Tag Team Bromance

When two wrestlers form a Tag Team, it’s implied that they become more than just friends.  You understand that they must spend hours together in training to perfect their moves.  They often get matching outfits so they’ll look like a matched pair.  They also have each other’s back, rescue one another from harm, encourage and support one another.  They appear to be closer and more affectionate than most dudes who simply work together.  Many Tag Teams almost seem like a married couple.

The term “bromance” was created to describe two dudes who share a close and supposedly non-sexual relationship, who spend a lot of time together and enjoy it, who understand and support each other.  Some say the term “bromance” was coined to describe, mock, and possibly discourage the male bonding experience, and some say it’s used by guys in the closet who are into another guy and need a word to justify and cover up the true feelings. Many Team Team partners act as if they’re in bromances with each other, and they deliberately leave the nature of their relationship ambiguous and undefined, so the fans will wonder: “Are they or aren’t they??”

The term “partner” has been used to describe a relationship where two people of the same sex live together as if they’re a married couple.  So when a Tag Team wrestler says “This is my partner, Johnnie,” is he simply using the traditional meaning of “partner” such as a business partner, like Procter and Gamble were partners, or is he using the modern meaning of “Partner” as in a domestic partner?

Some tag teams are not very subtle about their affection for one another — actively flirting, embracing, or falling on each other in compromising positions during a match.  They play around with the implication that they may be lovers to incite the viewers. Often the bad guy teams will use a little man-on-man partner love to draw some cheap heat — angry insults and unbridled hate — from the homophobic audience.

One gimmick for implying a loving relationship while stirring up the fans is the old “Rescue Me!” gimmick.  This is where the partner in the ring, facing an over-whelming opponent, will rush over to his partner in the corner and hug him around the waist, like a frightened child hiding behind daddy’s legs.  The protector meanwhile will cuddle and soothe his frightened partner and fend off the attack.  The implication is that the sissy is too scared to fight his own battles, that he needs the protection of his dominant Alpha Male partner, that the two men are a bit too chummy with each other and have revealed their secret love affair through their queer antics.

Ultimately, tag team partners portray a loving relationship because sex always sells — even if it’s a comical, clownish, phoney homo-erotic brand of sex.