Two Pump Chumps

The May 24, 2015 episode of Reality of Wrestling included a Tag Team match featuring these two hunks in matching yellow head-bands.  The “Pump Patrol” are Jared Wayne and Carl Matthews.  Their initials are monogrammed on the crotch of their trunks so you can tell them apart.

To emphasize their physical fitness and their strong male-male bond, they perform a series of bicep flexes in perfect synchrony.  Then their fit young opponents walk the aisle and get in the ring:

Spade and Purple Haze are also a pair of fine physical specimens — there is so much greatness to check out on the Indy wrestling scene these days!

My hope was for Purple Haze in his shiny, bulgey trunks to spend most of the time in the ring, and my wish was granted when he began to play the Face-in-Peril.

I believe that if the Pump Patrol with their buff physiques and flashy matching gear had begun pro wrestling 30 years earlier, they would’ve been promoted as a popular White Meat Baby-Face team.  They emit that fun young vibe, that near-identical brotherhood, that charisma and sex appeal that made Facey teams like the Rockers, the Fantastics, Strike Force, and the Killer Bees popular in the 80’s.

But we’ve grown cynical and cold in recent decades.  Today, a pair of good-looking young go-getters who dress alike (even wearing bright yellow head-bands and wrist-bands) are seen as cheesy douche-bags.  Their matching gear is considered trite.  Rather than encouraging us to cheer for them, the message is sent that these jack-offs ought to be hated for their physical perfection and sketchy Bromance.

The Pump Patrol take full advantage of the five-count after each tag to double-team Purple Haze.  Rather than seeming clever and well-choreographed, these two-on-one assaults comes off as nasty cheating.  The Pump Patrol members seem like bullies, not pretty-boy heroes.

What has happened in our society that the spectacular and physically fit Tag Teams in their matching outfits have come to be hated and mocked rather than celebrated as they were 30 years ago?

Does this “Heel-i-zation” of the handsome pretty-boy Tag Team represent a larger shift in our society?  Are wrestling fans being taught to distrust the privileged white male elite, and instead to have more compassion for fringe and minority wrestlers?

Or are the Pump Patrol (and other attractive White Meat teams like them) being vilified and laughed at to put a stop their successful Male-Male bond?  Are all Matching-Stud tag teams — and all men who enter into Bromances — now being publicly mocked and derided in order to discourage male bonding in general?

Purple Haze, by the way, behaves wonderfully obedient and submissive in this match, allowing the Pump Patrol to just own him and hurt him.  For example, when they Irish Whip him into the corner, he just waits there like a statue while they whip each other into his vulnerable body.  Many wrestlers will duck out of the way in this situation, causing the on-rushing attacker to crash painfully into the turnbuckles.  Not the Purple Haze — he just waits there like a sitting duck and lets his body get crushed by Pump Patrol — great work!

Maybe it’s because I grew up enjoying the Young, Facey, High-Flyin’ tag teams, but I still dig the Pump Patrol and I want them to be successful.  (Especially that Carl Matthews — wowzers!) If for no other reason, at least their success will result in seeing more of their swole bodies and flashy matching gear in the ring each week.

The Pump Patrol work over Purple Haze in his revealing little speedo for most of the match, but all good things must come to an end and he eventually tags in his partner.  Spade enters the ring like a house afire, and I’m thinking: “OK, now the strutting d-bags in their matching head-bands are going to suffer their inevitable defeat.  Too bad they have to lose, because I dig these Pump Patrol hotties!”

But wait — to my delight, one of the Pump Patrol dudes locks Spade in a Full Nelson, them slams him hard on his upper back to stun him. After being rolled up and mounted, Spade is totally helpless and the Pump Patrol gain the pinfall!  YES!  I love seeing this hot team posing and flexing and hugging in victory.

As they strut off into the sunset together packed into their tight little blue-and-gold trunks, I am hopeful that this win represents a positive new trend for the Pump Patrol and for White Meat Baby-Face Tag Teams in general.  Maybe we can get back to the days when we felt comfortable cheering for a pair of handsome, identically dressed muscle-studs, and they could be treated as heroes rather than weirdos.