wrestling / Columns
Wacky Wrestling Theory 7.10.08: Masks vs. Face Paint
Today I want to tackle an important issue in pro-wrestling, face decoration. On one hand we have the mask, a classic way for a wrestler to hide his identity and portray a larger than life character. One the other hand, the more modern face paint allows a wrestler to maintain his facial features and expressions along with the artistic license supplied by a mask. Which one is better? I have arranged a small tournament where I will compare the appearance of seven great masks versus seven fascinating painted faces. Hopefully we will be able to decide exactly which camp holds the advantage with extravagant, facial decorations.
I have decided to only include wrestlers from mainstream North American companies for this comparison. Some of the most famous masked wrestlers from Japan and Mexico will not be included in this article because I am not as familiar with the culture, visual weight or decorative intricacies of these distinct wrestlers.
vs. 
Rey Mysterio vs. Ultimate Warrior
First off, I’ve chosen the two most iconic images in pro-wrestling mask/face paint history. Neither man wrestled extensively in the same era, but both created a passionate connection with the audience based mostly in part on the facial images they displayed.
Rey Mysterio has the futuristic Mexican super-hero visage with a sharp cut just under the nose that gives him a Batman-esque ability to reveal an expressive jaw. His masked head cuts through the air like a diving eagle and thus appropriate to his early high flying and his small but deadly offense. The design is sharp and almost tribal, but not cheesy or too cute. The Mysterio mask just looks plain cool, the definition of a smart, classic pro-wrestling mask.
The Ultimate Warrior has a barbaric butterfly stamped on his face that effectively uses the middle point to spike down his nose and project a fierce scowl that didn’t turn him into a bad guy or turn off young fans. The Warrior became a mythical figure behind the face paint and that can be mainly attributed to the angular motif that seems to literally trap intense emotion inside it with vibrant, sticky color.
The Warrior lost his face paint quite quickly in matches, whereas Mysterio has less likely been susceptible to distracting mask malfunctions like the one rare time at Wrestlemania 21. Although, Mysterio did successfully wrestle without his mask for years in WCW whereas the closest the Warrior came to wrestling without his face paint was when he put smaller versions of his symbol on his cheek. That being said, Rey’s return to his mask when he came to the WWE was true mask enlightenment as he went on to become an even bigger star and more marketable commodity based on the strength of his mask design.
Both men have varied the colors and inner design of their core shape, with Mysterio often making much bolder decisions to match his mask with many different colors and styles of pants, and even going for super-hero tributes or other special themes for big matches. The most memorable Warrior alterations had to be his naked body suit and his air brushed overcoat, hardly the aesthetically dominant appearance of the Mysterio ensembles.
In my opinion, the sheer coolness of the Mysterio mask art, profitability of the image, and creative yet true to the spirit variations, forces me to give masks the first point of the tournament.
vs. 
Abe ‘Knuckleball’ Schwartz vs. Mr. America
Mr. America was the short-lived alter ego of Hulk Hogan after he’d been banned from the WWE, while Schwartz was the supernatural embodiment of baseball possessing the body of the Steve Lombardi, or the Brookly Bralwer, if you will.
The Mr. America mask had just the right amount of space around the jaw to reveal the Hogan fu manchu mustache to make the gimmick ridiculous fun. The solid flag blue and the one prominent star layered over the eyes and mouth holes also project the Captain America likeness that provides the super-heroic feel needed for a good wrestling mask.
Schwartz has the white and black face of a mime yet the actual painted on stitches of a baseball. This gives the impression that his head is actually a baseball and when running the ropes against an opponent this would have to be a menacing, fastballing, effect.
Mr. America is an obscure chapter in the career of Hulk Hogan, but Abe ‘Knuckleball’ Schwartz is an even weirder footnote in the oddly Hall of Fame bound career of Steve Lombardi. In the donning of the simple yet powerful patriotic mask, Hogan didn’t step too far out of his comfort zone of being an in-your-face American hero. Lombardi tried for a much more difficult, yet equally as powerful, symbolic message. Representing baseball, almost literally, and donning the often controversially American NY Yankee colors, Lombardi is confronting you with the power of capitalistic might and his trademark sneer highlighted by the black lips on a white background, rub in with cocky glee the true power of America. Therefore, I give this round to Abe ‘Knuckleball’ Schwartz.
vs. 
