10 WWE Wrestlers Who Benefited Most From Turning Heel

It is often suggested that lowly office workers need to take on a ruthless streak in order to make real their dreams of a seat at the boardroom table.

And the same is true in professional wrestling, where turning your back on ingrate fans and making use of the referees' unfortunate habit of being knocked unconscious for five minutes after minimal contact can often result in a sudden ability to punch above your weight.

There are countless examples throughout history of wrestlers who struggled to make it beyond the mid-card as a clean-cut good guy all at once becoming a certified main event star after being lured over to the dark side.

Mostly, this is because it's simply far easier to play a heel, particularly in today's WWE, where ostensible fan favourites seldom practice what they preach (cough, Roman Reigns).

Their promos invariably become sharper and funnier, free from the fear of saying the wrong thing in the wrong city (well, mostly anyway: Braun Strowman still got an ear-bashing from Vince for saying title shot instead of match).

One tip though: you still need to pretend you're a nice guy on Twitter.

Everyone loved R-Truth's sing-along entrance for the first 150 times, but the novelty eventually wore off, and when it did the former TNA star became another bland good guy in a WWE mid-card full of bland good guys.

Instead of accepting a tough hand, Truth used his lack of progress as a catapult, by claiming that he was the victim of a fan-led conspiracy to prevent him from seeing that his main event potential was fulfilled.

Almost instantly, he was rewarded with a place in Capitol Punishment's headline match, where he unsuccessfully challenged John Cena for the WWE Championship.

And while he never got as far as winning the belt, that brief run in 2011 still - to this day - represents the most successful one of Truth's WWE career.