The character lines between babyface and heel are extremely defined in wrestling. WWE, AEW, WCW, TNA and every promotion before or after tried to create fan favorites and villains. Most wrestlers stay on their respective line of the character arcs and chose to not associate with wrestlers from the other side.
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However, there have been some shocking instances of wrestlers breaking that unwritten rule. The story is pivotal to explain why a heel and face end up on the same side, but it can happen. Quite a few examples played out with various results of how they ended up working. The following moments of babyfaces and heels teaming up surprised the audience.
10 Daniel Bryan & Kane
WWE initially placed Daniel Bryan and Kane together when they were in opposite character roles. Bryan was an obnoxious heel after his relationship with AJ Lee fell apart. Kane had a face run going, but he clashed well with Bryan as rivals.
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However, it was the partnership forming that created even greater success together. The anger management segments saw the babyface and heel starting to influence each other. Bryan turned heel shortly into their shocking tag team that no one expected to run as long as it did becoming Team Hell No.
9 Cesaro & Sheamus
The rivalry between Cesaro and Sheamus felt natural since the former was a babyface and the latter was a hated heel. WWE placed them in a best of seven series against each other with a title shot on the line for the winner to create high stakes.
Things went much differently than fans expected when the seventh deciding match ended in a draw. Cesaro and Sheamus were initially forced to team up if they wanted the prize of a tag title shot. The duo shocked the audience by getting on the same page as The Bar to become a tremendous tag act.
8 Randy Savage & Mr. Perfect
WWE had an interesting story playing out when Ultimate Warrior left the company before a planned tag match with Randy Savage. The Survivor Series 1992 match saw Savage needing a new tag partner to combat Ric Flair and Razor Ramon.
Mr. Perfect was a heel at the time with ties to Flair and their shared manager Bobby Heenan. Savage used reverse psychology to make Perfect realize he wasn’t being fully respected by Heenan and Flair. This led to Perfect surprisingly teaming with Savage that night to set up a face turn for a deeper Flair rivalry afterwards.
7 Brock Lesnar & Tajiri
WWE had a tournament to crown the new tag champs of Smackdown in 2002 after Raw kept the previous tag titles after the brand split. There were quite a few makeshift teams to round out the tournament, but one stood out as odder than the rest.
Brock Lesnar was the WWE Champion as a heel when placed in a shocking team with babyface cruiserweight Tajiri. Edge and Rey Mysterio defeated the unlikely team that clearly couldn’t get along. Lesnar attacked Tajiri afterwards and gave him the blame for their defeat after conflict during the match.
6 John Cena & David Otunga
John Cena never turned heel after becoming face of the company, but he did join a heel faction. Wade Barrett scoring a victory over Cena forced him to join Nexus. One of the orders given to Cena was to team with David Otunga in a tag title match.
The unlikely team won the WWE Tag Team Championship together with Cena doing his part. Otunga started to show less faith in Nexus when Barrett made David and Cena lose the tag titles to Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel. Cena being willing to team with Otunga felt surprising even within the angle.
5 The Undertaker & Kane
WWE debuted Kane as the long-lost brother of The Undertaker back to make his life hell. Undertaker and Kane had a great start to their rivalry with a series of matches. However, they formed an unlikely team while being on opposite sides of the character arcs.
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Undertaker was a babyface that helped his brother out despite his heel actions. SummerSlam 1998 featured a build of Undertaker’s actions helping Kane leading to conflict with Steve Austin. WWE started the Brothers of Destruction tag team during this time, but fans forget about the face/heel dynamic.
4 Cody Rhodes & MJF
The start of AEW featured an unlikely pairing of Cody Rhodes and MJF on the same team despite being drastically different characters. MJF played a despicable heel to everyone around him, but he would be a good friend to Cody for a strange change of pace.
Rhodes and MJF even teamed outside of AEW in the time before the company formed to practice the act. The obvious betrayal came when MJF stabbed Cody in the back, but their time together lasting as long as it did had the audience on their toes.
3 Sting & Lex Luger
WCW told a layered story of Sting remaining a tag team partner to Lex Luger when the latter was becoming a heel. Luger became a heel for all intents and purposes by disrespecting names like Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan, while aligning with heels who wanted to take them down.
Sting’s longstanding friendship with Luger featured a story of everyone wanting him to wake up and stop trusting Lex. However, the friendship between the two remained strong as they won tag matches. Luger cheating behind Sting’s back to win their matches added a fun twist to the angle.
2 Chyna & Eddie Guerrero
The romantic pairing of Eddie Guerrero and Chyna gave us an unlikely team that surprised fans. Chyna was extremely over as a babyface since she was a rare woman defeating male wrestlers. Guerrero was established as a shady and cowardly heel as part of the Radicalz.
Chyna was hesitant about teaming with Eddie, but the matches led to them falling in love. WWE found a hit storyline of them becoming an unlikely couple. Guerrero started to show signs of becoming a babyface before his heel side came back out to ruin the relationship.
1 Matt Hardy & MVP
WWE came up with a unique storyline to make Matt Hardy and MVP become a respected tag team in between their rivalry. MVP was the United States Champion as Matt challenged him, and the two became rivals. However, a desire to compete saw them in an unexpected tag match.
Hardy and MVP won the WWE Tag Team Championship and had fans invested in the story. MVP played a more endearing heel for a while, as Matt was always one step ahead of his tricks. The team eventually ended with MVP reverting to his true nature as a selfish heel only in it for himself to extend the feud.
