December is winding down and Christmastime is here, so given the spirit of the season, it means we’re in store for another edition of the annual Naughty and Nice 3-Count, recapping the best babyfaces, heels and tweeners of the year.
As far as how I went about picking these names, I went with a mixture of accomplishments, longevity, intensity and character work, mostly in a kayfabe sense with a smidge of smark added in for taste.
Of course, this is mostly a personal preference and you may disagree entirely, so if that’s the case, give us your list in the comments below!
Keeping all that in mind, which men and women made my list? Let’s take a look (in no particular order)…
THE TWEENERS
Johnny Gargano
Johnny Gargano was all over the place this year as he started it off as the top babyface on the brand in his feud against Tommaso Ciampa, but gradually became one of the biggest villains on the program.
Somewhere along the way, fans started to chant that he deserved to lose and eat a Black Mass here and there. People began siding with the Johnny Failure idea instead of Johnny Wrestling. Candice LeRae lost her momentum while dealing with Gargano’s obsession, and that took him into a course of action that sealed him as a heel when he attacked Aleister Black.
Throughout all this, he maintains that he’s the good guy in this story, even though all of his actions have flipped from what they were at the beginning of the year.
Do the ends justify the means? If so, and we see Gargano vs. Ciampa at TakeOver: New York, will it truly be a babyface against a heel, or will it be heel/heel or something in the middle? That’s a tough call and something very interesting to track.
Daniel Bryan
Coming back into the fold was an easy thing for Daniel Bryan, as he’s so beloved that there was no hesitation for fans to embrace him as a top guy again.
Admittedly, WWE didn’t give him the best platform to work with to keep that momentum going, though, and while he was still a babyface with a connection to the audience unlike any others, they must have felt the need to change things up by turning him heel.
Now, it’s a double-edged sword. His heel turn is working in some ways, as the crowd is booing him like intended, but he hasn’t been given a true antithesis to work with other than AJ Styles, so it’s unknown how well this new character will succeed with other superstars.
It wouldn’t surprise me if in 2019, WWE turns him back to being a babyface again, but we should enjoy this change of pace with him shouting “fickle” instead of “yes” while it lasts, as it’s still pretty damn entertaining.
Velveteen Dream
Somehow, even when he was a full-blown heel, it always seemed like there are something to cheer about Velveteen Dream—almost like he was being booked intentionally as the type of villain the audience will get behind.
The more he showed up and the better stuff he did, the more the crowd supported him and eventually turned him into someone who acts the same, but can be cheered, now.
He pops the crowd with his nostalgic references. He’s a goofball who can somehow also be taken seriously. He’s damn skilled in the ring and his character is one of the most unique out there in the company today.
Somehow, being a heel that rubs everyone the wrong way was exactly what Patrick Clark needed to start down the path of potentially being one of the biggest babyfaces with an insanely bright future as a hero or villain.
Honorable Mentions: The Undisputed ERA (they’re supposed to be heels, but they get cheered all the time, so it’s hard to constitute them one thing or another)
BEST BABYFACES
Mustafa Ali
There’s a reason this guy has been called the heart of 205 Live, and it isn’t just because he’s one of the best in-ring performers keeping that brand going, but because he has been positioned from the start as someone who we should be sympathetic toward.
It’s almost like he doesn’t have a bad bone in his body, but that doesn’t come off in an obnoxious way that makes people hate him. Instead, he just exudes that he’s a nice guy and that he’s passionate about the business, talented, and deserving of going far.
At the start of the year, he was one of the few people in opposition of Enzo Amore’s reign of terror. Then, he was a babyface favorite of the tournament to determine a new champion and had his supporters in the finals against another babyface, Cedric Alexander. After failing to win that title, his feuds managed to overtake Alexander’s in many ways and now, in just a few weeks, he’s becoming one of the featured players on SmackDown Live.
2019 could be a big, big year for Mustafa Ali if he keeps this going.
Braun Strowman
I submit that there is nobody who was as over as a babyface this entire year than The Monster Among Men, and had WWE actually pulled the trigger and given him the Universal Championship any of the multiple times they could have, it would have been a more successful year for Monday Night Raw than keeping it on Brock Lesnar or putting it on Roman Reigns.
Strowman was easily getting the biggest pops of the night every time he’d come out and people were eating it up when he’d tear down the set and toss people like Kevin Owens into oblivion. He was able to be tough, imposing, and dominant while also showcasing a comedic side and doing charitable work. Literally, he was everything Vince is looking for in a top guy.
Then, WWE messed that up and tried to force him to be a heel in order to further push the Reigns agenda, and his momentum hit a break wall as he was fed to The Shield repetitively to get the point across that Reigns is the guy they wanted us to cheer, not Strowman.
