10 Biggest Heat Moments From WWE’s Most Popular Wrestlers

There used to be a time when faces were faces and heels were heels, but wrestlers today have to be prepared to swing both ways.

Apart from the risk of growing stale by sticking with the same persona for too long - something for which the likes of John Cena and, prior to his nWo-led turn in the mid-90s, Hulk Hogan, have been heavily criticised - the sheer volume of shows means that you have to turn every now and then to generate some fresh feuds.

Almost everyone on the WWE roster these days has competed both as a crowd favourite and a dastardly bad guy, and even those who have only worn one guise have probably also tasted both adulation and animosity from the audience at various different times.

Fans won't always cheer you, no matter how much you try and pander to their demographic with dated pop cultural references and cringe-inducing dad jokes. But that's one thing that's definitely not new: we've seen popular wrestlers - both as heels as in their peak mega-face runs - getting jeered for years.

Apart from when he's supporting Roman Reigns, it's hard to imagine WWE crowds booing Dwayne Johnson, but things were a little frostier when he first made the move to Hollywood fifteen years ago. The Rock's last full-time run in early-2003 saw him pitted against Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, and latterly Goldberg, allowing him to reprise his role as a trash-talking heel and soak up all that resentment lingering just beneath the surface.

Whipping up some jeers north of the border with some anti-Canada material is cheap, but The Rock made sure that the crowd knew he was laughing at them as opposed to with them. There was in-good-fun pantomime booing, for sure - and the Toronto fans were never far from the palm of the undisputed mic master's hand - but there was at least a little genuine heat there too.