There’s an old, tired trope in professional wrestling: babyfaces are dumb. Heels can easily sneak up on them, hit them with foreign objects, and betray them without the babyface ever seeing it coming. Though this lack of foresight is necessary for most wrestling storylines, it’s comical to watch nonetheless.
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There are some moments, though, where a babyface does something dumb for no good reason. These unforced errors are sometimes forgotten soon after, but other times these mistakes can completely kill a face’s momentum or make them a laughing stock. AEW babyfaces have made more than their fair share of dumb mistakes with consequences that vary immensely.
10 Cody Rhodes Takes Ten Lashes From MJF
One of Cody’s biggest feuds during his time in AEW was against his former best friend, MJF. AEW fans know that MJF likes to make his opponents jump through hoops in order to fight him. One of his conditions for Cody was that the American Nightmare would have to take ten belt lashes in the ring.
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Cody accepted this, which led to one of the most bizarre segments in AEW history. At one point Cody looked like he was about to burst into tears. Cody’s ten lashes are made even stranger by the fact that Wardlow took ten lashes a year later with no problem.
9 Sammy Guevara And Tay Melo Get Intimate With The TNT Championship
A lot of AEW fans try to forget Sammy Guevara’s attempt at a babyface run, and for good reason. Though Guevara’s high-flying style would make you think he’s capable of being a babyface, in actuality his personality is too unbearable and his face is too punchable for it to work. One of the low points of Guevara’s babyface run was when he and Tay Melo attempted to dunk on ATT by posing with the TNT Championship in the nude. It was a cringe-inducing moment.
8 Saraya Tells Britt Baker Her Name “Rhymes With Sh*t”
Saraya (FKA Paige in WWE) made her return to wrestling last year at AEW Grand Slam. She immediately started a feud with the women’s division’s top heel at the time, Britt Baker. Her first promo the following week was highly-anticipated but immediately fell flat. Arguably the worst attempt at an insult she made was telling the DMD that her first name “rhymes with sh*t.” Not even commentary seemed impressed.
7 Cody Rhodes’ Tone Deaf Promo Against Racism
While Cody started out in AEW as a top babyface, his momentum quickly fizzled out. Much of this came from one specific promo during his feud against Anthony Ogogo and the Factory. Though Cody was probably coming from a good place, a white guy talking about the American Dream and the hardships of racism can very easily come off as preachy and obnoxious. That is unfortunately what happened here.
6 Ruby Soho Gets Chewed Up By Britt Baker
Ruby Soho made her AEW debut at All Out 2021. She won a Casino Battle Royal and earned a title shot against Britt Baker. The first promo battle between the two of them was disastrous. Ruby made incredibly weak attempts at insulting Britt, accusing her of “banging some dude in the back.” Relying on such a misogynistic trope to get over in the year 2021 left a sour taste in fans’ mouths. Britt made quick work of her when their title match came.
5 Brandi Rhodes’ “Open Mic Night” Promo
The Rhodes have a way with words, don’t they? This fateful promo happened in November 2020. Jade Cargill was talking trash to Cody Rhodes when his wife Brandi came out to confront her. She opened with the words, “who the hell told you tonight was open mic night, bitch?”
She proceeded with a drawn-out tirade that sounds incredibly awkward, as though she was speaking in a voice that wasn’t her own. While some fans praise the promo, most like to try and forget it.
4 CM Punk Says He’s “The Dollars And Cents” Of AEW
CM Punk can’t seem to escape his reputation as one of the most polarizing figures in wrestling, even when given a clean slate. His run in AEW started out strong but soured during the summer of 2022, particularly when he was placed in a feud with another babyface.
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During one promo battle with interim AEW World Champion Jon Moxley, the interim champ called himself “the heart and soul” of AEW. CM Punk attempted to clap back by saying he’s “the dollars and cents.” This is a pretty heelish thing to say for a babyface and had a lot of fans questioning whether Punk was truly on the love fest he wanted fans to think he was on.
3 Cody Rhodes Sets Himself On Fire
Cody’s last few months in AEW were truly bizarre. The fans were turning on him very quickly; some wanted him to turn heel, while some wanted him off of TV altogether. Cody tried to win them over by getting extreme in his matches. The most egregious instance of this came during his match against Andrade El Idolo, where Brandi set a table on fire and suplexed Andrade through it, setting himself on fire in the process. Cody did not get any of his momentum back.
2 William Regal’s “Betrayal” Of Blackpool Combat Club
In late 2022, William Regal was offered a job by WWE, the company that released him a few months prior. Regal accepted the offer and consequently had to be written off of AEW television. The way they decided to do this was to have Regal betray BCC, only to then reveal that he only did so to teach the Blackpool Combat Club they can’t rely on anyone but themselves. It was a convoluted way to explain Regal’s absence.
1 CM Punk Jumps Into The Crowd And Breaks His Foot
At Double or Nothing 2022, CM Punk defeated Hangman Page to become AEW World Champion. A few days later, he teamed up with FTR in a tag match. He celebrated with fans by doing a stage dive into the crowd and hit his foot on the railing while doing so. He needed surgery for the injury and was out of action for several months.
