10 Most Effective Wrestling Heels Of The 21st Century
9. Prince Devitt
Finn Bálor, under his former Prince Devitt guise, revolutionised the heel role in New Japan Pro Wrestling by placing it into a context both familiar and unfamiliar.
New Japan, at least since the onset of the current golden period ushered in by Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shinsuke Nakamura, was a straight-laced promotion framed in a legitimate sporting context, the matches presented by which invariably ended and were wrestled cleanly. Devitt's revolution/evolution was to order his Bullet Club henchmen to interfere in his matches in a manner more congruous to their gaijin homelands. It was a sensation; the Bullet Club were audibly loathed by Japanese audiences, who received their chickensh*t chicanery as something entirely new. Devitt and his Bullet Club act was a novelty for Japanese audiences, but western ears were able to get on board with it, too; foreign New Japan talents are encouraged to turn the airwaves blue. The ceaseless swearing alienated some; the addition of the aggravating Young Bucks alienated yet more.
There is a cool heel dynamic to the Bullet Club, the lasting success of which has much to do with Devitt. The black and white iconography has shifted warehouses of merch, but the acclaim has not once threatened to undermine the principal objective.
Western audiences flock to them, Japanese audiences are reviled by them. Devitt, originator, was a heel both classic and cool.