Who's your favorite "old school" heel?

[Guest Some Guy]

I always loved watching Rick Rude.  As a little mark he and Perfect were the only "bad guys" I cheered for.  In his preinjury WCW days he had the most heel heat I've ever heard (watch SuperBrawl 2 for evidence).  After his 1st back injury he came back with great heat but not what it once was.  He was a solid worker, who had a tendency to get lazy.  But his gimmick and heel charisma made him a star.

His pre-match promo, which he innovated as far as I know was always great.  "What I'd like to have right now is for all you fat, ugly, out-of-shape inner-city sweathogs to keep the noise down while I take my robe off and show the ladies what a real man is supposed to look like.  Hit the music."

 

Memories of childhood kick ass.

 

Ravishing Rick Rude: R.I.P.

[Guest Tony149]

I also say Rick Rude, Mr. Perfect, Ric Flair, Every member (Arn, Tully & J.J. Dillion) of the original 4 Horsemen except Ole, Every member of the Dangerous Alliance, and Vader. All those guys were awesome.

[Guest dreamer420]

Ted DiBiase was a terrific heel.  His gimmick would get over during any period of wrestling.

 

Flair was great because he could talk and back it up in the ring.

[Guest Tony149]

I can't belive I forgot Ted DiBiase. His gimmick is indeed timeless. Same would apply to Rude, and could of been true for Mr. Perfect, but we've seen how that turned out.

[Guest Jimmy]

Mr.Perfect

[Guest]

maybe not so much 'old school', but austin & pillman as the hollywood blonds in '93-era WCW were absolutely awesome.  i remember them main-eventing a show against ric flair & arn anderson just after flair came back from his WWF run, and they were absolutely priceless heels against the horsemen, who were over huge at the time.  i remember pillman imitating the flair strut then making out like his back had gone halfway through it.  i can't believe WCW broke the blonds up in their prime, and it's even sadder that brian passed away before he could fully unleash his great heel persona at the pinnacle of the WWF.

[Guest Tony149]

The Hollywood Blondes were a classic tag team. Their stuff was awesome. The "Flair for the Old", "Your brush with greatness is over!", etc. Great stuff. I think WCW decided to break them up after their match with the returning Ric Flair & Arn Anderson drew a low rating at the Clash of the Champions.

[Guest]

another favourite heel of mine when i was younger, and even what i would consider the best heel i have ever seen, was jake roberts "trust me" run in mid-late '91.  the randy savage snakebite angle was awesome, and  i remember the tuesday in texas promo he cut at survivor series that year being absolutely spine chilling.  unfortunately the macho man completely squahsed him in about 5 minutes as the blow-off to that feud and the character was pretty much done for in the WWF after that.

 

I hear he managed to generate a fair bit of heel heat down in Mexico before going to WCW, but don't know much of the details other than that he feared for his life at times.  Evil Jake ruled.

[Guest Sloeberdeef]

My favorite "old-school" heel is definitely Mister Perfect. He was always fun to watch, especially when he would over-sell his opponents moves. I also enjoyed Slick as a heel-manager.

[Guest]

I'll have to for "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase. The guy was so cool. I've been watching his early WWF stuff from 1988 on WWF Classics here in the UK and it was really good. Like paying off a pool attendant to throw all of the kids out of the pool and making a woman bark like a dog for $100. The guy got major heat.

[Guest swan]

The Iron Sheik.

 

Back in the early to mid-80's the US was having all kinds of problems w/ Iran so the gimmick was majic. God I hated him and those boots.

[Guest]

I haven't seen much of Iron Sheik's early stuff other than the match where he lost the title to Hogan and his later run as Col Mustafa.  When did he switch gimmicks from Hussein Arab, and what was the difference between the two characters?  Did WWF ever acknowledge them as the same person?

[Guest RetroRob215]

I like all of the names you guys mentioned, but how about Jim Cornette and his charges.  Cornette could turn ANYONE heel just by aligning himself with him.  Cornette, IMO, cut the best heel promos in wrestling.

[Guest swan]

I haven't seen much of Iron Sheik's early stuff other than the match where he lost the title to Hogan and his later run as Col Mustafa.  When did he switch gimmicks from Hussein Arab, and what was the difference between the two characters?  Did WWF ever acknowledge them as the same person?

I didn't really see much of his Col Mustafa gimmick. The difference I guess is Mustafa was more of a militant gimmick during the gulf war and the Iron Shiek became a big heel after the american kidnappings in Iran. The Shiek gimmick ran well into the late 80's. you probally have heard the story of him and hacksaw Duggan getting busted for drugs in 87 while working a program together.

