7 WWE heel turns that must happen in 2024

While heel turns aren’t always the answer to refreshing stale characters, they do often at the very least allow for some extra creativity on the performers part.
Although some of the very best can showcase enough personality to be a likeable babyface such as an LA Knight, the shackles are way more evident on others, with many falling victim to being nothing but a smiling sheet of blank paper.
From upstarts that are treading water to established names who have proven to be affective heels in the past, this list looks to identify seven acts in most need of change in 2024.
So without further ado let’s dive into our first of seven entries:

7. CAMERON GRIMES

Honestly, among the entire WWE roster the very first name that immediately sprung to mind for stars in need of a change was Cameron Grimes.
Despite establishing himself as one of NXTs most entertaining characters both as a heel and face, since his main roster call-up he has had very little time to make any kind of impression on the audience.
Grimes is someone with absolutely no shortage of personality so to see him get little to no promo time or even vignettes is disappointing. Especially when it’s his former NXT boss Triple H in charge of his creative.
You could hear a pin drop when Grimes enters an arena. So instead of expecting the audience to blindly cheer for someone they have no reason to, when you could instead take the burden off him and allow him to spread his wings a bit as a heel first.
His over-enthusiastic, southern drawl is already obnoxious and grating and with the right spin could easily be used to rile up live crowds. Just grow out his beard again, make him a bit of a sleaze-ball and you’ve got a good mid-card heel.

6. TOMMASO CIAMPA

Another Triple H favorite from the black and gold NXT days; Tommaso Ciampa has faired far better than Cameron Grimes on WWE’s main roster but a change of some kind may be needed at some point in 2024.
To be clear, I love the fact that DIY are back in business for the first time in forever. While I do feel that the same magic of their NXT run isn’t quite there, they deserve time to connect with the crowd as faces before a turn is made.
The evidence is there from his time as NXT Champion, Ciampa can play as good a heel as anyone and we have yet to see THAT side of him yet on main roster. The vicious and disturbing side obsessed with gold or I should say ‘goldie.’
So, eventually once DIY has had its run and maybe won a tag team title or two it’ll be time to split Gargano and Ciampa up yet again. Hopefully recapturing the magic that made their feud in NXT one of the best WWE feuds over the last 10 years.

5. BIANCA BELAIR

This is one I think we all hoped would happen at some point in 2023, yet here we are and Bianca Belair is still the same EST as always.
Now, to be fair while the fans were seemingly tuning against Belair during her dominant run as Raw Women’s Champion, time away from the title and off TV in general has done her a lot of good.
Fans seem on board with Belair again in her chase of IYO SKY’s gold, however, I do worry that without some changes to her character, the same pattern may repeat itself. Especially if Belair does win gold once again.
Constantly overcoming odds and being an all-conquering face has definitely ran its course. So hopefully they pull the trigger and give us her first heel run since her days in NXT.

4. RICOCHET

Definitely a bit out of left-field this one and probably highly unlikely, but still; Ricochet has needed something new for a while now.
While high-flyers often aren’t suited to playing the heel, it’s hard to see Ricochet, as talented as he is ever truly be more than an enhancement guy in his current state.
As good as he is and as many flips as he can do there’s very little reason to really get invested in Ricochet the character, that is unless they bring Samantha Irvin into the fold for some heat.
Maybe a Ricochet who purposely withholds from flashy moves would be a fun way to start it and just see where it goes from there. I don’t actually see WWE doing this but it would be an interesting experiment at least.

3. THE NEW DAY

Another one that has very little chance of happening ever again and that makes me incredibly sad.
The New Day were wildly entertaining as heels back in 2015, so much so that they did obviously get themselves so over to the point that they became impossible to boo around a year on from tuning heel in the first place.
But now, with them mostly being around for comedy skits and to take losses to upstart teams, it feels like they could be used more effectively. They could potentially have one more great heel run in them.
The problem is, there’s very few babyface tag teams in WWE at the moment that fans would likely cheer over Kofi and Woods. So yeah, sadly this is more of a pipe dream but it would certainly make for a nice surprise.

2. RAQUEL RODRIGUEZ

Any babyface who’s defining character trait is a big gleaming smile is always in trouble in my book.
We’ve seen it many times, from Rocky Maivia to Apollo Crews (could have made this list) smiling is not enough for fans to be endeared to you and want to root for you over more interesting and well developed characters.
While Raquel Rodriguez has actually done relatively well in terms of crowd responses with little more than smiling and… flexing her muscular back, a change is going to be required for her to reach her full potential.
She’s played the heel before in NXT and gained great success and could easily do so again. Personally I feel a role as Damage CTRL’s heavy would be interesting given her past association with Dakota Kai, so maybe that’s a start.

Yes, Pepsi Phil did just show back up in WWE and fans probably aren’t quite ready to widely boo him just yet.
BUT surely all of the niceties he said in his first promo back in WWE are all a show. Surely there’s a story to be told that sees him unveiled as the ‘fraud’ and ‘hypocrite’ that Seth Rollins claims him to be.
The potential of the tale that WWE could tell between Seth and Punk is a truly tantalising one and one that could easily see Seth take this top spot instead.
Rollins is already seeing his matches and promos beginning to get drowned out by CM Punk chants and that is undoubtedly going to see him blow up at some point and maybe assume the role of a heel in a feud with Punk leading into WrestleMania.
However, while this may be the case early on, I do feel it should be Rollins that is eventually proven right and Punk should show everyone his true colours before 2024 wraps up.
As great a face as Punk can be, his best work is as a heel and it’s been a long while since we got to see him properly assume that role.
Personally, a corporate version of Punk is what I’d love to see. Truly becoming everything he once fought against would be pure magic. No matter what way they take it Punk’s eventual heel turn is going to be something to behold.