WWE: The Fall Of The Babyface, Does Anyone Want To Be Loved?

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day this week, I ask a simple question:

Does anyone in wrestling want to be loved?

The babyface has become an endangered species in the sport.  Very few individuals have embraced the role and done well with it in recent years. Instead, we are in the middle of the golden age of the heel.

It is unprecedented in the history of the business that we should not only have so many heels, but also, a lot of them are pretty darn good. Normally, conventional wisdom says that to have evil, you must have good to defeat it.

Now, the heels are forced to fight it out to determine who is the worst of the worst.

Like it or not, this is all the fault of Stone Cold Steve Austin.

He taught us that the world was more interested in a shades-of-gray antihero than the superhero. Because of this, the world of the All-American, "say your prayers and take your vitamins" guy has become blasé. Even the All-American, "say your prayers" guy went back to his roots as the top heel in WCW. 

It's so bad in both of the major companies, that heels have to fight heels and heel stables have to fight heel stables.  We have to wait and see who will commit the greater atrocity against the other in order to decide the actual heel.

The WWE went so far as to turn its two best heels, Edge and Randy Orton, into babyfaces.

They aren’t even true babyfaces. But even though they're more of that shades-of-gray antihero, beggars can’t be choosers.

If you think about it, it really is a head-scratcher. In the real world, we celebrate the hero.

Do you remember Sully? Sully is the guy that dropped his airplane into the Hudson and saved all of his passengers.

Babyface!

What about comic book movies? We will see four or five new superhero movies in the next two years. As moviegoers, we can’t get enough of the ultimate good guys.

Babyfaces!

In wrestling now, though, we boo the good guy. We cheer the bad guy. We love the gray.

However, the day is coming when we see the rise of the babyface again and the time till he returns is closer than you think.

When that time comes again, we will have a new super babyface, as that person will once again revolutionize the industry. We will love good again.

All will be right in the universe.