The WWE career of Rick Rude made him one of the most effective heels in a major wrestling promotion. Rude adopted the ladies’ man gimmick making advances towards women in the crowd and mocking the looks of the men. Bobby Heenan becoming his manager provided a great boost of an all-time great personality at his side to add to the overall presentation.Rude spent about three years as a top heel for the promotion, despite never winning the WWE Championship. The combination of stellar character work, strong matches and the overall ability to make the audience hate him helped him stand out for the entire stint. Rude had a short list of names feuding with him during that time with both legendary rivalries and forgotten ones.
7 The Junkyard Dog
WWE booked a few small programs for Rick Rude in between his bigger matches. The Junkyard Dog was among the more popular mid-carders in the Golden Era. Both wrestlers had unique characters that seemed ideal to merge for a secondary feud.
SummerSlam 1988 featured a forgotten match between the two future Hall of Famers. Rude won the relatively short match via a DQ finish. The feud between Rude and Jake Roberts was still going when the former had his mini feud with JYD. Rude taunting Jake’s wife led to Roberts attacking him during the match to unintentionally help him win.
6 Paul Orndorff
The first official feud for Rick Rude in WWE came against “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff. WWE saw big things for both wrestlers based off their respective personalities and physiques. Orndorff had already made an impact as part of the first-ever WrestleMania main event teaming with Roddy Piper against Hulk Hogan and Mr. T.
Rude benefited from working against an established WWE name and he came off as the bigger star. Bobby Heenan becoming the manager of Rude created the feud since he no longer worked with his former client Orndorff. The wins for Rude against Orndorff helped build credibility faster than expected.
5 Jimmy Snuka
Another established star from WWE’s past to help get Rick Rude more over was Jimmy Snuka. Vince McMahon loved the babyface fire of Snuka and often protected him to have an upper mid-card spot despite starting to hit a decline.
WWE placed Rude into a program with Snuka heading into WrestleMania 6. The four-minute match didn’t give them much time to deliver a classic, but Rude came out on top with a huge win. Snuka was clearly there to put over Rude as he was getting phased out for newer talents joining the WWE landscape.
4 The Big Boss Man
The final feud of Rick Rude’s WWE stint never reached its full potential, but there was interest from the crowd. Bobby Heenan started a feud for Rude against The Big Boss Man by making insulting comments about his mother. Rude doubled down by mocking Boss Man’s mother and challenged him to a match.
The two had a slate of house show matches building to the bigger PPV match. Rude however was removed from a Survivor Series 1990 match meant to play into the feud after getting suspended by WWE President Jack Tunney. The real story was that Rude was on the way out of WWE after having a pay dispute with Vince McMahon before the Boss Man feud culminated.
3 Roddy Piper
The WWE tenure of Roddy Piper saw him thriving with both the face and heel roles. Piper entered a feud with Rick Rude as both men were known for their character work. A loss for Rude after Piper stopped him from cheating led to them getting into a personal rivalry.
Survivor Series 1989 featured Piper and Rude leading their respective teams to continue the feud in a major way. The eventual singles matches between the two typically saw Piper scoring the wins as the good guy and the bigger overall star for WWE.
2 Ultimate Warrior
The legendary career of The Ultimate Warrior is remembered with a polarizing reaction due to his limitations and poor attitude. Rick Rude deserves a lot of credit for being considered as the wrestler to lead Warrior to decent matches during their feud.
Warrior first feuded with Rude over the Intercontinental Championship as they switched the belt back and forth. The WWE Championship reign of Warrior peaked during his rivalry with Rude resurfacing. Warrior had two of the best matches of his career at back-to-back SummerSlam shows against Rude. Most wrestlers viewed Rude as carrying Warrior in the ring since his matches typically bombed.
1 Jake Roberts
The ladies man gimmick of Rick Rude would see him often trying to get in the head of his opponents. Jake Roberts experienced this the deepest during his face run when Rude started making advances towards his wife Cheryl Roberts.
Rude’s heel work reached new lows (or highs) when he airbrushed Cheryl’s face on his tights for the ultimate disrespect. Roberts showed great intensity standing up for his family and thriving on the face side of things. The feud culminated at Survivor Series 1988 when Roberts pinned Rude during a traditional elimination tag match.