Tarz Lando sandwiched between Shane McCall and Scott Williams
At Wrestlefest NYC in February, I had the unexpected pleasure of meeting Tarz Lando at the Gay Wrestling History panel that I co-moderated. I’ve followed Tarz on social media for ages, technically before I even knew he was part of the wrestling community. He’s got this incredibly sexy handsome brute vibe on social media, with beefy muscles, a shaved head, and a luxuriously thick, full beard. There’s something cerebral about him that’s extra attractive to me, like he’s got the total package of muscle and brains to bring to a fight. And fuck, he’s even sexier in person! He shared some of his pics from the panel and gave me permission to post them here, so he’s also cool like that. That, in turn, sent me down the rabbit hole of checking out Tarz’ wrestling videos on WatchFighters, which led me to tucking in recently to enjoy his muscle bully beatdown of adorable Isaac Andrews.
There’s sweet dramatic tension from the start, and it hinges on Isaac’s flirtatious playfulness repeatedly running aground on Tarz’ serious-mindedness. Tarz is doing bench presses when Isaac keeps insisting on “spotting” him. “Spotting” him, in Isaac’s book, is straddling Tarz’ head and insisting on “helping” him count his warm up reps and “assist” with the bar unsolicited. It’s sort of cute, really, because Isaac is clearly just pulled into Tarz’ super sexy orbit and wants to admire the big man’s hot, hairy, huge muscles up close. Fair play. Looking at Tarz, I get that. But Tarz is attempting to have a serious workout. Isaac playfully pushes his luck too far (or, just right, really), and takes a sucker punch to the gut. Like Tarzan carrying Jane through the jungle flung over one shoulder, Tarz lugs the irritant indoors and dumps his hot ass down on some wrestling mats. “You wanted me, big boy? Well, now you got me,” the bearded beefcake growls, ripping off his shorts and getting down to business.
Tarz is a gorgeous beast. When I met him in February, I had to restrain myself from reaching out and palming his huge biceps straining the seams of his sexy tight t-shirt. The dude is just fucking solid and magnetic. So there’s something intensely ironic every time he calls Isaac “big boy.” This is WatchFighters, so I don’t have the ability to scratch all my itches, like looking up their respective stats. But, Isaac is solid and fit, with a sexy carpet of hair almost as on point as Tarz’ hairy muscles. But every time Tarz calls him “big boy,” it just keeps driving home the point that Isaac is way, way, WAY outgunned. The naughty spotter gets buried under an avalanche of muscle again and again, and it’s sexy as fuck. “Tell me, are you ever going to spot me again,” Tarz demands to know as he’s transitioning from a spine snapping Boston crab to a single-leg crab, so he can have one hand free to throttle Isaac’s balls. “Now,” the big man demands with cold command, “scream for me.” And fuck, Isaac does!
Isaac continues to be a naughty little punk, though. He literally bite’s Tarz’ finger when the big man latches fishhooks in to finish off a camel clutch. “I know you didn’t just bite me,” Tarz growls, and I swear you can see the heat rising off of his sexy shaved head. “I did just bite you,” Isaac sasses back, a little less impressive for having to mutter it through clenched teeth while trying not to get his skull ripped off his spine in that camel clutch. Isaac is flailing helplessly at one point, buttoned down in about 3 holds at once, and he reaches up to try to yank on Tarz’ sexy-as-fuck thick beard. “Do NOT touch the beard,” the big man barks so loud it makes Isaac flinch. The sexy unsolicited spotter even latches on a ball claw at one point and threatens to rip the beast’s balls off, and for a little while, Isaac has this irrepressibly proud grin on his face as he’s catching some riding time on the muscle man.
Isaac’s naughtiness just keeps adding to the long list that Tarz is keeping of reasons why the irritating punk deserves more torture. Tarz smothers the punk with his massive biceps, and I don’t believe the kid’s protests for a second (fuck, those ARMS!). Tarz yanks Isaac’s trunks halfway down to give this oppositional-defiant kid a severe swat on his lily white ass. Isaac just keeps deserving it, from start to finish, and it makes watching Tarz muscle bully him absolutely any way and every way he wants fucking satisfying. I think it’s Tarz’ leg nelson that makes me cheer hardest. I feel pretty sure that those tree trunks of his could easily snap Isaac’s arms out of their shoulder sockets if he really wanted hurt the kid.
But Tarz gives off more “stern coach” than diabolical heel. I mean, sure, I get the distinct impression Tarz is enjoying himself, planked overtop of Isaac and pounding his crotch into the punk’s face over and over again, but it’s the life lesson that’s really the point. “Now, think about what you done!”
Honestly, I’m not sure if Isaac learned his lesson, because interlaced among the screams and submissions, I’m pretty sure he was fucking enjoying being on the receiving end of this mauling. And I enjoyed watching it. I’m pretty agnostic in the whole smooth vs. hairy debate, but both of these sexy men serve up gorgeous fur and seriously attractive facial hair. And fuck, it’s a sexy, intimate, so supremely deserved beatdown!