[Guest]

Flair played the best heel there ever was, and backed it with some of the most consistent solid in ring work.

[Guest Dr. Wrestlingphysics]

Ted DiBiase and Ric Flair.

I too have been watching WWF Classics here in Britain, and the skit where DiBiase says he'll pay some kid if he can bounce a basketball 15 times, but then Ted kicks it away at about 13 so he didn't have to pay him was priceless, as was the look on the kid's face!

[Guest barnacles]

The Honky Tonk Man had unbelievable heat-that gimmick was great, I can't believe he was left off of here. Flair and Perfect were superb as heels especially with Heenan, I HATED that guy!! But watching the WWF Classic Cage matches, seeing the heet HTM and Di Biase had was scary. I think a spectator(a child) tried to climb the cage in a di Biase v Macho Man to stop Di Biase and Virgil cheating.

[Guest What?!]

Ted DiBiase because he had the greatest evil laugh ever.

 

"Everybody's got a price. Hahahahaha"

[Guest]

Old Undertaker-Beginning of Atittude ear

Jake the Snake-Cobra bit Macho Man

Earthquake-Squashing Hogan and Damien

IRS-He pissed me off

Ted Dibiase-See IRS

Jimmy Hart-See Honky Tonk Man

Honky Tonk Man-He was annoying back then but fun to lokk back on

Big Bossman-He kicked everyone's ass

[Guest nl5xsk1]

Horsemen (original 4 only ... didn't care for Lex or Barry)

Freebirds

Iron Sheik

Stan Hansen

Rick Rude

Koloff and Kruschev

[Guest monkey]

I always loved Big Van Vader, his feud with Sting was what brought me orginally into wrestling.  I always love monster heels who destroy everything in their path.

[Guest Zack Malibu]

I've always been a big time Hollywood Blondes fan, so I have to agree with the previous praise they've recieved.

 

For me, nothing is better than Old School Roddy Piper.  The coconut incident with Jimmy Snuka is just one event that is forever etched in my mind.

 

Honorable mentions to Ted DiBiase, Mr. Perfect, and Randy Savage.  I hated that man when he injured Ricky Steamboat.

[Guest dreamer420]

Jake Roberts was a pretty good heel.  His promos were always better suited for a heel character and once the wwf found a way for jake to make one of his snakes legit bite someone, he had to turn heel.  The stuff he did with Savage was classic, including slapping the taste out of Liz's mouth.

[Guest Drury37]

Ted Dibiase,Ric Flair and the Dangerous Alliance were probably my favorite old school heels.

Thanks.

[Guest DEEP THOUGHT]

Bad News Brown, by far. He was such a scary looking bad ass who terrified me when I first saw him. Looking back at tapes from the late 80s I loved how he would taunt his opponents while beating on them (sometimes even getting the house microphone to do so) and talk trash to the crowd during all his matches.

[Guest dreamer420]

Bad News Brown, by far. He was such a scary looking bad ass who terrified me when I first saw him. Looking back at tapes from the late 80s I loved how he would taunt his opponents while beating on them (sometimes even getting the house microphone to do so) and talk trash to the crowd during all his matches.

So that's where the Rock stole that gimmick from.

[Guest nl5xsk1]

For the couple of people that mention the Dangerous Alliance, please tell me that you're not including Zbyszko?  He was awful, with his Cruncher nickname and gimmick ... I could never figure out why he was included in the Alliance.  

 

Keep Rude as the top guy, Stunning Steve Austin as the #2 guy (the "AA in the 4Horsemen-era" role) who eventually feuds with the top guy, AA and Eaton as the tag-team, and go with a better #5 (maybe Pillman, I can't think of who else was a midcarder at the time)

 

The only reason why adding a dope number 5 guy would be bad is that it would really set the Alliance up to be TOO powerful, and leave the rest of the federation kind of barren.

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

Ted Dibiase, more than anyone else, was the ultimate heel.  He was sort of a counter to Ricky Steamboat who was the ultimate face.  I cannot imagine Dibiase being a face, whereas someone like Flair has had successful runs as a face.

[Guest]

Johnny Valentine.

 

Super excellent at drawing heat and he never had to say a word.

[Guest treble charged]

Is Bob Backlund's "crazy old man" heel old school enough?

I just loved that angle with him and Bret.