Switching a wrestling characters alignment from heel to face or vice versa can be a tricky thing. There are two strategies that most bookers use when doing so. You can either take the temperature of your audience and turn a performer based on crowd response, or you can pull a swerve and switch them with no warning. Its a good way to freshen up a talent who has been languishing and gives the creative team the opportunity to utilize an all-new approach. Unless its The Big Show. Then its just his usual bi-monthly turn. Its easy to look back at instances when a wrestler changed philosophies and became a huge success. Hulk Hogans metamorphosis into Hollywood, Nikita Koloff choosing to fight in honour of Magnum TA and Michael Hayes slamming the cage door on Kerry Von Erich are all prime examples of turns that provided a tremendous boost for their respective promotions. But what about cases when a turn didnt work out? Those arent as easy to illustrate. Im not sure if thats a statement about the ability of the creative minds to read the pulse of the fans or just an observation on wrestling fans willingness to gobble up what weve been fed. Regardless, it happens a lot more rarely than youd think. Here are ten of the most notable turns (and why they failed).
Brad Hamilton is a writer, musician and marketer/social media manager from Atlanta, Georgia. He's an undefeated freestyle rap battle champion, spends too little time being productive and defines himself as the literary version of Brock Lesnar.