Motel Madness 21 features my friend, Bobby Carter, making his BG East debut, and I’m so here for it. I’ve spent hours talking BG East trivia with Bobby. I understand why I’ve been accused of having an encyclopedic knowledge of the BG East catalog, but honestly, Bobby knows it better than I do. He’s a true fanatic. So, there’s just something immensely satisfying seeing one us sliding out from behind this side of the screen and stepping in front of the camera to live the dream!
Charming bad ass Gilles Limber
Neither Bobby nor his MM21 opponent, Gilles Limber, are newbies. They’re both extensively experienced meet-up wrestlers, and they both have some sensationally hot WatchFighters content that demonstrates why they showed up on the BGE recruitment radar. I reviewedBobby’s Wrestlefest Live match last month, and I still can’t say enough about how fucking intense and sexy that battle was. Gilles shows up on camera on WatchFighters against big leaguers like Mason Brooks, Freddy Campbell, Forrest Taylor, and Ash DeLeon (though I’m also obsessed with watching the clips of him working out and crushing watermelons!). So, it should come as no surprise that Bobby and Gilles show up in that New York hotel room sexy as fuck, with legitimate grappling skills and sensational instincts for telling a homoerotic wrestling story.
I know nothing about Luxembourg, but I feel like I need to visit, just to see if Gilles’ tastiness is typical, or if he’s something extra special. Fuck, I love his look! “Limber” isn’t just a surname, and what he can do with that gorgeous, flexible, deceptively strong body is fucking fascinating. His “charming bad ass” vibe makes me laugh a little and turns me on A LOT. There’s something almost polite about the way he compliments Bobby’s wrestling shoes and announces that he’s going to take them from Bobby once he’s beaten him. I swear it’s not just the accent (though, fuck, that’s a sexy fucking accent). It’s his innocent, little boy face, and his chill, understated cockiness that sneaks up me before I realize Gilles has got an intense mean streak. It sneaks up on Bobby, too.
Their hotel room battle is 52% competitive and 48% erotic, but the numbers are deceptive, because it’s clear that both Gilles and Bobby are stoked hotter and hotter by the hard fought competitive holds and battle for dominance. Bobby looks like an X-Men character, with his chiseled, tiny waist, and huge sculpted muscles. There’s a sense of gravitational pull about just how solid he is, irresistibly attracting Gilles’ groping hands to feel Bobby’s grade-A beef. Gilles’ m.o. is to aggressively lock Bobby in place and then have his way with stroking and possessing Bobby’s lush muscles. Honestly, Bobby’s quads are significantly bigger (and 100% rock hard muscle) than Gilles’, but it’s Gilles’ scissors that keep setting the pace in this match. He’s wringing Bobby out hard in a way that makes the muscle man’s body go rigid and the breath freeze in his lungs, and the look of knowing pride on Gilles’ innocent baby face is just so fucking sexy. He has clearly shocked, punished, and possessed plenty of opponents before now with the deceptively brutal power in his aesthetically graceful and lean legs.
My crotch twitches with a mind of its own whenever Bobby stomps on the gas pedal. You can see the frustration simmer and then boil as his politely mean opponent punishes him long and hard, until he’s had just about enough of that. Suddenly, all of those gorgeous, superhero muscles on Bobby are for more than just turning on me and Gilles. It’s raw, gorgeous power that busts Bobby out of Gilles’ clutches repeatedly, and it’s stunning every time. It’s like watching my gym crush pumping out feats of strength that I can’t take my eyes off of, but in this case, he’s pumping out feats of strength that end up with Gilles’ defenseless inside Bobby’s rear naked choke. For a few moments, Gilles looks a little more like a bitterly bullied little boy than that politely cocky badass.
There’s a decent-sized patch of wrestling mats on the hotel room floor where about 60% of the intense back and forth action plays out, but the volume on the erotic side of this battle turns way, way up when Bobby suddenly hoists the flailing little Luxembourger over one huge, boulder shoulder and tosses Gilles onto the bed. It’s not playful, mind you. It’s not like the competitive intensity dials down even a fraction. But it’s just hungrier as they scramble for domination on the bed. They lose their singlets, and fuck… those are two phenomenally beautiful asses on display. I would’ve thought that Bobby’s size and strength advantage would keep him on top of Gilles in the topography of a hotel bed, but Gilles just gets meaner and more aggressive and Bobby keeps getting his rocking bod upended again and again.
There’s this intensely sexy moment when Gilles clamps those magical thighs of his around Bobby’s head and an arm at the edge of the bed in standing scissors. Gilles’ ass framed in that jock strap makes me swoon, flexing and squeezing on Bobby’s trapped skull. And then, holy hell, he will NOT be denied when he suddenly picks Bobby up in his arms, hanging the muscle man upside down with Bobby’s head crushed. Fuck, I thought it was Bobby’s feats of strength that were pacing these reversals of fortune, but… damn! And then Gilles starts stroking on Bobby’s cock possessively, playing the muscle man like a musical instrument.
