The concept of the ‘Babyface’ has fueled wrestling for as long as it’s been around. The hero. The good guy. It’s taken on different forms throughout the years, from the ‘stay in school’ types to the back-talking badass, but nonetheless, the Babyface has always been needed to fuel the WWE’s fire.
Hands-On Preview: Dragon Is Dead Feels Like Dead Cells Meets Diablo
This 2D side-scrolling roguelite has a ton of promise.
We’re going to look back through the years at the wrestlers who carried the company, and did it by being the guy the crowd loved to root for.
10The Ultimate Warrior
An Experience More Than A Wrestler
Say what you want about the man behind the mask, but The Ultimate Warrior was insanely over in his prime.
While he wasn’t great in the ring, it didn’t matter; his entrance, the song, and the crowd reaction were hype personified.
Warrior would light the crowd on fire with that entrance, and even though his in-ring moveset was limited, when he picked up his opponent for the Gorilla Press Slam, followed by the Splash, the crowd was on board.
While his run at the top of the wrestling world was fairly brief, there is no question that his legacy echoes throughout time.
I know the fun thing now is to say Goldberg was a bad wrestler and not good in the ring. I say that’s utter nonsense.
I’m sorry, but aside from another bald and goatee superstar we will see later on this list, Goldberg was the guy in the late 90s.
Goldberg was an absolute sensation in WCW, with his squash matches bringing the crowd to deafening roars. Once he got to WWE, that didn’t change, and while he was only there briefly, it was a good time. Watch his appearance at the Elimination Chamber if you don’t believe me.
The crowd goes absolutely nuts as he obliterates every top name in the company at that point. Even in his return to WWE in the late 2010s, he still had the crowd on his side, regardless of the matchup.
There is something to be said about the look and the ability to sell a fight, or rather, the lack thereof. Goldberg personified the badass, and watching him destroy people was just plain cool.
8Shawn Michaels
A Tale of Two Careers
Shawn Michaels is one of the most legendary wrestlers of all time, and many would call him the best in-ring performer of all time.
In the 90s, HBK gained superstardom by beating Bret Hart for the WWE Championship at Wrestlemania 13, and from there, that star only grew, but primarily as a heel.
In the late 90s, he blurred the lines a bit with the invention of Degeneration X, which was far from your typical Babyface stable, but even still, crowds went nuts for him.
After his back injury put his career in jeopardy for four years, he had a second run in the WWE that lasted from 2002 to 2010, during which time he was largely a face and one of the most consistently cheered faces in the company.
While he was great on the mic, it was in the ring where HBK made you cheer for him. There has never been a better storyteller between the ropes than Shawn. He sold the struggle and the fight better than anyone I can think of, and it’s no wonder that some of the best matches of all time have Shawn Michaels involved.
7Macho Man Randy Savage
When we think of the term ‘wrestler’, there’s likely a name or a face that immediately comes to mind.
For me, it’s Macho Man Randy Savage. Plain and simple, that over-the-top wardrobe, the crazy smile, the catchphrases, the promos, this guy was it.
He was everything Hulk Hogan was, except he could also wow you in the ring, popularizing the Flying Elbow off the top rope and routinely putting on some of the most entertaining matches ever televised.
Don’t get me wrong, he jumped between the roles of heel and face a lot, but when he was Babyface, the crowd went berserk for him.
In 100 years, Macho Man Randy Savage will still be a household name. That alone shows how important this guy was as a star. Even though he passed before his time, his legend lives on.
6Cody Rhodes
The New Face
The WWE was dying for another Babyface to build up in this current era, and with Roman Reigns serving as the dominant heel he was always meant to be and Seth Rollins flitting between the two, a pure face was needed.
It wouldn’t come internally, but rather, in the form of a returning, once forgotten about mid-carder who turned himself into an undeniable draw.
When Cody returned to WWE in 2022, the crowd reaction immediately showed what a star he had become. It was an incredible reaction, and those reactions have not stopped in the two-plus years since.
In 2024, his feud with Roman Reigns and The Rock was the rocket the WWE needed to make wrestling cool again. The ‘Finish the Story’ narrative was the hottest thing in the world of sports, with ESPN jumping in on the action.
Cody has been a fan favorite and the WWE’s brightest star for quite some time now, and it seems that, against all odds, the WWE has a replacement for John Cena waiting to grab the torch and run with it.
5Bret Hart
Bret Hart was the guy. He was the guy to carry the next generation of wrestling from the early 90s onwards, and he did so in fantastic fashion.
