Rooting for the Bad Guy: Why WWE Heels Are Being Cheered by Fans More and More

For many years, there was one universal truth to wrestling: you cheered the good guys and booed the bad guys.

That was how it was when I was growing up. When Razor Ramon was a bad guy, I hated his guts. When he was a good guy, I cheered him on.

The landscape of wrestling has changed in so many ways since I grew up watching in the 80s and heels getting face reactions is one of the biggest changes I have noticed. It is very common these days to hear someone like Dolph Ziggler, Cody Rhodes or Alberto Del Rio being cheered by the crowd through chants.

One reason why this has changed is because the way many fans look at wrestling has changed.

We no longer tune in to see the good guy trounce the bad guy with a scathing promo and devastating finishing move. We tune in because we are hoping to see something awesome.

A five-star match, a pipebomb-worthy promo or a debut that is unexpected are all things we thrive on, but one thing wrestling fans appreciate above all else is a notable performance.

This is where WWE finds itself stuck between a rock and a hard place. Some of its best performers are heels and people will often cheer for who is the best, not who they are told to cheer for.

Take Steve Austin, for example. He was a heel who was being cheered so heavily that WWE had no choice but to turn him into a face.

Randy Orton had the same thing happen to him during his very long feud with John Cena. Fans became sick of Cena and were being entertained by Orton's amazing heel performances. Naturally, the cheers shifted to Orton.

Now we are seeing the same thing happen with some of today's up-and-coming heels and it is something WWE cannot fight any longer.

Dolph Ziggler will regularly have a chant break out for him during matches these days and Cody Rhodes has seen the same treatment.

So, why are heels more entertaining and thus being cheered more and more by fans?

The answer is really quite simple. Heels are more interesting characters in today's WWE.

The psychology of how a fan views wrestling has changed due to increased exposure to the backstage scene in wrestling as well as being more connected to their favorite stars through various platforms.

Most of the baby faces we see today are pretty watered-down due to the PG limitations and a lack of outrageous characters among the good guys.

The heels of WWE get to be more controversial with their promos, more vicious with their attacks and have more range with what they can do on a weekly basis.

The reason guys like Stone Cold and The Rock were able to transition so smoothly between heel and face several times is because they did not change the gimmick—just who they directed themselves towards.

Randy Orton has managed to maintain some of what made him a great heel, but even he has lost some of the edge that pushed him to where he is when he was a heel. The same can be said about Kane.

We are no longer just dealing with faces and heels. Tweeners are becoming more and more prevalent in WWE and recent shifts have proven that .

Chris Jericho and Kane are both seemingly faces now, but neither one really had a turn from being heel. They just showed up one day, focused on another heel and they became good guys again.

This is going to become more and more common, especially when you have guys like Daniel Bryan, who can back up any trash talk with an outstanding performance against the biggest of superstars.

WWE saw how fans reacted to Bryan after the "yes" chants caught on, so the company embraced it. This is what it needs to do when something unexpected happens, like a heel getting baby face reactions.

We are seeing the development of another tweener with CM Punk. He attacked The Rock on Raw 1000, but the next week, he came out and made his case, which actually seemed to satisfy the crowd which was listening in.

20 years ago, you could not have one of the biggest baby faces in history be downed by the current baby face champion and not have that champion turn heel. Nowadays, it is an easy thing to do.

Before I end, allow me to ask you something. Who are your top five favorite, current WWE wrestlers and how many of them are heels?

I am betting most people's list will contain a heel or two.