Aldo Montoya vs. Hakushi
Two of the bright stars of the WWF’s New Generation go head to head, so to speak.
Aldo Montoya, ‘the Portuguese Man of War’ was an attempt at creating a cultural icon mixed with a Power Ranger. The mask he wore was unique in that it wrapped around the top of his head like a scarf or a woman’s tube top, with a thin, Halloween mask strap that connected under his chin. The open top left space for his fuzzy tuft of hair to stick out and for his complete jowls to be exposed.
Hakushi had the very simple, yet breathtakingly unique lines of downward Japanese Kanji painted on his face. Unlike most painted faces that attempt to copy the illusion of a mask or Kiss-inspired creature, Hakushi had inconceivably (and incomprehensibly to most American fans) put text on his face. Hakushi set a great precedent here with the fake facial tattooing that Crush and currently Umaga followed to great success. The long, vertical bars of Kanji were a fascinating and intimidating revolution in facial decoration.
The connection to Portuguese culture was bogglingly obscure with the Aldo Montoya mask, while Hakushi represented the patient and serene Shinto/Buddhist culture of Japan. Hakushi happened to have the perfect, square head shape to pull off the lines of Kanji in a way that made it seem like you were looking at a living piece of paper. This is something that the bean head of Aldo would not have been able to pull of at all. I love the strong yellow on the Montoya mask, which matched his armbands and trunks so well, and continued the masking tradition of super-hero imagery, but my main complaint lies in the visual of his face and the dopy, open mouthed slack jaw that seemed to particularly stand out under the horizontal line of the mask, and could lead to some unflattering visuals at times. Thus, I will have to give this round to the formidable and unique face paint on Hakushi who looked menacing, and culturally specific from all angles.
vs. 
Papa Shango vs. Mortis
Two unique gimmicks, one great skull theme, but who pulled it off more effectively?
Mortis had a dark gray, jawless skull mask that faded into his long dark hair with seamless dread. The black sockets of the large eyes and the lack of a bottom set of teeth made this mask a creepy and effectively threatening antithesis to more upbeat mask of his arch enemy Glacier.
Papa Shango has one of the most classic face painting jobs, recreating the voodoo skull patterns exploited so well in movies like The Serpent and the Rainbow and Live and Let Die. Papa Shango had perfectly dark eyes and a well-proportioned nose hole painted over top of the frightening image of sketchy teeth lines on a white lip base.
When going for an earthly demon effect that could literally scare young children, I think the Shango face paint must win out in the end. Although the Mortis mask is more detailed and thus more realistic, it is the simple, almost childlike application of the shapes on Shango’s face that makes for an even more menacing visual. Voodoo has an forgotten-age kind of fear built into it’s mystique, an ancient and dangerously basic expression of primal urges and Papa Shango embodied this expertly. Mortis, on the other hand, seemed more like a Mortal Kombat game character, which can be fun but less memorable. The more full shape of the skull on Papa Shango is also better, while the missing teeth on Mortis can give a compressed look of a large over bite from a distance. Papa Shango gives the face painters an big lead.
vs. 
Vader vs. Road Warrior Animal
Here I’ve matched up two archetypal, brute powerhouses.
Animal has the better of the two Road Warrior face paint patterns, in my opinion, mixing some of Mad Max apocalyptic doom with football field aggression. The sometimes inclusion of a spider web on the forehead was a particularly awesome look, almost like Spider-Man mixed with the Rhino. The spiked shoulder pads that rounded out the Legion of Doom image, confronted you to see the tribal shapes on the face of Animal as a fearful premonition to a future where society has fallen apart and men like this make the rules and take what they want.
Vader had a mask that was partly like a collegiate wrestling helmet and partly a precursor to the Hannibal Lector face cage. Looking at Vader seemed like you were looking through some kind of prison fence at a dangerous criminal. Yet the dark red and black intersecting lines also gave the feeling of controlled doom, like this man was the bad guy in a Schwarzenegger film. The way the mask pressed down on the nose of Vader made him look inhuman and the commitment to that discomfort for such an effect is truly commendable.
