What Is a Babyface?

The act of a babyface? In WWE...yes?
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Alignment terms are thrown around a lot in wrestling discourse. Many people are quick to brand someone a "heel" or a "babyface" based solely on whether a crowd cheers them or boos them and not on what defines them. I blame WWE for this, actually. We all know that in WWE, you're a bad guy if you tell the truth and a good guy if you react to the truth with violence. It's a bad message to send if that were the message they were sending. My personal experience is that really everyone in WWE is a terrible person (ref: Seinfeld theory). Some tell the truth, some lie, and it's often not a function of whether they're supposed to be cheered or booed.

I'd go so far to say that in WWE, the only difference between good guys and bad guys is how they treat the crowd. Good guys are complimentary to the crowd. Bad guys badmouth it. More importantly is how they actually wrestle. Good guys get the crowd involved, lead cheers, celebrate big moves, and the like. Bad guys, if they do interact with the crowd, end up doing things that annoy them (which is why Damien Sandow's Cubito Aequet is a bad move for him... it actually comes off as very playing-to-the-crowd). That's it. Or is it?

One way of looking at good guys and bad guys is not to look at what defines them in a vacuum. Nothing takes place in a vacuum. In any popular medium, it's not a static sense of morality that defines who the hero is, but whether the character is likable or not. Furthermore, that goes well past whether the character has "charisma" or not. What makes a good guy is relatability. There has to be some way we relate to the person in the ring or else there's no impetus to give that wrestler our plaudits.

It's not even a matter of which wrestler is most like us, because that wouldn't explain the rampant popularity of any of the biggest stars in the company over the last 20 years, save Daniel Bryan. It's a matter of relating to just a certain strain of our being. As youngsters we were afraid of big, scary monsters, so Hulk Hogan beat them up for us. As young adults with bosses we hated, Steve Austin scratched our itch to vicariously kick the shit out of them with no repercussion. Today, jadedness with the lies and corporate doublespeak of the grown-up world leave us with the snake oil salesman hawking truth and clarity in CM Punk, even if we booze it up on the weekends to the point where he'd probably spit on us if he saw us on the street. Conversely, our children now need a hero to beat up the bad people, so they have John Cena.

It doesn't really matter if those heroes are flawed either. Hogan was a terrible friend and a cheater, but we looked past that because he picked up the bad guys and put them down (violently). Austin was an alcoholic and kind of an asshole, but he raged against all the corporate bullshit we held in disdain. Punk is also an asshole, and he's also sanctimonious about his straight edge lifestyle at times. But he speaks to us as fans who want something "real."

Bryan comes closest to being the most accurate analogue for fans in that he doesn't look like a wrestler, and yet he is one. Then again, the only time we'll ever have the kind of skill that Bryan has will be on the Create-a-Wrestler mode on our video games. Then again, there's something relatable in being excellent in your craft. We may not be the best at our jobs, but deep down, unless we're at a job we hate and desperately want to get out of, we want to be great at what we do too. What we relate to doesn't have to be necessarily something we are.

So, that brings up a troubling epiphany. Could it be that Sheamus is cheered despite being a racist, abusive bully because there's a latent yet virulent strain within many WWE fans that wish they could also be racist, abusive bullies without repercussion? Do people accept Kofi Kingston dropkicking Miz in the mush because they reject sportsmanship? Are babyfaces in WWE portrayed as assholes because a majority of WWE fans are indeed assholes? I don't want to make a sweeping generalization here, but I'm afraid I already did.

Then again, I'm not sure this is an indictment of everyone in the audience. The existence of people like myself, my peers, and many of you the readers shows that there are thoughtful fans out there who take many different things into consideration. Those who would fall under the "asshole" banner probably aren't even likely to act on the things they cheer in real life either, and probably take things in for show. But if what they cheer is what they relate to, then what does that say about certain peoples' latent desires?

Then again, keeping with the Seinfeld theory of things, maybe WWE realizes this and is trying to engender mixed reactions. Maybe they would rather you cheer Sheamus, but they know that some think Big Show would be in the right. They sell Big Show (and Alberto del Rio and CM Punk and even Damien Sandow) shirts. Their narrative isn't as imperious as some might accuse. Maybe they know the age of the moral code babyface is over, if it even existed in the first place. People are all different, so why wouldn't they relate to different wrestlers?