Since then, he’s gone back to what works the best for him, but we all know Lesnar’s going to retain at Royal Rumble and it makes people more sour on Braun than before, which is a shame, as that’s entirely WWE’s fault, not Strowman’s. That is why he isn’t listed in the tweeners section, nor the heels, because his Dogs of War story was a flop.
If he can get back to the same level of popularity he was at during the first half of 2018, then his status as top dog can be corrected.
Seth Rollins
If anybody got equal or bigger pops from the audience this year on Raw compared to Strowman, it was Seth Rollins.
The Architect was off to a rough start in January, teaming with Jason Jordan and struggling to get something out of that feud, before dropping the Raw Tag Team Championship in the second failed program out of those titles in months.
Things took a turn for the better once he had his record-breaking gauntlet match performance, wrestling longer than any person ever has on Monday Night Raw, and gaining momentum that would carry him into WrestleMania to win the Intercontinental Championship.
Rollins held that title for nearly the entire rest of the year, minus roughly 2 months when it was traded to Dolph Ziggler, and now, it’s in the possession of Dean Ambrose, whose heel turn only further illustrates how Rollins is one of the few good guys worth caring about.
You only have to check out some of his matches from a few months ago and listen to how many people shriek “burn it down” to get a sense of why he of all people was chosen as the vessel to vent the frustrations of the fans.
Honorable Mentions: Becky Lynch (the first half of the year wasn’t going so well and WWE tried to turn her heel, but right now, she’s as hot as ever), Dakota Kai (the new Bayley of NXT in a lot of ways), Kairi Sane (stepped up as the top babyface in the women’s division for a while in a vacuum), and Nia Jax (only for the time frame she was the body-positive image champion)
BEST HEELS
Tommaso Ciampa
He sports a shirt that says his heart is black, and if you look at what he’s been up to, you have every reason to believe it.
Tommaso Ciampa is, in many ways, the most successful heel of the year because he managed to accomplish both of his goals: win the NXT Championship and destroy Johnny Gargano.
He sits atop the NXT roster as their king, touts that following his doctrine is “the way” and, oddly enough, is adding more and more proof to back it up each passing episode.
All this talk he gives about being the best isn’t just nonsense, since he’s retained the championship on numerous occasions against Aleister Black, Gargano, Otis Dozovic and Velveteen Dream.
But more than anything, the worst thing he’s done was corrupt Gargano to a point where he’s now become a villain just like Ciampa, and when you’re responsible for taking the biggest babyface on the roster and turning him into someone the crowd boos, you know you’re on the list for best heels of the year.
Shayna Baszler
WWE gave Shayna Baszler the tall task of making a name for herself without depending on Ronda Rousey and she managed to carve out her own niche in a completely different way from her fellow Four Horsewoman, so much so that Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke have latched onto her entirely and are using her success as a means to catapult them in their budding careers.
Baszler came in hot with a runner-up spot in the Mae Young Classic last year, but she really hit her stride as NXT women’s champion this year, defeating Ember Moon for the title and only temporarily losing it to Kairi Sane in what was a great feud between the two.
She’s the only two-time women’s champion in NXT and she was given that honor because of her ability to sell just how much of a villain she can be, even when it comes to the little things. Every time she attacks someone’s arm like she did to Dakota Kai, it gets the point across that she’s a different type of heel compared to people like Aliyah, Taynara Conti and Vanessa Borne.
There are plenty of villain characters in WWE, but few seem to take as much pleasure in intimidating their opponents as Baszler does, and even fewer are able to illustrate why those opponents should be afraid.
Baron Corbin
You may hate to admit it, but Baron Corbin in the Constable or General Manager Elect roles got more heat this year than the majority of the roster.
The reaction he got when he was being let go from that position is evidence of that, as the crowd was eating up the idea of punishing him for a job poorly done, meaning WWE successfully transferred a good amount of that heat from the company itself onto Corbin.
This has been the case the whole year, though. He was perpetually getting in the way of Kurt Angle and causing problems before attaining even more power and letting that get to his head, influencing matches like when he screwed Braun Strowman out of the Universal Championship.
When it comes to evil characters in WWE in 2018, Corbin was this year’s corrupt authority figure who was actually able to take that heat and work it into several matches, instead of just letting it dissipate with nowhere to go like what happens more often than not.
Honorable Mentions: Alexa Bliss (particularly for her role in the WrestleMania feud against Nia Jax) and Elias (that elongated boo alone…)
Those are my picks, but who do you think should be considered the best babyfaces and heels of 2018? Who do you think will take these spots in 2019? Tell us what you’re thinking in the comments below, and happy holidays, everyone!