Animal’s face paint might be the image that cemented face paint in pro-wrestling lore forever, and it is truly legendary. Yet compared to Vader and his uniquely shaped yet minimalist mask I find it difficult to put Animal over the top. Without the shoulder pads, I don’t think that the Road Warrior image would have been as powerful as it was, and thus the face paint separately, although interesting, might not be as strong as the Vader mask. Vader used to come out with a demonic, smoke-shooting helmet, yet unlike the spiked shoulder pads of the Legion of Doom, Vader left that gimmick behind and that somehow even strengthened the appeal of his mask. In the end, I will give the slight edge to Vader and keep this competition going.
vs. 
Sting vs. Kane
I’m going back to the original look with these two, what I think was the most effective images in both arsenals. I’m not interested in the more breathable, jaw exposing Kane mask, and particularly turned off by the Crow-imitating Sting make-up.
I prefer the original, beach style Sting and his continually changing face paint. The overall system was generally the same, a swish of paints with a Road Warrior Hawk-ish ying yang effect over the eyes and a triangle of free space for the nose, mouth and chin. I particularly remember a contest where Sting would actually paint his face after a winning fan’s design, now that is a true face painting expert.
Kane’s original mask was like a hot iron plate pulled right out a fire. That thin slit for the mouth, and the way it folded down from the nose like face lines was creepy, like a horror film come to life. The black slices across the entire surface could be kind of cliché on a less rectangular mask, but somehow they feel right, as the design allows them to lead your eye right into the socket of Kane and his oddly colored eyes.
In the end, I’m going to bring it down to impact. I think Kane is still living off of the intensity of his first appearance at the In Your House – Badd Blood event, a moment and mask so striking that it stayed in the minds of wrestling fans forever, and has established a lifetime of goodwill for such a satisfying moment to a tentatively weak mystery brother storyline. Sting wrestled some legends in order to solidify his legacy, and I don’t think that his painted face had as much as an effect on his overall career as it did with Kane. Although this may make Sting the better wrestler, historically, I think that Kane, eventually, must be considered as having the more memorable impact based on his facial decoration.
vs. 
Goldust vs. Mankind
It all comes down to a battle between two of the characters that were so pivotal in creating the addictive Attitude era of wrestling that crossed over in the nineties.
The Mankind mask is part medieval lunatic dungeon wear and part soft and demented Disney mascot cute. The faded brown projects the soul of the downtrodden and the patchwork quality of the bolts holding together the random pieces may remind some of the stitches in Leatherface’s skin mask. No mask had ever incorporated the hair, the facial openings, and the personality of the character with such synchronicity. This mask and the lunatic beneath it, confronts us with the fact that this caricature is not just of one man but of all mankind.
Goldust, in his original simple gold base with the black eye and lips (and/or ears) obtained the most perfect gold hue as to represent a living deity, a walking Oscar statue, an insane genius, a master of mind games, and a transvestite in a way that even Dr. Frank-N-Furter would envy. The many ways that Goldust altered this perfect base, from the weekly changes in the Artist Formerly Known as Goldust, to the extravagant designs he created as a ‘face’ Goldust, all of them brilliant tweeks on a perfect concept, like adding spin-offs to C.S.I or extra titles in the X-Men series.
Both the mask of Mankind and the face paint of Goldust expertly convey the unique characters being displayed by previously established fantastic wrestlers Cactus Jack and Dustin Rhodes. Mankind’s broken down mask symbolizes not only the violent exhaustion of Mick Foley, the man behind the mask, but also the current depressed and sadly violent state of modern society. Goldust’s exquisite lacquer bubbles with the creativity and art inside Dustin Rhunnels, but also features the blackness of disappointment and pain in the eyes and words of all true great artists.
This is a tough one for me. Mankind is Mankind, and Goldust is Goldust. Neither gimmick has a flaw in my opinion, so regrettably I’m going to have to go with a draw on this round.
That ties up the tournament at 3-3-1, leaving the whole thing a draw! What a work! To make up for it, since it is a ‘draw’ I have decided to go to a tie breaking system that I invented. I will literally draw, in blind contour style, both pictures of Goldust and Mankind, and I will do each with a 45 second time limit. That should help determine who is better, and I will chose the best drawing to represent the winning side of the discussion.
Here are the results:
Oh… I can’t decide, call me wacky, but it’s still a draw…
What do you think?
