10 WWE Stars Who Need To Turn In 2017

It is a testament to the shifting perception of John Cena in 2017 that there are so few overtures to turn the man heel.

In any other year prior to 2015, he would have been front and centre of any such list. The man was beyond stale; the mould of his act had grown bacteria, so rich with mycotoxins that it sickened fans everywhere and contaminated all around him. His feud with Bray Wyatt was the absolute nadir of the SuperCena act. Wyatt, then one of the most promising acts WWE had introduced in years, was no match for him. Neither were his gigantic henchmen Luke Harper and Erick Rowan. Cena handily thrashed all three before being spooked by a little kid at Extreme Rules 2014.

It's a victory for persistence, if nothing else. WWE resisted the temptation to turn Cena for so long that fans, buoyed by his career best work as United States Champion in 2015, finally relented. It was clear that the publicly traded WWE had no intention of disrupting a proven money-making formula, anyway.

They were ultimately right to maintain the status quo. Simply switching a performer's alignment isn't a shortcut to relevance or success; Dolph Ziggler is evidence enough of that.

That said, a well-engineered turn can do much - even everything - for a performer's career. Stone Cold Steve Austin changed the business by changing his alignment in 1997. Nobody has that potential in 2017 - but many desperately need the platform.

It's ironic: Stephanie McMahon's best for business schtick as Authority figurehead and RAW Commissioner is absolutely dire for business.

RAW ratings started tumbling - even by the declining standards of the wider cable TV trend - in 2013. The spiral occurred in parallel with the introduction of Stephanie's unbearable, self-serving megalomaniac corporate character. That surely isn't a coincidence because Stephanie is an atrocious heel. She has completely failed to grasp the essence of how a great antagonist is meant to function - i.e., to drip feed catharsis to her audience. She takes an inadvertent bump once per year - a necessary caveat in the PG era - but one moment of retribution hardly excuses a year of detached and obnoxious burials.

With Kurt Angle installed as a babyface General Manager, the stage is unfortunately set for Stephanie McMahon to return and castrate him for some such business decision or other - as all the while, fans push their fingers into their eyeballs with the ironic knowledge that it is the creative regime Stephanie oversees that is to blame for the programme's awful quality.

This entry is as unrealistic as the highest, somewhat predictable suggestion - but a Stephanie McMahon face turn would instantly empower every single member of the roster. Surely, that should be the point. Who wants to watch a bunch of subservient combat athletes bow at her dominance?

Very few, if ratings are a reliable metric. Sadly, they're not. Even WWE knows this.