7 WWE Good Guys The Fans Hated

Kevin Nash had been toiling away in WCW, working an assortment of awful gimmicks including Oz and Vinnie Vegas. WCW had no idea what to do with him. Shawn Michaels did. He saw Nash on TV and decided he’d make a good bodyguard. Both onscreen and in the clubs after the show. Generally HBK was not well liked and felt he needed someone to watch his back. McMahon went along with it as Shawn had his ear at the time. When Nash arrived it didn’t take long for McMahon to see money in the big man. He ticked all of Vince’s boxes. He was tall, billed at seven feet, he was charismatic and he had ring presence.

It wasn’t long before Diesel became McMahon’s flavour of the month. He surpassed Shawn on the pecking order and in the 1994 Royal Rumble eliminated seven men. By the end of the year he was WWF World Heavyweight Champion. It was a meteoric rise but Big Daddy Cool didn’t always click with the fanbase as champion. A prime example is WrestleMania XI, a show where Diesel was the headline act, defending his title against Shawn Michaels. The challenger was perhaps a little over exuberant in his selling during the match, resulting in the crowd favouring the underdog. Shawn was just trying to have the best match he could be ended up garnering sympathy and reminding the crowd how much fun Michaels was to watch.

It almost cut the legs off Diesel’s run and resulted in Vince putting him in against more big men so he could generate sympathy of his own. Nash ended up wrestling the likes of Sid and Mabel in dire matches until he run ended. Meanwhile Michaels was shifted face right after ‘Mania. When Diesel’s title run ended he switched tweener by pointing out he wasn’t a bad guy, or a good guy, he was just Diesel and if you liked him that was cool. This is exactly the same approach that Vince has tried to take with Roman Reigns. The Diesel tweener run didn’t last long and Diesel was turned fully heel to feud with Undertaker and Shawn Michaels on his way out of the door.

Diesel and Reigns have a lot of similarities. They’re both tall and have limited move sets and they both look exactly like Vince McMahon sees his top guy as. The problem they both face is wrestling in a promotion where the undercard talent is often more exciting and more in line with what the fans think of as a star. In Diesel’s time it was the likes of Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. In Roman’s time it’s Kevin Owens, Cesaro, AJ Styles and more. The competition for places on the roster has never been more fierce and the options people have are numerous.