Face (professional wrestling)

In professional wrestling, a face (babyface) is a heroic or a "good guy" wrestler, booked (scripted) by the promotion with the aim of being cheered by fans.^[1] Traditionally, they wrestle within the rules and avoid cheating (in contrast to the villains who use illegal moves and call in additional wrestlers to do their work for them) while behaving positively towards the referee and the audience. Such characters are also referred to as "blue-eyes" in British wrestling and técnicos in lucha libre. The face character is portrayed as a hero relative to the heel wrestlers, who are analogous to villains.^[2] Not everything a face wrestler does must be heroic: faces need only to be cheered by the audience to be effective characters.

The vast majority of wrestling storylines involving faces place a face against a heel, although more elaborate set-ups (such as two faces being manipulated by a nefarious outside party into fighting) often happen as well. In the world of lucha libre wrestling, they are generally known for using moves requiring technical skill, particularly aerial maneuvers and wearing outfits using bright colors with positive associations (such as solid white). This is contrasted with the villainous rudos that are generally known for being brawlers, using physical moves that emphasize brute strength or size while often having outfits akin to demons or other nasty characters.

History

Wrestler Rey Mysterio, seen here at a house show in 2005, is an example of a pure face who has played heroic roles for almost his entire career, with his lucha libre inspired outfit prominently displaying Christian crosses

Traditional faces are classic "good guy" characters who do not break the rules, follow instructions of those in authority such as the referee, are polite and well-mannered towards the fans and often overcome the rule-breaking actions of their heel opponents to cleanly win matches. While many modern faces still fit this model, other versions of the face character are now also common. A good example would be Stone Cold Steve Austin, who despite playing a heel early on in his career would start to be seen more of an antihero because of his popularity with the fans. While clearly not championing rule following, nor submission to authority, Austin was still regarded as the face in many of his duels such as his rivalry with World Wrestling Federation (WWF, later WWE) owner Mr. McMahon.

The portrayal of face wrestlers changed in the 1990s with the birth of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), the start of World Championship Wrestling's (WCW) New World Order (nWo) storyline, and the Attitude Era of the WWF. During this time, wrestlers like Stone Cold Steve Austin and Sting used tactics traditionally associated with heels, but remained popular with the fans.

Conversely, Kurt Angle was introduced to the then-WWF with an American hero gimmick based on his gold medal win at the 1996 Summer Olympics. Angle presented himself as a role model and stressed the need to work hard to realize one's dreams. Although such a personality appears appropriate for a face wrestler, Angle's character was arrogant and constantly reminded people of his Olympic glory, behaving as if he thought he was better than the fans.^[3] Angle's character served as a meta-reference to how wrestling had changed. Although his character was intended to be a heel and behaved accordingly, some commentators speculated that if Angle attempted to get over as a face using a more heroic version of the same character, he would have failed. Unusually, Angle did not use any of these heroic mannerisms when playing a face character, instead acting as somewhat of an antihero with a few elements of the "lovable loser" character archetype.

Fans sometimes dislike face wrestlers despite the way they are promoted. Some reasons for this include repetitive in-ring antics, a limited moveset, a lengthy title reign, lack of selling their opponents' moves, or an uninteresting character. This often results in wrestlers who are supposed to be cheered receiving a negative or no reaction from the fans.

The majority of the time, faces who are low-carders, or lesser known, are used as jobbers. These wrestlers usually lose matches against established wrestlers, usually heels that would then lose to the top faces.

Some face wrestlers would often give high fives or give out merchandise to fans while entering the ring before their match, such as T-shirts, sunglasses, hats and masks. Bret Hart was one of the first superstars to make this popular, as he would drape his signature sunglasses on a child in the audience. Rey Mysterio, who has been a face in WWE since his debut, would go to any fan (frequently a child) wearing a replica of his mask and touch their head with his head for good luck before wrestling. Other examples include John Cena throwing his shirts and caps in the crowd before entering a match and Big Show giving his hat to a fan when he was a face. After becoming a face, Alberto Del Rio would give his signature scarf to a fan before entering the ring, and Becky Lynch also gives one of her steam punk goggles to a young fan, and sometimes gives one of them to some of her fans before entering the ring,

Some faces, such as Bret Hart and Ricky Steamboat, promoted an image as a "family man" and supported their persona by appearing with their family members before and after matches. Steamboat famously carried his 8 month old son Richard Jr. into the ring with him at WrestleMania IV before his match with Greg "The Hammer" Valentine, then handing him to his wife Bonnie before the match started. These actions often relate to wrestlers promoting charity work or other actions outside the ring, blurring the lines between scripted wrestling and their personal lives.

See also

• Glossary of professional wrestling terms

Notes

References

• Foley, Mick (2000). Have A Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks. HarperCollins. p. 511. ISBN 0-06-103101-1.