There’s a point at which I think the boys have melted into their obvious mutual lust, and it’s sexy as hell to watch them sucking face and worshiping each other’s gorgeous muscles. But the full throttle erotic wave never quite comes untethered from the competitive battle for domination. The last submission reads like the loser just no longer able to resist the relentless erotic domination. Like, they’re equally matched in hunger, but the victory here goes to the wrestler who’s able to keep his head in the game, surfing that wave of erotic pleasure, but staying on his feet to lock on that last reverse bearhug and make his opponent give it all up.
I can’t wait to see more of both of these BG East rookies, and I LOVE the beauty, power, and personality that they bring to keep spicing up the BG East roster!
Undagear 38 is my first glimpse at Tanner Ripley in action. Well, I’ve seen pics of the pretty boy all over the place, but this was the first time I’d seen him in motion. He’s ridiculously pretty. There’s a Hollywood badboy look about him, like TMZ should be trailing him to catch him inevitably starting a fight with Colin Farrel outside an exclusive celebrity LA bar. He’s an example of this curious phenomenon where a super hot wrestler suddenly seems to be everywhere, as if he isn’t a rookie, but a fixture. I know, Tanner has been heating things up at Muscleboy and Weekend Wrestling for more than a blink, and he’s got an extensive catalog of videos on WatchFighters. Weekend’s bio claim that Tanner is “a ten year veteran of various forms of combat, including Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, professional and submission wrestling,” but he comes across to me as a roughhousing fratboy bully. And he looks too young to be a ten year veteran of anything, but I know, we all wear age differently.
Tanner’s opponent in Undagear 38 is definitely a known quantity. Zach Ramos continues to impress and titillate me. His body is luxuriously muscled. His long, curly locks and playfully sinister van dyke give off a maverick vibe. But it’s his personality that really grabs me. I always get the impression that Zach genuinely fucking LOVES to wrestle. He’s out for fun, and by fun, I mean testing that rocking body of his in hard, sweaty, mean competition against a closely matched opponent. He sucks on his own moments of suffering pretty compellingly, but Zach in the driver’s seat is riveting. He has this breathy, nearly giddy laugh that busts out of him just at those moments when he’s grabbed the steering wheel out of his opponent’s hands and he hears the grunt of shock, pain, and frustration coming from his rival. He definitely gives the impression that he loves that moment hard.
I’m dialed into the chemistry between Zach and Tanner from the moment that they’re checking each other out before the match. I love a pair of hot, sexy, powerful wrestlers who seem to genuinely admire each other’s bodies. Zach likes the sight of Tanner’s meaty biceps, but the blond pretty boy boasts that it’s his legs that are his strong suit. He flexes them for his impressed opponent’s inspection, and fuck, yeah, they look strong. “Want to get tested by these?,” he asks in a way that could read as bro-y bravado or super sexy wrestling kink. They agree to trade scissors, and both big powerful muscle boys give us a taster of how they roll, giving and taking punishment. When it’s Zach’s turn, he does that sadistic chuckle, as he makes Tanner wriggle and writhe red-faced.
The carefully negotiated trading of holds to open Undeagear 38 up is a stark contrast to the sensational spontaneity of the rest of the battle. “Spontaneous” could be a euphemism for messy, like blown holds and lack of momentum, and sure, there are a few blown holds here, but the momentum chugs along relentlessly like a steam engine. There’s nothing clumsy about the back-and-forth battle. Both boys have legitimate arsenals. They give the impression that even they don’t exactly know what’s going to happen next from moment to moment, but there’s nothing indecisive about the relentless ebb and flow of testing offenses. They both look hungry and turned on when they’re in control, and someone is convincingly in control almost every split second, as counters and reversals keep them and us guessing.
They have beautifully matched horny bro energy. Like, when Zach muscles Tanner into a foldover pin and sits on his ass, he treats himself to some hot, indulgent strokes of Tanner’s straining hamstrings. When it’s Tanner’s turn to pitch, he muscles big Zach into an abdominal stretch and alternates between pounding a fist into the trapped hunk’s gut and tauntingly pinching Zach’s nipples. And holy fuck, the look of triumphant pride on Tanner’s baby face as wrings whimpers and grunts of helpless pain from his opponent is fucking HOT!
Tanner suffers harder and hotter than Zach, which could be testimony to Zach’s superior offense or to Tanner’s full throttle sell (probably both). You can see Zach wring buckets of sweat and tears out of blond badboy with combinations of high impact pounding and long, slow submission torture. About 2/3rds of the way through the match, Zach is parading Tanner around in a fireman’s carry, before planting him into the floor with a seriously sick slam. You can pretty much see the stars circling the prettyboy’s head, even as Zach is driving elbows into Tanner’s pride-and-joy legs and throttling the blond hunk’s crotch. Zach hooks a leg and rips apart Tanner’s thick thighs so hard you can basically hear the battered boy’s groin shredding. And Tanner screams bloody murder like a trapped animal! Holy fuck, the intensity! And then, with that blazingly hot horny bro vibe, Zach massages the blond muscle boy’s hole and balls, smiling and chuckling like a Bond villain.
