10 Wrestling Heels Who Generated The Most Heat
Bring The Noise.
No (dis)honourable mentions here would mirror the sort of disrespectful gesture these despicable men and women excelled at.
Vickie Guerrero provoked a cacophony through her shrill mastery of go-away heat that we somehow grew to love to hate. It helped that she sold, Stephanie. Using a similarly cheap but altogether different strategy, the Dudley Boyz incited near-riots in the old ECW Arena with their vile verbiage and woman-battering. Jerry 'The King' Lawler raised the decibel level in the WWF with his hysterical Hart Family character assassinations, and, before he became the everlasting hero of the Memphis territory, those fans called for a regicide with his foreign object-wielding viciousness. Heel Terry Funk subsequently accused the babyface Lawler of loving "chickens" to a molten reaction. Drop the "en" out of it, is more like it.
Even in this modern era, in which the heels are babyfaces and the babyfaces are heels, we've seen something of a return to the basics. Tommaso Ciampa specifically trains not to wrestle, but to be a prick. Jay White is pure scum, and it helps that he's not yet great enough to compromise his gimmick with the dreaded respect factor.
They are great - but there used to be riots goin' on...
10. Shawn Michaels
Complicit in but not the orchestrator of the Montreal Screwjob, Shawn Michaels was such a heat magnet in late 1997 that he started a riot in Little Rock, Arkansa.
This was some achievement: for all their vocal protests and festering resentment of the product, the WWF/WWE fandom was and is more placid than most, far better-behaved than those in Puerto Rico or even the southern United States territories. Michaels refused to appear by Triple H's side for his main event match against Dude Love, effectively calling it an early night over the microphone. An ultra-rare WWF riot ensued, one that spoke to Michaels' status as persona non grata.
In Little Rock, Michaels the man drew the ultimate heel reaction.
When Michaels the performer returned to the scene of the Screwjob in 2005, he drew the next best thing: one of the most hate-fuelled, boisterous reactions ever heard in a WWE arena.
Michaels was always going to receive a toxic reaction - but the genius of this performance is in his amplification of that reaction. He was so oily that you couldn't believe he turned face in real life. This felt like the mask slipping, it was so authentic, and when Michaels acted completely nonplussed at the blaring squall of Bret Hart's entrance theme, the pop grew to legendary proportions.
And then, after it became apparent that Michaels had only popped himself, the jeers rained down on HBK and his guile like a sonic boom.