WWE: Can a traditional babyface exist in modern mainstream wrestling?

The latest episode of The Daily DDT Podcast (Weekly DDT) begs the question: can a traditional babyface can work in wrestling today, specifically WWE’s main roster?

As the host of the Daily DDT Podcast, my latest guest was local AEW Dynamite recapper Josiah MacDonald and we covered a lot of ground in what was the longest episode of Weekly DDT yet. Of course, we discussed news topics like WWE offering Saudi Arabia its very first women’s match and, obviously, the Jordan Myles situation, but for the “Main Event” portion of our recording (where we discuss the long form, meaty topics), we spoke a lot about babyfaces.

Specifically, if traditiional babyfaces could still exist in 2019. To give you an idea of how we define a “traditional” babyface in wrestling, we name dropped people like Dusty Rhodes, Johnny Gargano, NWA’s Tim Storm, Kylie Rae, Bayley (her NXT run) and Sami Zayn (his NXT run) as strong, prime examples of such a thing.

In mentioning what we discussed now, in this article forum no less, I not only do so to promote our latest episode, but to also answer the question again in retrospect with new things on my mind. You can find mind and Josiah’s full thoughts during the episode itself, but one thing that I kind of wish we touched on a little bit more was if it was possible that fans could be too fickle or reluctant to accept a pure, white meat traditional babyface.

I suppose we touched on it a bit, especially in analyzing just how over Becky Lynch was as a traditional babyface right before she became The Man, but I wish we dived deeper into if fans think a face who tells us he’s fighting on our behalf whilst telling us to eat vitamins and say our prayers (also, screw the guy who originated that quote, for obvious reasons) is just too corny for 2019. Again, we somewhat went there in talking about audiences and current examples of such character. Just wish we did so more explicitly, I suppose.

You can check out the latest Weekly DDT right here below.

And be sure to catch new episodes every Friday morning at 10 a.m. on Spreaker and iTunes.