8 Babyfaces The WWE Universe Turned Heel

5. Santino Marella

Batista promo 2014
wwe.com

As his WWE career came to an end, we the audience got used to Santino Marella as a lovable comedic babyface character. He had played that role for a few years, turning up whenever the mood needed to be lightened or someone needed to be hit with the Cobra.

It is easy to forget, however, that when Santino Marella first arrived on the main roster he did so as a hometown hero, plucked from obscurity (well, the Milan crowd) to defeat Umaga for the Intercontinental Championship. His 'hometown' crowd went wild as the Milan Miracle made the most of a Lashley interference to win gold on his first night.

The problem was that once that novelty had worn off, the fans utterly despised him. Outside of the shock debut bubble, Marella was a joke, and when Umaga destroyed him to win the IC Championship back the crowd cheered along with the Samoan Savage.

A heel turn was the only option.

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Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.