Tanner sells cocky bro badboy as compellingly as he suffers, though. He executes an opportunistic escape with a violent yank on Zach’s long, curly locks and, without a break, snaps big Zach into a dragon sleeper. The look of satisfied delight on his face is just fucking adorable. He samples liberally from this tasty buffet laid out in front of him in the dragon sleeper, pounding Zach’s gut, wrenching on his neck, twisting viciously on the trapped hunk’s nipples. He hungrily strokes his palm down Zack’s torso, stretching slowly and seductively down his writhing opponent’s torso and then clawing the fuck out of Zach’s balls. Tanner’s pumped pecs glisten majestically as he tortures his captured prey, and that little boy face of his shines with undisguised glee. Finally, he’s wringing a compellingly suffering sell from Zach, whose panicked screams are muffled deep up Tanner’s pit.
A horny bro battle that careens into shattered egos and abject suffering grabs me right where homoerotic wrestling turns me on hardest. And then, when one hot, cocky muscle boy is reduced to begging for mercy… fuuuuuuuck, that’s tasty. “Please, no more,” one of these mighty muscle men cries. Crying, weeping, whimpering, bested and conquered… fuck, now that’s a fucking climax to a sensationally told homoerotic wrestling story! The crowing winner slaps the hunky loser’s ass possessively. He grabs a couple handfuls of crotch like a trophy. It’s mean and sadistic, milked long and luxuriously.
I remain a huge, huge fan of Zach. I particularly love seeing him seriously tested by an opponent with the meanness to really wring that desperate edge out of Zach’s suffering. But, yeah, that gleeful, nearly maniacal, chuckling glee of his when he’s playing an opponent like a musical instrument is gorgeous. And now I’m officially a Tanner Ripley fan. Yes, he’s as ridiculously pretty in motion as he is in still frame. He can dish it out, and he can take it in a way that feels like he’s genuinely ready to slap his big, well earned ego down on the table and legitimately see who’s got the strength, skills, and will to conquer. Sometimes, I really get off on contrasts, but Tanner and Zach are just so fucking well matched in attitude and energy, I’d really, really love to see them tag team. One way or another, I want to see more of both of these horny bros.
“They’ve been putting me on the mats lately,” Nathan FX muses out loud as he walks into the mat room to square off against Sunny DeLeon. “Not my forte,” he confesses. “But I’m here to play.” Fuck, NFX irritates me. He provokes me. It’s the tall boy’s need of a haircut. And his lazy cockiness. It’s the way he walks up and intentionally stands mere inches in front of Sunny so that he can stare down his nose and tauntingly point out that he’s literally head and shoulders taller. “We’ve got a fun little David and Goliath situation,” he says with a sneer. “I’ll try not to hurt you too much.” Fuck, that fratboy bully vibe instantly makes me want to see him punished hard. And his effortlessly sexy, long body poured into that breathtakingly tight white singlet… fuck, I just immediately want to see that sneer rubbed off his face with nothing but agony, fear, and a few tears left behind.
So, I’m taking the long odds at the start of Undagear 38 and putting my wishful-thinking bet on stunningly pretty Sunny. Sure, I know that Sunny’s taken some spectacularly brutal beatings in his tenure at BG East, especially in the ring. But NFX is facing him on the mats, which is, most definitely, Sunny’s forte. The blond bro seems to be aware that Sunny has Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training, but I’m not sure he realizes just how dangerous “little David” can be. I had the immense pleasure of watching Sunny work his craft on the mats at Wrestlefest Canada last summer, and holy hell, he’s fucking fierce. I literally have rechecked his stats on the BGE site several times since then, because my memory of him in-person is just a whole lot bigger and immensely more solid than his reported 5’6 height and 140 pounds. I saw Sunny honestly manhandle a muscle hunk at least 40 pounds heavier and also MMA trained. He was a fucking BOSS! So, sure, sure, maybe this is “a David vs. Goliath situation,” but… um, does NFX not know how it went down when David fought Goliath?
Sunny is cool and unimpressed. “Don’t underestimate me,” he warns Nathan. “I’ve got some skills,” he boasts in a spectacular understatement. NFX rolls his eyes and waves him forward with a smirk. “All I can do is underestimate you,” the tallboy sneers, “you’re so far below me.” Fuck, it’s on. Size and reach are indisputably in Nathan’s favor. He thinks strength is in his favor, but I honestly call that a draw, because Sunny is pound-for-pound insanely powerful. And mat skills and experience are unquestionably in Sunny’s favor. It’s a classic story, and I’m all in on NFX getting his perky, lean ass handed to him.
