Evolution of the top heel

In wrestling there are alot of heel & face turns, in TNA there are turns way too often, but WWE does it so beautifully, that however is not the point of topic, but it does bring up two stars who have been heeling it up for years now on the other side of the fence.

Ric Flair is arguably the greatest heel of all time, spenidn most of the 80's & most of the 90s as the top heel of the NWA & WCW, and even his stint with the WWF. He had face runs of course but he will always be the great heel. Along with his cronies the 4 Horsemen he ruled NWA & WCW with an iron fist, puttign on great, matches with the lieks of Dusty Rhodes, Sting, Lex Luger, & Ricky Stemaboat, yes Luger used to be able to work damn good matches. His contsts were usually pretty long too, as he truly looked like a champion & WOOOO by gawd was the Man, not only may he be the best heel of all time, but i'd list his as one of the greatest if not THE greatest champion of all time. He embodied excess of the 80's, he elite, the status obsessed, and was amazing on the mic.

Two men who emulated The Nature Boy were Shawn Michaels & Triple H, Shawn portrayed a cocky boy toy character that turned face before he could become the top heel in the company for too long, once he returned to his heel ways he began to team with HHH. HHH was a BLUE Blood heel who has intercontinental title runs but never even cracked the main event(curtain call is to be blamed) and a Face HBK vs Heel HHH feud in 96 would've been great, but alas things worked out for the best. As the two real life chums became on on screen stable it was during the beginning of the Attitude era and DX was born. The ran wild on Raw, bullying Michael Cole, sticking Canadian flags in nostrils, referencing their dicks, & breaking kayfabe. Shawn went into retirement for 4 years and left DX witha new leader in HHH. HHH turned them face, and the clicked with WWF's young adult audience and were rebels against Vince McMahon & his corporation, but as i said, wrestlers turn and so did HHH. He joined the corporation & took on a new aggressive side, and became obsessed with winning the WWF title. In my opinion one of the greatest chases for the gold of all time, he went through The Rock, Steve Austin, attacking Jim Ross, and finally defeating Mankind for the gold. The Game we all know & love was born. HE "married" Stephanie McMahon and gained control of the company(life would imitate art), he then became the Ric Flair and ruled Raw & SMackdown with his iron fist, and his trusty sledgehammer. He even paired up with Ric Flair to do battle against the likes of his old partner Shawn Michaels, RVD, Kane, Kevin Nash, Goldberg, Chris Benoit & so on. He became the first heel to rule the wwe(well Yokozuna technically was but HHH did it longer as Yoko was the man for the better part of 12 months, and my man Randy Savage had some solid runs but not a long title run as a heel, it was a title run that began as a face & ended as a heel), he became what Flair would call him, the measuring stick of profesional wrestling. He & Flair started Evolution with two up & comers named Randy Orton & Batista, eventually they split up and after one last heel run as a singles star, Trips turned face reforming DX with Shawn Michaels this time as faces.

Around this time Edge had become a heel to watch on Raw, much like HHH becoming obsessed with winning the gold, he battled Shawn Michaels, Kane, a face Ric Flair, and Matt Hardy that spawned from a real life incident, eventually he cashed in his money in the bank briefcase & defeated John Cena to win his first WWE title. The run didn't last long but after a great feud with Mick Foley he & Cena reignited the feud & Edge got in a longer run. Randy Orton on the other hand had a failure of a face run, resulting in him turning heel & feuding with The Undertaker, the feud lasted the better part of 2005 & Orton moved on to feud with Rey Mysterio, Kurt Angle, Hulk Hogan 7 even Carlito. Edge & Orton formed Rated RKO and began a pretty good feud with DX & Ric Flair, the two men both couldn't be top heels on the same show so Edge went to Smackdown.

From 2007 to 2009 Edge was the main heel focus of the show, sure an injury put Khali in the picture but thankfully that didn't last long & a face vs face program was started with Taker & Batista, but once Edge returned he pulled another Triple H and got involved with Smackdowns general manager Vickie Guerrero(all an angle this time though), Vickie generated amazing heat, truly amazing heat, and that bounced right off & on to Edge, After a long feud with the Undertaker & Jeff Hardy, Edge eventually joined forces with Chis Jericho, who has been the mvp of the entire wwe for 2 years now, Edge got injured yet again which led to Jericho berating Edge on tv & like that, Edge was face. Jericho became champion after Edge returned from injury and the two are now in the World title match at WrestleMania.

Chris Jericho as i said has been the mvp of wwe for 2 years, and that all peaked from an injured Randy Orton. Orton had become the top heel on Raw, punting RVD, Michaels & Dusty Rhodes in the skull & starting a feud with John Cena. The feud with Cena began to involve HHH in what would become common throughout 2008 & 2009. Orton was injured in the summer of 98 & Jericho picked up the ball. Jericho began the best rivalry of the past few years with SHawn Michaels, an intense 7 month feud that involved several other talents on certain points, Jericho would torment Michaels every week on Raw & on pay per views, he started a righteous man character of sorts attacking several shortcomings & flaws on his enemies, particularly HBK. Orton reurned from injury & his new direction spoke the ugly truth aswell, going after authority figures & champions, eventually forming a stable with Cody Rhodes & Ted Dibiase. The student had become the teacher, and his whole look was changed, shorter hair, slower walk, a calculating ring style, and a snake like attack. He would go after Vince McMahon, Triple H, John Cena & Kofi Kingston, sure he may have stalled out a bit after last years Mania, but picked up full force again in his feud with Kofi. Seeds had been planted for Ted Dibiase to turn face & feud with Orton, but wwe never pulled the trigger & Dibiase soon became just a stooge in the fan's eyes. They began to cheer for Orton in a heel vs heel feud with Sheamus & eventually went full face, but luckily retaining all his heel characteristics.

So the two top heels of the past 5 years are both now faces, Jericho is still a top heel on Smackdown & Batista has become a great intriguing heel on Raw cutting damn good promos that make us non Cena fans smile.

Other great heels who have reached the top in recent years include JBL & CM Punk, i would've said Booker T put i truly hated the Kind Booker persona, and i still believe Eddie Guerrero could've had a great heel title run, though they were going for a face run before his sad passing. Other great heels work however in recent years: Jeff Jarrett, Kurt Angle, Big Show(loved his run on WWEcw) Miz(future star), John Morrison(better a s a heel imo), William Regal, Christian(would've been amazing heel champ on SD in 2005, same goes for Muhammad Hassan). But nothing will compare to Ric Flair & Triple H.