10 Wrestling Heel Turns That Totally Saved Careers

Santino Marella made a huge first impression on his freest WWE Raw appearance. With the show taking place in Milan, Italy, Marella was presented as an unsuspecting fan plucked from the audience to face WWE Intercontinental Champion Umaga, and after a Bobby Lashley assist, Santino took the Samoan monster’s title.

Things went south shortly after the big debut, however. Marella's babyface persona was given little character development, and he struggled to get himself over with American crowds. The experiment hadn't worked, and amidst reports that Vince McMahon wasn’t a fan of the character (and that Santino’s WWE run was about to reach a premature end), the writer’s salvaged his career with a well executed heel turn.

It started with Santino becoming increasingly jealous of his girlfriend, Maria Kanellis, and really kicked in when he ran afoul of Steve Austin, who hosed him with beer in the ring. Now a fully fledged bad guy, Marella started tapping into the comedic material that would carry him for the rest of his WWE run, and eventually establish him as his generation’s greatest comedy wrestler. He turned face again later in his career, but there’s little chance Santino would have made last seven years with the company without his early heel turn.