Nathan keeps up his contempt for the ground game, even as Sunny swarms him and snaps on submission holds at will. Sexy Sunny is playing chess while NFX is struggling with tic-tac-toe. The power-packed petite grappler traps him repeatedly, immobilizing the shaggy bro, piece by piece, and then piling on a second, third (fuck sometimes fourth) joint-compromising hold that paints NFX into one corner after another. In under two minutes, Sunny has the player struggling to breathe in bodyscissors and trying not to get his arm ripped out of the shoulder socket with a hammerlock. And still… STILL NFX manages to sound like the chapter room bully after he taps, rubbing out his aching shoulder and conceding “I’ll give you this, you know your stuff.” There’s almost this chuckle in Nathan’s voice, like he knows something that Sunny doesn’t know. Like, Sunny’s obviously superior and ice-cold dangerous skills are still laughable compared to what NFX has secreted up his sleeve.
Okay, okay, what NFX has up his sleeve/under his singlet is a fucking sensational reveal. It’s a power move that gets him back in the game. Just when Sunny is rolling over him, locking on an elbow-jeopardizing arm lock, the tall boy muscles him off the mat and slams him down hard. Quickly, NFX pins Sunny’s crotch underfoot. And then out of nowhere, the blond bro strips his own singlet off. Woah. Woah. He’s just wearing a g-string under there, and fuck, all 6’1 of him is nice to look at. Somehow, in next to nothing, NFX is suddenly uninhibited, now nasty enough and hungry enough to ride rough shod over the little guy. And damn it all, he looks good bullying! I sort of resent myself for being quite so turned on by watching him rack Sunny across his shoulders and parade him around the room. He does squats that show off that sweet ass and make his pouch shimmy hypnotically. He doesn’t need to do it, but he crushes Sunny’s balls in the rack, just because it makes him smile.
But bros are going to bro, right? The really delightful suspense in this match is all about Sunny. He manages to go from the “little David” underdog to the unstoppable BJJ badass to finding himself stripped to his own g-string, with his gorgeous bod displayed like a trophy kill stretched across the blond bro’s shoulders 6 feet in air. Holy SHIT does he suffer!!! And fuck, he’s gorgeous every second of it. In this stunning reversal of expectations, it’s little Sunny, who was the badass moments early totally bullying NFX, suddenly slapped down, scooped up, and screaming in helpless panic. Fuck, I’m kissing my long shot bet goodbye, but not entirely hating it as the tall boy stretches Sunny’s hot, squirming body out suspended completely off his feet in a gorgeous full nelson. How fucking humiliating, that the ice cold BJJ badass is getting thrashed, and damn it all if Sunny sucking on humiliation isn’t even tastier, now we know about the deep arsenal of submission holds he’s got in his quiver that are just out of his petite little reach.
Do NOT count out Sunny DeLeon, though, my friends. On behalf of all of us short kings, and determined not to let an untrained, disrespectful fratboy bully wipe the floor with him, Sunny sucks down the panicked screams, taps back into the icy cold depths of his BJJ badassness, and makes NFX regret the liberties he took when he had Sunny at his mercy. Fuck, the 16 minutes of this 25 minute match that they spend going at each other in nothing but their g-strings is intensely beautiful. Almost every inch of their gorgeous bodies is visible and glistening with sweat. The holds are mean and vicious. The taunts are raw and bitter. They’ve both made runs at proving whether it’s size and reach or skill and experience that’s the formula for success, but it’s the intense intimacy of their hot-as-fuck bodies locked together, flexing and grinding and punishing that’s suddenly the point of it all.
You get the sense that they’ve both learned a little bit more respect for one another’s assets than they started with. But there’s no love lost by the end of this runaway train, and so the climactic knock out finisher is just sweetly satisfying and sexy as hell. I still don’t think I’m likely to grow tired of wanting to see Nathan FX get thrashed and humiliated, but the total reveal of Undagear 38 is that untrained bros better take note. Sunny DeLeon may be half your size, but he just well may be twice the man you are!
Writing a review of the Wrestlefest Live match between Bobby Carter and Seon Cruz is more challenging than I anticipated. As I watch the video on WatchFighters, I’m immediately biased by having been in the audience that night last month in NYC. It’s not just what’s on the video that I’m experiencing, but my vivid memories of sitting in the second row, instantly turned on as I watched Seon and Bobby face off on the mats 5 feet in front of me. The sights off camera, the smells, the other audience members sitting around me, none of that shows up in the video, but they’re an inextricable part of my experience of watching the recording these 4 weeks later. I’m also transparently biased because I’m watching my friend Bobby do his thing. I’m Team Bobby all the way, not only because he stepped in front of the camera that night like an absolute boss, in insane shape, instantly bringing the heat, but also because I consider him a good friend with as many and as varied opinions about homoerotic wrestling as I have. Reviewing the match for someone who’s thinking about watching it on WatchFighters is challenging because of so many layers of bias and background, but I’ll do my best, because I know a lot of homoerotic wrestling fans are going to enjoy this super intense, incredibly sexy match.
And this is just the first 15 seconds of the match!
