7 Greatest People's Champions In Wrestling History

5. The Working Class Hero

By rights, €˜Stone Cold€™ shouldn€™t have been as hugely popular as he was. The biggest draw in professional wrestling history was, by every conceivable metric except one, a heel. All he did when he turned babyface was tone down the psychotic evil simmering under the surface of his skin and stop specifically targeting babyfaces. That's it. He was still the same guy, only the fans cheered him even louder. Some people call Classic Austin a tweener rather than a babyface, but I€™ve never agreed with that definition. The people were 100% behind him at all times, and every single reaction to the character was the reaction of a delighted crowd welcoming their hero. It just so happened that, in this case, the crowd€™s favourite wrestler was a grouchy redneck with no friends and a hair trigger temper. Perhaps they could relate to that, who knows? A lot of people talking about wrestling in 2016 come from the position of people who€™ve watched a lot of old matches on YouTube or the Network and read about old feuds and eras they were too young for in magazines and blog posts. If that€™s you, then let me clear something up for you right now. The pop every time - every single time - the WWF crowd hears glass breaking is epic. There are bigger individual pops, but Austin€™s regular, ordinary it€™s-just-RAW-guys pop is consistently insane. The blue collar angry guy thing only ever worked as well as it did because his perennial antagonist was a gulping cartoon monster in the shape of his boss. Mr. McMahon couldn€™t fire Austin because he was money, but he couldn€™t mould him either, so he blindsided, coldcocked and sideswiped him as often as possible, and got a fiery Texas Rattlesnake all up in his grille as a consequence. WWF fans ate it up with a spoon, identifying with Austin. Who wouldn't want to flip off their boss and drop them with a Stunner before cracking open a beer or six? Austin did it and the fans loved him for it.