10 WWE Superstars You Totally Forgot Were Heel
9. Santino Marella
Superstars that find themselves in the role of a comedy act are many times typecast for the rest of their professional wrestling career.
It's not always a death knell, as some talents have lasted much longer doing the "ha ha" than they ever would playing a straight role. It's also nothing new to the world of WWE, as Vince McMahon has been presenting comical wrestlers and wrestling acts for decades.
Some of the comedy acts made it quite far as the wrestler that made fans laugh, even leading to a main event rub now and then. In many cases, these WWE superstars didn't start out as the goofball they'd come to be. In fact, many started out as a boo-inducing heel.
Santino Marella is one of those superstars.
Santino had millions of fans all over the world. With The Cobra as one of the silliest finishing moves in all of WWE, Santino was the smiley, fun-loving, proud Italian that could make even the most rugged of wrestlers crack a smile.
Those aren't exactly characteristics typically associated with a wrestling villain, and while those traits were subdued during the middle part of his WWE career, Santino Marella did portray a heel before becoming the comedy wrestler he is most famous for being.