As they step on the mat, Bobby is the knock dead gorgeous muscle hunk rookie, and Seon is the cocky, smirking, pretty boy veteran. The tension quickly builds like the first bubbles in water coming to a boil, as Bobby stares down his seasoned opponent. I say “stares down,” but let’s be honest, at 5’6, Bobby has no choice but to look up to meet 6’0 Seon’s gaze. But honestly, Bobby’s the big man in his match. His luxuriously thick, stunningly built muscle mass has an obvious gravitational pull on Seon and the audience. The momentum ebbs and flows, but Bobby is primarily the aggressor through more than his fair share of the match, out-muscling his stunned challenger again and again, and quite literally savoring the taste of every mini-moment of victory. Locking on a dragon sleeper, he’s sucking on Seon’s nipples while smothering the overwhelmed veteran deep in his armpit. At another point, with brutal bodyscissors, Bobby is absolutely snapping Seon in half with his huge quads. When Seon is gurgling and gaping like a fish out of water, Bobby leans in and plants his mouth over his trapped opponent’s lips, absolutely sucking the oxygen directly out of Seon’s lungs like administering mouth-to-mouth, but in reverse. Fuck, it’s intense and intimate and has perfectly balanced portions of hot homoeroticism and aggressive wrestling.
Mouth-to-mouth, but in reverse
Like I said, I’m biased. I’m Team Bobby from start to finish. But part of the magic of this match is the slow turning of the audience as Seon and Bobby wrestle to impress. Bobby gets a ton of oohs and ahhs from us when he’s manhandling Seon like a fucking boss. When Bobby takes his standing dragon sleeper to the mat by just dropping on his back and yanking his opponent down on top of him, there are literal gasps from the audience. He’s fucking powerful, and all of his mouthwatering muscles impress the onlookers almost as completely as they wring his long, lanky opponent out. One particularly vocal fan gushes (at least metaphorically) when Bobby rolls right in front of him as he crushes Seon into pieces with a full nelson and body scissors. “You’re hurtin’ him so good, Bobby,” the enamored fan purrs. “You’ve got some shredded-ass shoulders! And you’ve got the craziest-ass legs I’ve ever seen!” Bobby, large and in charge, was owning more than just Seon in that Manhattan high rise, with his rocking physique and merciless muscle-forward offense.
Showing off the manicure
But then Seon casts his own spell on the audience in this spontaneous and audacious way that tugs at the crotch of even a Bobby-loyalist like me. The savvy veteran suffers hard and sells with authenticity that pulls at me deep in my gut as I watch. But he never panics, and he’s poised to counter at any second that Bobby loses focus (typically because Bobby distracts himself sucking face and possessing Seon’s trapped body… totally understandable). One such reversal of fortune relatively early on in the match features Seon, mid-liplock, popping out of Bobby’s rib crushing bodyscissors and using his long, strong limbs to yank the muscle hunk up into a kneeling abdominal stretch. It’s decisive and aggressive and graceful all at the same time. You can hear the unmistakable voice of Bob Wood who was sitting right in front of the action at this point, as Bob mutters his approval, “Right, stretch him out!” Another audience member from across the room calls out Seon’s so-pretty-in-pink-polished fingernails in this blunt way could have landed as a “man-up” provocation to Seon. But no, the pretty boy veteran lights up and wags his painted nails at us, and then sucks hard on each finger of his right hand, before jamming the heel of his palm under Bobby’s chin and stretching the trapped muscle hunk out that much farther. Every one of us in the room roars with delight, as Seon makes it clear he came to play and isn’t about to play jobber to this hard-bodied rookie.
No, ref! Bobby’s not finished with him yet…
The entire match has this intensely sexy catch-and-release, conquer-and-possess rhythm to it. Both wrestlers score seriously intense submissions that keep tugging us in the audience back and forth between them. Bobby has Seon literally weeping in agony and frustration, and you can hear my voice leading the cheers for the relentlessly hot strong man. At one point he’s got the long-limbed pretty boy folded like origami and pinned with absolutely nowhere to go, but with cocky swagger, Bobby waves off the ref when he tries to slap down the three count, so that Bobby can tenderize the fuck out of Seon’s abs and make the veteran submit. But Seon keeps pouncing on those rookie mistakes and making Bobby pay a premium charge for them. In this stunning reversal of expectations, it’s long, limber Seon who hoists a rocked, rock hard Bobby up across his shoulders in a torture rack, playing to the roaring applause of the audience and showing just how flexible his opponent’s massively muscle-armored body can be. They both showcase their hot bodies, compelling personalities, and intensely sexy submission wrestling skills, and they’ve got us (and you) in the palm of their hands as they milk the suspense and drama with stolen kisses, muscle groping, and achingly hot suffering.
Bobby locked up TIGHT!
Watching this play out in real time on the video does a seriously decent job of capturing that feel of spontaneity and the battling, seductive spells that these two sexy grapplers weave over each other and the rest of us. The running time is about 21 minutes, and there isn’t a break or a pause. It’s just intensely sexy wrestling drama rolling across the mat from start to finish. There were about 40 of us there in the room that know how the whole thing played out, but I’ll be intentionally coy about who scores the decisive final pin fall when that sexy-as-fuck masked ref with huge legs slaps down the three count. Both wrestlers get my enthusiastic endorsement for tossing together this incredible feast of homoerotic-forward hot wrestling in front of an unpredictable and intensely engaged live audience.
