Rick Martel vs Tito Santana vs Ricky Steamboat

[Grimmas]

If you like your 80s American babyface workers, it doesn't get better than these three. Who you got?

[elliott]

On 6/23/2021 at 2:08 PM, Grimmas said:

If you like your 80s American babyface workers, it doesn't get better than these three. Who you got?

Ricky Morton! 

But to answer the question, I went with Ricky Steamboat. No matter how great a babyface Rick Martel was, a French Canadian could never be the best 80s American babyface.

Seriously though, I still went with Steamboat. YOu could never conceive of him as a heel. I think his top feuds better, I love his over the top selling. My wrestling fandom never would have survived without RIcky Steamboat in my early years. 

[DR Ackermann]

Despite only lasting halfway through the decade, you could argue Steamboat was the best pure American babyface of the 90s too. I think his 90s run holds up as a top 10 American based worker for the decade.

[Tetsujin]

I guess Steamboat is the right answer because he's basically an eternal babyface. His performance against Rude at Beach Blast 92 is the definition of a perfect babyface for me, and it isn't the only performance close to that level he has. But man, I fucking mark everytime peak babyface Martel fires up. He's like Lawler and Hogan, but less Superman and more Spiderman, if you get what I mean. It's a shame he didn't work as a face his entire career, but he was a pretty cool subtle heel too when it was needed, and the Model run is as good as it could have be, considering Vince's fetiche for ruining the big territory names he signed.

I guess that, in my overall list, Martel has a strong chance to be a bit higher than Steamboat, but if the question is who's the most iconic babyface, Ricky's longevity gives him the edge here.