Chelsea Green has explained why traditional babyface and heel roles don’t work in 2025.
With fans becoming smarter about every aspect of the wrestling industry, it’s gotten much harder to sort talents into traditional babyface and heel roles. The modern era instead increasingly features babyfaces with split opinions of fans with heels that get cheered more and more.
The longest-reigning Women’s US Champion is an example of this change in dynamic. While she’s slotted into the role of a villain, her entertaining character and real-life story have led to her getting some of the biggest cheers on WWE shows in recent times. This popularity is the reason the company has chosen her as the Inaugural champion.
The WWE star was asked if she finds it hard to get cheered as a heel during a recent interview with The Law. Chelsea Green explained that for her, it’s harder to see the babyface against her not getting the reaction they deserve:
“So at first it wasn’t challenging. When I was paired with Sonya [Deville], I felt like it was good. As it evolved to more of like a comedy fun role and when they put me with Piper [Niven], that’s when it became a little more difficult. I’ve seen it get more difficult week by week. Now at this point, the fans are so smart. I’m sorry but you just cannot tell the fans how to react.
If they have found that they like somebody or that someone has worked hard and they’ve seen someone put blood sweat and tears into this industry, they’re just not going to boo you. I got a quick little boo when I said something about Piper the other day in my inauguration speech. I got a little boo so that was interesting.
I actually, I feel worse for my opponent. It’s not necessarily about me, it’s about my opponent not getting the reaction that they deserve as a babyface. That makes me feel uncomfortable. Because as a former babyface I wouldn’t want to be in that position.
So that’s where I struggle. That’s where I’ve kind of spoken to the writers ‘How can we write some things in that will rub maybe the crowd the wrong way and we can turn this in our favor.’ But at the end of the day the WWE universe and pro wrestling fans in general are, they’re just smart. They’re just smart and they want what they want. We gave them what they wanted and that was me as champion. So now I’m not sure how we take that back.”
That’s Not What Fans Look Like: Chelsea Green
While discussing how hard it is to get a traditional babyface over in the modern era, Chelsea Green suggested that the entertaining heel-to-babyface route is the necessity of the time. She explained that fans today find it hard to cheer for a babyface they can’t relate to as opposed to the older times:
“They love an underdog story. Don’t we all? At the end of the day I’ve got to say like as a fan as well I don’t necessarily love to see this perfect human with a perfect body and perfect gear and a perfect speech go out and beat up a bad guy who actually isn’t perfect. There’s just like, there’s something kind of ‘blah’ about that.
So I think us seeing these turns from heels into baby faces – maybe that’s just the way we have to go you know. Maybe the bad guy are the perfectly groomed superhumans. Because that’s not what the fans look like. That’s not what the fans sit down and think ‘Oh I could be that guy’ That’s not realistic. Some of the people in WWE are superhuman.”