10 Wrestlers We Had To Hate Before We Could Love

8. Tommy Dreamer

Before he became ECW's poster-boy and the 'Innovator Of Violence', Tommy Dreamer was a pretty boy babyface in horrendous green suspenders, cheerful and hated by the notoriously heel-loving ECW crowd. He got what would later be referred to as "die Rocky die": the chant that Attitude Era crowd used on the bluechipper babyface version of Rocky Maivia, before he became The Rock.

Seeking to blur the line between heel and babyface, ECW evil genius Paul Heyman had Dreamer participate in a Singapore Cane Match with The Sandman, who'd become ECW's resident violent psychopath (well, one of ECW's resident violent psychopaths). Anyway, Dreamer took the loss and the ten lashes punishment, and then asked for another, and then another. The crowd began the first stirrings of a turn, empathising just a little more with the defiant Dreamer. It wasn't until his feud with Raven that this turn crystalised into full-on support.

Dreamer was constantly merked by the sociopathic grunge stereotype, pulverised, never able to catch a break. When he finally turned the tide, he had them. Tommy Dreamer was ECW from that moment on. Hard to believe these days, but before that, he was pretty much Mr. Anti-ECW.