WWE Remains Inconsistent in Establishing Babyfaces and Heels

The Undertaker returned Sunday at WWE Battleground and acted like a heel.

He interrupted a WWE Championship main event—featuring special attraction Brock Lesnar—with 20 minutes left in the show. He kicked Lesnar in the groin. His facial expressions indicated malice and bitterness.

All to avenge a clean loss that occurred two WrestleManias ago. Since then, fans have moved on. Despite committing the unspeakable act of ending Undertaker's streak—and maybe even because of it—Lesnar was eventually embraced as WWE's top babyface.

Undertaker is in the rarefied air of a WWE legend whom fans will cheer no matter what. But that shouldn't give WWE an excuse to skip the basic storytelling that establishes good from evil.

As I mentioned on the PodNasty Wrestling Podcast, these lapses in storytelling are trickling down to the entire product, as WWE's inconsistencies with babyfaces and heels make angles less enjoyable.

The Bella Twins have gone back and forth over the last few months. They were babyfaces in a recent match against Naomi and Tamina at WWE Payback, but they quickly switched to heels as they used Twin Magic to defeat Paige weeks later at WWE Money in the Bank.

The Bellas are established as a dynasty in a division begging for change. This makes them natural heels, especially to impassioned wrestling snobs who are antsy to see the NXT Divas compete on the main roster. There is no reason for WWE to play around with a built-in formula of the Bellas' evil empire.

Even the ongoing Divas revolution is marred in ambiguity. Last week, top heel Stephanie McMahon suddenly became the champion of women's rights. Doing her best Rosie the Riveter impression, McMahon made the popular decision to call up three NXT Divas.

One of these performers was NXT champion Sasha Banks, who worked heel on Raw before portraying a likable, heroic champion during Wednesday's NXT broadcast.

With WWE characters refusing to stick to a defined role, fans will have trouble getting emotionally invested. Not every WWE talent will have enough time to fully develop a character of clear-cut good or evil intentions, but this excuse should not exist for champions and authority figures.

United States champion John Cena spent the last few weeks on television with heel-like advantages over Rusev. In the main event, Cena's team enjoyed an easy three-on-one advantage over Rusev Monday on Raw.

Last week, Cena gladly pounced on an exhausted Rusev as part of the United States Championship open challenge, just moments after Rusev's competitive match against Cesaro. The move elicited boos from the crowd as Cena, despite being WWE's resident white knight, came off as a heel.

After over a full decade as WWE's poster boy, Cena will never be confused with a heel. However, this doesn't absolve WWE of paying attention to the little details that made him a top babyface to begin with.

Stephanie McMahon's Twitter bio currently reads "I play a bad guy on TV." That flippant mentality is beginning to tie into her on-camera persona, in addition to that of other key stars who pick and choose when to "play the bad guy." 

With more consistencies between babyfaces and heels, WWE will create more complete storylines that will not run the risk of either confusing fans or, even worse, making them indifferent to the performers.

Alfred Konuwa is a featured columnist and on-air host for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @ThisIsNasty and subscribe to his weekly wrestling podcast.