish slang to embarass and infuriate Barrett, which leads to a beatdown by the Corre. This instantly get's him face reaction and sets up a mid-belt fued. Have Sheamus destroy each member of the Corre in matches (not punting them like Orton) and escape the others possible beat downs to live another day. This all lead up to a title vs title match at the next PPV which has Sheamus win and he is now one of your top faces on Smackdown. Just my idea.

 

[Klown_Karnage]

I actually agree that Sheamus should be turned. He's being kept as a main eventer, so why not see how he does as a babyface? The way I'd do it is by having him feud with Jack Swagger (directly) and Michael Cole (indirectly.) Since Sheamus is the current U.S. Champ and Swagger always goes off on being the All American American, a feud between these two wouldn't be that difficult to arrange and could lead to some excellent and fairly athletic "big man" matches between the two of them. Cole could get in on this by rambling about how more royal he is than the king of the ring (after being "knighted" and all that rubbish.) Sheamus could take offense to this, revealing himself to be something of a royalist of the old school, and threaten some harm to Cole (aided and abetted by the other "King" Lawler.)

I wouldn't have Sheamus go completely face in attitude, but a sort of "mutual respect" thing going on with the other faces isn't far from likely under those circumstances...as long as they don't try to bring in Hornswoggle as Sheamus' mascot.

 

[allentown18]

send orton and sheamus to smackdown but i dont think raw will get a big name they'll keep cena,miz,punk, cara etc but i think they'll send chavo too raw too work with sin cara

 

[OzzyDreamer]

I'm not sure if anyone will agree with this, but don't you feel as if turning Triple H heel again wouldn't be such a bad idea? His match against the Undertaker was missing something: a conniving heel. There is no way that the Undertaker will become a heel again, so it's obvious that Triple H would have to do so if they were to have another Wrestlemania match. Bring back the "Cerebal Assassin" gimmick, and let him run with it. When he was in his prime, he got so much heat it was ridiculous. Triple H is in my top 5 for greatest heels ever, so just let him do what he does best- piss people off.

 

[Savior with faith 101]

I'm not sure if anyone will agree with this, but don't you feel as if turning Triple H heel again wouldn't be such a bad idea? His match against the Undertaker was missing something: a conniving heel. There is no way that the Undertaker will become a heel again, so it's obvious that Triple H would have to do so if they were to have another Wrestlemania match. Bring back the "Cerebal Assassin" gimmick, and let him run with it. When he was in his prime, he got so much heat it was ridiculous. Triple H is in my top 5 for greatest heels ever, so just let him do what he does best- piss people off.

The problem with this is WWE already has far too many heels and not enough faces. Also HHH isnt going to make a dent in the title scene at this stage of his career, hes probably just going to have his series of matches with Taker before riding off into the sunset (or backstage as it were) therefore it wont really help or hinder their challenge of balancing out the heel/face ratio.

 

[Brian in Austin]

So Edges retirement has reportedly thrown WWE so much that they have moved the Draft from its reported June slot to next weeks Raw. This is going to give them an opportunity to mix up the roster and also give them an opportunity to address some real Heel/Face balance issues. We have seen people in the past change brands and instantly turn from heel/face just because they have moved brands and use the "im delighted to be on this show" line to do this (and lets be honest it often works)

Raw wrestlers:

Alex Riley
CM Punk
Daniel Bryan
David Hart Smith
David Otunga
Dolph Ziggler
Evan Bourne
Jey Uso
Jimmy Uso
John Cena
John Morrison
Mark Henry
Mason Ryan
Michael McGillicutty
The Miz
Primo
Randy Orton
R-Truth
Santino
Sheamus
Sin Cara
Skip Sheffield
Ted Dibiase
HHH
Tyson Kidd
Vladimir Kozlov
Yoshi Tatsu
Zack Ryder

Smackdown Roster

Alberto Del Rio
Big Show
Brodus Clay
Chavo Guerrero
Chris Masters
Christian
Cody Rhodes
Curt Hawkins
Drew McIntyre
Ezekiel Jackson
Heath Slater
Jack Swagger
JTG
Justin Gabriel
Kane
Kofi Kingston
Rey Mysterio
Trent Barreta
Tyler Reks
Undertaker
Wade Barrett

So with those listed in black as heels we take a look at the remaining faces who are in and around the WWE/WHC title or could be believable in that role. On Raw you have Cena, Orton and Morrison. On Smackdown there is Kofi, Christian, Big Show, Rey Mysterio.

Now out of those Cena and Orton have been in the WWE Title race for long periods of time as faces, whereas Big Show and Rey on Smackdown are winding down their careers. I havent included Taker/HHH as i dont think either of these will be in the title hunt again. Which leaves us with Kofi, Christian and Morrison, none of whom have held one of the big two titles.

To me this points to the fact that WWE needs a top heel to turn face so they have someone who can go to Smackdown and hold a top spot, or to cover for Orton and/or Cena should they be traded.

With this in mind, who would you turn? How would you do it? and when would you do it?

I would personally turn Wade Barrett, yes he hasnt held one of the top titles, but he came hellishly close and was the leader of The Nexus while they were really making Raw interesting. He was in the main event of several PPV's, had high profile matches with John Cena and Randy Orton before somewhat fading away as part of The Corre.