He was the archetypal heroic wrestler, winning championships, selling merchandise, and handing his sunglasses to kids in the crowd.
His promos were wholesome, and he preached hard work and perseverance. It was so easy to root for him, especially in the New Generation Era, when so many of the wrestlers in the company were, for lack of a better word, incredibly stupid.
Bret was the quintessential good guy in so many iconic feuds, from Shawn Michaels, to Stone Cold Steve Austin and Yokozuna.
While he is Canadian, he was treated like an American hero. He took the reins from Hulk Hogan and became the company’s main draw for a long time.
Bret finally turned heel when he entered a feud with Stone Cold Steve Austin, which was partially because the crowd couldn’t get enough of the anti-hero in Stone Cold, but he remained a mainstay in the main event picture until his eventual and unfortunate departure following the infamous Montreal Screwjob.
4John Cena
The Champ is Here
John Cena is a tricky case when talking about beloved Babyfaces. He has been in the WWE for over 20 years, and was a face for all of them until these past few months.
But whether he was truly beloved depends on who you ask. Kids loved him, women loved him, and men hated him.
Crowd reactions were so mixed once Cena put the Doctor of Thuganomics gimmick to bed that it was impossible to know if he was the face or the heel.
But crowd reactions aside, he was always the face. It was so confusing. He would get loud pops for his promos, which were always great, but he was booed when his entrance music hit.
Half the crowd chanted, “Let’s go, Cena,” while the other half yelled, “Cena sucks.” It was a phenomenon we’ve never seen before or since. But no matter what, Cena always gets a reaction.
They love to cheer him on and boo him. He was an attraction unlike any other in that regard, and all of the above has fueled his incredible heel run.
The Most Electrifying Man In Sports Entertainment
The Rock was only full-time in the WWE for around 5 years, but in that time, he redefined what it meant to be a Babyface. Insulting, egotistical, wearing expensive clothes, this behavior surely couldn’t be that of a Babyface, right?
Ironically, by embracing all the things that would make the perfect heel, The Rock became the face of the company in many ways, with crowds roaring for him regardless of whether he was in the ring or on the mic.
During the Attitude Era, up was down, and the cheesy, superhero type was considered uncool, so naturally, The Rock’s obvious charisma and somewhat heel-like persona would resonate.
Since retiring as a full-time wrestler, The Rock has come back several times, and every time his music hits, it’s one of the loudest pops of all time.
It’s not even an opinion at this point, but a fact that The Rock is the most popular wrestler of all time. His popularity has extended to the big screen, where he’s made himself one of the richest men in the world.
2Hulk Hogan
Hulkamania Ran Wild
Keep in mind, this is just a list based on what crowd reactions were to the wrestlers at the time, not their political beliefs or who they are in their personal lives.
With a completely objective mind, there is no denying that Hulk Hogan was the guy who made wrestling known worldwide. His run in the 1980s set the stage for the global mega-sensation the WWE would become in the late 1990s.
His larger-than-life persona burst through the TV and engaged both kids and adults alike as he cut his high-octane promos. The second his iconic theme song hit, buildings would shake from the crowd’s reactions.
He’s had so many iconic moments, from body slamming Andre the Giant to his feuds with The Ultimate Warrior and Macho Man Randy Savage.
Once he switched to WCW, he redefined what it meant to be a heel, but eventually, he came back to the WWE as a face and, even in his 50s, was drawing crowd reactions like none other.
For whatever reason, whether it was the look, the promo, or just the aura, this guy was beloved by anyone who considered themselves a wrestling fan.
1Stone Cold Steve Austin
The Toughest SOB In The WWE
The Attitude Era was all about dismantling authority, and if there was a poster boy for anarchy within the WWE roster at the time, it was the rattlesnake.
Steve was the face of this badass era, and as far as buying into a character is concerned, people have never resonated more with the blue-collar, ass kicker who just wanted to beat the hell out of their boss.
His feuds with icons like Bret Hart, Vince McMahon, Triple H, and The Rock were must-watch TV, and the pops that would happen, and still do to this day, when that glass broke need to be heard to be believed.
He is the only wrestler I can think of who had a potential heel run that was outright rejected to the point that they immediately reversed course. Audiences couldn’t hate Austin because, in so many ways, he built the era that made wrestling the mainstream name that it is today.
Former Dragon Age Lead Says BioWare’s Biggest Issues With EA Go Back As Far As 2017
According to Mark Darrah, “2017 is when EA finished digesting BioWare.”
