The Man in White

















Nick Stanley vs Chris Crunkk, 7 March 2015, Chattanooga (Total Wrestling Entertainment)

Nick Stanley, the man in white in the GIFs above, appeals to me despite - or more likely because of - the slight stiffness of his bearing and squeaky clean persona. There's the white wrestling gear, of course. There's also the fact of his sharply sculpted facial features, thin lips, and severely respectable haircut, which smack of staff sergeant or Baptist youth pastor. It was the look I wanted most as a teenager and devout fundamentalist.

Mostly Nick's appeal is due to his personification of retributive justice against Crunkk, the man in black, who has treated him badly. My justice fetish, which I have alluded to several times in earlier posts, is obviously a leftover of decades of strict religious indoctrination, and though I no longer follow the tenets of Christianity, they remain a strong part of my fantasy life. (Not to be willfully blasphemous, but Ezekiel 21:1-10 in the King James Version  has long been a huge turn-on, with all the talk of sword and sheath and flesh and loins, not to mention the Lord's butch propensity for smack talk.)

The fact that I now don't believe the bible does not mean I don't still enjoy it.  (I could say as much about pro wrestling.) Although Stanley's ultimate victory is partly due to outside interference (entirely justifiable in the context of the story line), I see him as the emblem of virtue. His perseverance in the face of Crunkk's villainous assaults is a sure sign of his uprightness and godlike disdain for iniquity.

Most people who communicate with me on the subject of wrestling and male sexuality prefer that the strait-laced pretty boy get beat up. I get it, and I'm not going to argue the point, but I like the babyface to triumph in the end even if, along the way, he gets roughed up a good bit.  The humiliating comeuppance that Crunkk gets at the end of this match at righteous Nick's hands is exhilarating, as is the raising of the exhausted hero's arm in victory.

For a different but comparable assessment of Nick Stanley and the babyface role in general, watch "Why Prettyboy Faces Are the Toughest Wrestlers" on YouTube here.


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