I would have the other members of The Corre start randomly attacking superstars to make an impact without Wade, then have him turn on them due to them not following him, but have him come out while they are attacking someone like Rey/Kofi/Christian. Run interference leading to a 3 on 3 match at Over the Limit.

Yeah its a lazy way to turn someone, but its simple and effective. The Corre storyline is dying rapidly, so get it done, move on and send Wade to the top where he belongs. He is more than good enough on the mic to win over the crowd, and Gabriel/Slater/Jackson are hateable enough to turn him. By Capitol Punishment in June you (hopefully) have a top face to step into the main event with Christian and Del Rio.

I like your analysis and I'd like to add my own thoughts if I may. I spoke in another thread about how the WWE has a deeper bench v. TNA and how that works in their favor, but I also believe that from a character development and storyline perspective that it can present the writers with tremendous challenges. As avid wrestling fans we understand that characters can change sides practically week to week and it's accepted as part of the business. However, I also believe that avid fans appreciate guys who can pull off a character over an extended period of time and do so convincingly rather than stints on each side of the good guy/bad guy fencelines. An example would be SCSA who pulled off the anti-hero gimmick for the last 10-15 years of his career to great success. The one time they turned him heel during that run it failed miserably and they quickly turned him face again. A guy like Rock has had successful runs on both sides as have HBK and HHH. But those guys tend to be far and few between and usually wind up being much more believable as one versus the other. That said, I like Barrett as a face much more so than Sheamus. I also like Gabriel and Slater as a big heel tag team, ruling the tag team division across the WWE landscape, but it would require WWE returning to the development of tag teams again, which is something I'm not sure they are committed to doing. In the end, I think it will take a major player turning to get the bang for their buck rather than a tweener or relative newcomer even though he (Barrett) has had the fast push to main event status.

 

[OzzyDreamer]

I totally agree that Triple H won't affect the title picture, but I still feel that for the Wrestlemania match next year, he can be a mega heel again. And of course, if they play the whole retirement card again, he can just shake Undertaker's hand at the end of the match or give him a hug or something and he can turn face again just like that.

 

[ERorMACro]

Honestly I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Jack Swagger..if they bring the goofiness back in his character a face turn might work, I felt like he started to go down hill when he was asked to cut the chest bumps, push-ups, goofy smiles...and just become a cocky mean heel..Swagger still needs work with the mic though...but he might be an interesting one...

The best bet though is to keep grooming Morrison and let Christian, Kane, Show and Rey carry the main event Face spots on Smackdown.

They might even simply need to move Morrison over to Smackdown.

 

[J-sin]

I would like to see a double turn....
1. I miss the Heel Triple H (The Arrogant, Selfish, Egotistical,sometimes Cowardly HHH) he has been a face for about the last 4 or 5 years he and Edge were the 2 greatest heels of the past decade.
2. I would also turn Sheamus..... HHH and him should feud again this time roles reversed Triple H could bring up the whole "you stole a year of my career" Revenge angle (similar to CM Punk's revenge on Orton for punting him in the head and forfeiting his title) Trips could really put Sheamus over like he did Batista.

 

[S.J. Maximus]

Triple H should definitely turn heel at least one more time before he retires he's one of the best heels of all time (I put him 3rd behind Flair and Piper) and he could really help some new faces get over, even though there's only roughly 3 unestablished faces on the roster.

That being said, how about Chris Jericho? He's been the heel he can be and now that Miz is ruining the whole monotone gimmick Jericho shouldn't steal the spotlight and outshine Miz, he should come back as a face and excite us with all of his catchphrases. I'd love to see the Ayatollah of Rock 'n' Rollah dominate one more run before he retires

 

[Reddog1146]

To get rid of the corre i would move heath and justin to raw and leave the other two. or you could go the other way around and move wade and ezekiel. Have the tag champs break away or get kicked out, thus turning them face.

 

[jellmoo]

I don't know about Barrett or Sheamus. Don't get me wrong, they are both awesome and amongst my favorites, but I'm not sure about a face turn yet for either man. Barrett is such a natural heel. The guy looks, sounds and acts like a classic heel, to an almost uncanny degree. I think it would be hard to turn him face and keep him that way.

Sheamus I can see, but I have a big fear that a face turn would water him down considerably. I don't trust WWE not to do something ridiculous and team him with Hornswoggle and have him dance around the ring. Also, I don't think he's peaked as a heel yet, which is scary considering how good he is. I think it would be a shame to pull the trigger on a face turn so soon.

CM Punk would be my gut reaction, considering he's been a face before and is getting some pretty good pops now as a heel. If they keep a lot of his heel antics alive, I could see him transitioning to a top face.

My longshot pick is much lower on the totem pole, but there may, just may be something there.

Santino Marella. The pop this guy gets is incredible for a guy booked the way he's booked. Granted, he's a comedy character, but the crowd eats the guy up. Given some clean wins and a strong push, with just a slight tweak to his character, and I think he could actually go somewhere. I don't know if he could anchor a show or be a top main event player, but I think that the reaction he gets now is enough to see just what exactly he can do if he's given an opportunity.