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But they have had heel babyfaces since the Attitude Era started. The whole USA vs America was based on that idea, Austin was getting cheered for cheating, while Bret was getting cheered for being a "good" guy (and then whining about it).
I think since then almsot all the top faces have had a heel edge to them. Austin would flip everyone off, Rock would talk trash to everyone, and even now Eddie still cheats in his matches and gets huge pos for it.
However, when a guy turns face he has to change a lot of things about how he works and how he cuts promos, otherwise it just wont work.
A lot of people are down on Cena, but I think his edge was taken off by the company in the wake of the Janet Jackson stuff because of the crackdown by the FCC. Thats something the WWE cant geta round, if they want to be on Network TV (or even Cable for that matter), they have to play by the rules. The other thing with Cena is that he's really really over, its hard to go say "Cena isn't working", when he's pretty much the most over guy in the comapny.
But aside from that, I dont see too many babyfaces who act like say Hogan did back int he 80s. Everyone talks trash, everyone is willing to use a weapon to lay a beating, and so on. Short of insulting the fans (which would make them heels) I dont see what else they could do. And no, you cant have faces insult the crowd, because they wont get over as babyfaces. People used to pop for Rock when he was ripping on the crowd, but they would pop much larger for Austin to come out and whoop his ass.
In terms of HHH, he fell victim to bad booking and Hulkamania 2002, that loss at Backlash after all the hype surrounding the return really killed him.
Rock was cheered over Goldberg because some WWE fans, especially in the North East tend to see Goldberg as an outsider and Rock as a "WWE" guy, so thats why he was cheered. Plus, they totally changed Goldberg's character, and I think that kinda killed any chance of Goldberg getting face pops.
Austin was over as a comedy figure (which is why he didn't draw well as a heel champion) and nobody took him seriously. There's a difference between being "over" (ie drawing money) and being able to pop the crowd doing comedy. Jerry Seinfeld could come in to a WWE show and make the corwd laugh, but I dont think that means he can healdine Wrestlemania and do 800,000 buys.
E+C were entertaining as well, but people still liked to see them get their asses kicked. And even when they were faces they had to drop the comedy schtick because as Ive said many time, comedy doesn't draw, especially at the top.
Finally, while people like to remember Austin and Rock being great as heels (and theyw ere), they drew far more money as babyfaces. Rock's return as a heel co-headlined a poor drawing Wrestlemania (XIX) and Austin's heel turn sparked the beginning of the decline in wrestling popularity. So even though those guys were entertaining as heels, the fans obviously prefered them as faces.
Interesting topic though.
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