A Taste for White Meat

The term “White Meat Babyface” (WMB) has been coined by wrestling fans to describe the Good Guy wrestler of the type popular in the 1980s.  The WMB is always friendly and honest, a real boyscout.

He is usually young, fit, cute, and wears bright, eye-catching gear.  In any match, he will enjoy some early shine, but he will also fall for every dirty trick by his cruel opponent and generally get his ass kicked until he rallies to a victory.

I recently saw these images from a wrestling show in England featuring a pair of White Meat Babyfaces known as the “Lionhearts” (their team name just screams of bravery, undaunted hopefulness, and all around White Meat Baby-Face-ity.)

Eddie Ryan is the more mature stud with the well-groomed goatee and mustache.  Jason Larusso is the younger buck with those unusual white boots that expose his calf muscles.  You just know one of these pretty-boys, probably Larusso, is about to be tortured relentlessly and you can hardly wait for the fun to begin…

The match unfolds according to the usual formula — the White Meat Babyfaces using their fancy high-flying double-team moves (evidence of their strong, effective inter-personal relationship) to dominate early. We know that soon they will lose momentum thanks to some nasty sneak attack and the bald, over-sized bastards known as “Team H8” (Jeckel and Gideon) will begin to chew them up.

I’ve seen this same formula play out thousands of times before, but it still gets me every time.  I am helpless against their Babyface manipulations, my heartstrings are stroked by the Good Guys like a musical instrument.  I am like Pavlov’s dogs or something — ring the bell and I salivate for the nearest White Meat Babyface.

In our cynical, post-modern society, we aren’t supposed to love WMBs any more.  We’re supposed to be bored or want to vomit if a real Goody-Goody boy next door shows up.  That’s why John Cena gets booed by anyone over age 14 or so.

Call me old-fashioned, but I still enjoy White Meat in my diet.  I guess I never got out of the 80s.  I still love it when the innocent, dough-eyed little Good Guy puts his heart and soul into winning fair and square, only to be cheated and punished unjustly.

This match is taking place in England where the WMB has long been an audience favorite since the says of “Kid” McCoy, Davey “Boy” Smith, and other clean-cut underdogs who always seemed to get into trouble and spend much of the match sprawled out on the canvas like a deflated balloon.

I think White Meat Babyfaces never went out of style on the other side of the pond.  Maybe it is only in the USA where we’ve come to distrust and despise the heroic dreamers who take their vitamins and say their prayers.  Ever since “Stone Cold” Steve Austin flipped us off and doused himself in beer, we have prefered our heroes with a Dark Side, an Edge that makes them seem more complex, mystical, and flawed.

But I say, let’s see more of the honest, helpless White Meat Babyface — as clean and pure as the driven snow — forever unable to reach his partner for the tag, groaning in agony, his gear as bright as his hopes and dreams.

The term “White” meat is apparently meant to describe the usual race and skin color of the Baby Face — caucasian like most of the sympathetic fans cheering for him at ringside.  The term may also be a put-down, meant to compare his Goody-Goody personality to something bland, boring, dry, and plain like a piece of white meat.

But don’t forget that calling a man “Meat” also carries the connotation of him being devoured (raped) by onlookers who consider him nothing more than a piece of meat, similar to the way pickup bars are known as “Meat Markets” and new inmates at a prison are known as “Fresh Meat.”