Ideal Partnership

In the early 1980s, rookie Rick Martel was teamed with Tony Garea to form the sexually appealing, popular Baby-Face Tag Team of the day.

Tony was 10 years older than young Martel and therefore, he usually played the Rescuing Partner, the hero waiting to tag in and save his cocky but helpless young student.  Martel and Garea were the perfect couple.

The Moondogs were the ideal villains to battle these two studs — hairy and fat, not spectacular and gorgeous like their dark-haired young victims.  They had a beastly or feral quality, like they were raised by wolves and wanted to maul you with their crooked teeth.

They’d tear into a fresh piece of meat like young Martel with gusto.  And poor Martel always failed to keep the advantage that his veteran partner had handed over to him.

In this next encounter between the Studs and the Dogs, Martel is again brutally double-teamed and beaten while his partner watches from the far corner.

No matter how pathetic and weak that Martel behaves — no matter how epic his failures — notice that Garea never abandoned him nor tried to break up their partnership.  There is an implied bond between these two handsome men, a homosocial desire, that compels Garea to accept his partner, to remain attached and loyal to Martel in spite of his poor wrestling skills and apparent lack of ability in the ring.

Through good times and bad, in sickness and in health…

In the world of pro wrestling, especially Tag Team wrestling, the ideal relationship is portrayed as a chaste homosocial pairing of  Tag Team partners.  They dress alike, spend significant time together, support, rescue, and nurture one another, etc.  They seem to love each other (but never in the dirty way).

They are seen doing almost everything a married couple would do — except for one thing: sexual contact is forbidden.  The only exception to the strict Vow of Chastity that all Tag Team partners must take is the long embrace they may enjoy after a victory.  If they just won a tough fight, they are permitted to hug for several seconds — which they normally do with great gusto.

Next, instead of pitting these ideal males against a pair of disgusting beasts, they face off with a pair of dirty foreigners — Fuji and Saito.  Our heroes gain the advantage at the beginning of the match.  We can see that, as long as they work together, as long as they use frequent tags and plenty of communication, they maintain the upper hand over their Asian opponents.  The message being sent to the young male viewers is that homo-social relationships work — that success comes from finding a mate similar to yourself and watching each other’s back.  You must support your fellow man, Garea and Martel teach us, working together like the proverbial well-oiled machine.

For once, the veteran (Garea) plays the Baby-Face in Peril as those sadistic Japs claw at his shoulder nerves to control him like a puppet on a string.

Garea gets some practice at jobbing (which he will do for much of the latter part of his career) and Martel practices looking angry, concerned and eager outside the ring.