Seon making a pretzel of Bobby’s huge muscles
But at the end of the day, I’m still Team Bobby all the way.
Leroy Blaze and Evan Sterling occupy a similar spot in my brain. I mean, they’re a study in contrasts. Black. White. Long and lean. Luxuriously beefy. Deceptively baby-faced. Nefariously mustachioed. It’s not like I’m going to mistake one for the other with a cursory glance. But they arrived at BG East around the same time, and have had a similarly tough go in their first matches. I think the folder they both get filed under in my brain is eye-catching rookie hunks with attitudes befitting serious contenders, but who, so far, have looked an awful lot like major league jobbers.
Not that I have anything against jobbers. Far from it, in fact. But Leroy and Evan both give off vibes that they definitely wouldn’t want to get typecast as a doormat. So seeing the two of them square off in Babyface Brawls 6 feels a little momentous to me, because all signs are pointing to one of them scoring his first victory and maybe, just maybe, not finding himself nominated for best jobber at the end of the year.
Leroy Blaze and that smirk
Leroy may have the smaller frame, but he’s got the bigger personality. He’s playing mind games from the start, taunting Evan when the muscle man pauses to look suspiciously at Leroy’s offer of an opening handshake. Leroy has that fucking smirk that you know every opponent he ever faces is going to instantly itch to smack off his face. They wrestle like rookies. Not messy or half-hearted (at all), but just without the smooth edges and polished shine of more seasoned veterans. Their collar and elbow opening pushes are just a little awkward, like they know where their hands should go, but take an extra beat to figure out the positioning. In early days, Leroy challenges Evan to a test of strength (yeah, re-read that sentence). It’s that fucking smirk again that, I’m sure, is what lures Evan in to show off his clearly superior muscle mass and strength. But Leroy’s quick, sharp, cheap shot kick to the gut stomps the momentum right out of the mustachioed muscle man. Leroy’s self-congratulatory sneer as he locks on a side headlock and cranks on it is so fucking irritating. “How do you like it,” the babyface scrapper snarls, trying to pad his resume as nobody’s jobber.
Mustachioed Muscle Man Evan Sterling
Evan is a workhorse. Sure, Leroy gets the jump on him repeatedly, and he’s digging his way out of one disadvantage after another through much of this match. But fuck, he muscles his way out of each predicament with serious power that Leroy just can’t tame. I don’t think the still photos of Evan quite capture the power he clearly packs in his chiseled, sculpted, sexy as fuck muscles. At one point, he’s cranking on a headlock and using his free hand to give Leroy’s suction packed silver trunks a wedgie. While fans are applauding the move, giving us a good look at the lean wrestler’s hot cheeks, Leroy’s seriously pissed off, which he channels into kneeing Evan in the gut, putting him down on the mat with authority, and ripping Evan’s trunks off in one fell swoop. Leroy is showboating (again), slapping Evan’s muscled glutes repeatedly. It’s this stunning, unexpected tableau of the “skinny” kid viciously taunting and bullying the hardbodied muscle man, and it’s fucking hot when Leroy’s choking the big man with his own trunks. But so is Evan having had fucking enough, flipping his opponent to his back and planting his balls on Leroy’s face to hold him in place as he punches the fuck out of Leroy’s pride-and-joy abs. When he climbs off of his stunned rival, Evan’s got a super sexy sweat stain on the back of his purple underwear tracing its way down his crack. And then the strong man stands there, wide stance, hands on his hips, sweaty muscles glistening, looking like he’s about to rip apart a rack of lamb with is bare hands. “I’m more comfortable now, anyways,” Evan growls, making lemonade out of lemons and hopefully knowing just how much we fans appreciate him owning his stripped down hotness.
I love that these guys are keeping track of their submissions. There’s definitely this ego-driven vibe about the contest, as they fight for each go-head fall. It feels like they’ve got stakes in mind. They haven’t said as much, but I swear they’re thinking what I’m thinking, namely that one of them is going to walk away a first-time winner, and the other one is going to have that much harder a time trying to convince anyone that he’s not a perennial jobber. They get mean, with that desperate edge of rookies struggling to decide just how vicious and low they’re prepared to go to make a serious run at the brutal world of our corner of pro wrestling. Evan’s absolute manhandling of Leroy into a sick-severe Boston crab, twisting the long lean scrapper’s spine into a U-shape (nearly V-shape), is ugly. Leroy screams out his submission, but the mustachioed muscle man just laughs like the 1930’s silent movie villain he looks like he is. “I’m not done yet,” he crows, his upper lip curling with delight at the panicked whimpers of his victim.
