10 Massive WWE Babyface Pushes That Were Doomed To Failure
5. The Honky Tonk Man
'Hulk Hogan is my friend!' yelled The Honky Tonk Man in an early interview with heel Don Muraco, in an effort to immediately establish himself a thoroughly bloody nice bloke in 1986's WWE.
Out he came for weeks, slapping hands and grinning to bemused fans, all the while reminding everybody that him and Hogan were tight in a desperate effort to have the audience love him as much as they did 'The Hulkster'. But even back then, there were some performers that fans refused to be sold.
Management spotted the dissonance early, and eventually came up with a fabulously unique way to turn him as well as boost their merchandise mailing list.
Honky himself requested a literal vote of confidence from the audience, resulting in WWE putting an address for fans to send a self-addressed 'yay' or 'nay' in.
The vote was overwhelmingly against the greased-up Memphis fool. Spurned by the fanbase once and for all, Honky went off on a new villainous path never to return before he could be ostracised and scarred by the failed false start.
In the meantime, the company had amassed around half a million new addresses to send catalogues and marketing materials to. It was a canny win-win that seems so foreign in today's self-destructive version of the company.