Leroy gives absolutely as convincingly as he gets, too. At one point, he kicks the big man to to his back, adding a few gratuitous stomps to make sure Evan stays down. Then he lifts the big guy’s sweaty, massive legs by his ankles and spreads them wide. He milks the suspense, delighting in the look of panic on Evan’s face, wondering if his balls are going come out of this still in 3 dimensions. Finally, Leroy stomps the shit out of the muscle man’s gut. Just when Evan is writhing and choking on the pain, Leroy leaps between his legs, and lands every ounce of his 150 pounds onto his shocked opponent’s throat. Like, fuck, that’s mean. Watching Evan wriggle and writhe, gaping like a fish out of water until his throat opens back up again and lets oxygen back into his lungs, is insanely hot. Leroy doing his own chuckling like a baby heel-in-training keeps that momentum careening forward, as they continue counting up the submissions with increasing fierceness.
I still say that both of these hot hunks have the raw ingredients to be serious contenders. Even as rookies, they tell a sweet, sweaty, suspenseful tale, just the two of them tearing into one another and sucking on what the promise of victory just might taste like. The final fall is decisive, and the post-match taunting delivers a message to the rest of the stable of wrestlers eyeing these new guys like corn-fed veal. One of these skilled men has had a taste of hard-earned victory, and he’s licking his lips and wanting more of it. The limp, passed out body of his defeated rival, glistening with sweat and helpless to defend himself against the winner’s nasty slap in the face.. well, that sends an entirely different message.
Is this the pump of victory for a first-time winner…
When, in my last post, I was thinking so deeply about different aspects of how wrestling turns me on, I should have also included reading about and writing wrestling fiction, as well. I was recently recounting for TxWresl how my original impetus to start this blog was to establish a platform for exchanging homoerotic wrestling fiction. I was (and remain) a big fan of John Savage’s wrestling comics and, back in the day, his celebrity wrestling fiction. It looks like he’s still creating from a profile hub on DeviantArt, though he reports that his old celebrity wrestling fiction got wiped when the original platform they were published on was made redundant. Which sucks a lot, because they were fun and funny and hot, and totally got me wanting more. Thus inspired back at the beginning of my blogging journey, I started writing my own fiction, and decided to build the blog as a vehicle for promoting those stories and inviting others to share theirs. I nearly lost all of my old story archives when Google made the original platform I published them on redundant, too, so the same thing that happened to John nearly happened to me. But I still have my archives, and I’ve been slowly rebuilding a couple of sites to share them on, repackaging the old stories I was writing and publishing as early as 15 years ago. Somewhere in those intervening years, AR started following my stories, and it was AR who reached out over a year and a half ago, inviting me to collaborate with him and ultimately inspiring me to get back to writing again. AR and I write a ton together now, and we’ve been slowly prepping our extensive catalog of new-to-you homoerotic wrestling fiction, spiced up with AR’s 3D artwork. Reading and writing is absolutely another portal into the big, awesome turn-on that wrestling is to me, and both reading and writing is powerfully shaped by my love of watching wrestling and, more recently, my own experiences wrestling.
One of the fun series that AR and I have been building in our writing centers on a hot, naive rookie who sort of stumbles into the rough and tumble world of BG East wrestling. His “origin story” has been available for download (for free) for a while from my site Sidelineland Stories. And just about a week ago or so, I posted the chapter 2 to the Will Strong anthology, describing the rookie’s first visit to BG East north headquarters, where he makes an earnest friend and a dangerous enemy all in the same day. So I’m feeling all nostalgic today, as AR and I share this new piece of fiction that we had such fun writing, as I’m taken back to eagerly sinking my teeth into John Savage’s artwork and celebrity fiction, and all of that leading to this exciting journey I’ve been on ever since.
If reading homoerotic wrestling fiction strokes your pleasure zones the way it does mine, please feel free to check out “Training Day” at Sidelineland Stories. You can also find the Will Strong origin story “Discovering Will” there, and if you poke around a bit, you can find quite a few other pieces of fiction, new and old. My celebrity homoerotic fiction archives, which most definitely owe their inception to John’s work back in the day, has it’s own site and lives within it’s own literary universe called the Producer’s Ring, which also includes a lot of stories I wrote over a decade ago, as well as some sensationally hot new pieces AR and I have written over the past year and a half. Read and get turned on, if it works that way for you the way it does for me. And if you write homoerotic wrestling fiction, let me know! I always enjoy discovering new authors and happy to promo your work here.
I’ve described myself before as having a bit of a voyeur kink. I like watching. Specifically, I like watching hot wrestling. It hasn’t been that long since I took the plunge into meet-up wrestling, while on the other hand, I’ve been getting off on watching homoerotic wrestling for about 25 years, and some of the first igniting of my erotic interests were watching pro wrestling on television when I was growing up. An honest question I had for myself when I was anticipating my first meet-up wrestling matches was whether it would be the same turn-on as watching wrestling. For most of my life, my wrestling fantasies have projected me into hot match scenarios that I watch. So, I wasn’t just watching Tommy Zenk pumping on a side headlock, I was imagining that it was my face being crushed against Tommy’s flexing pec, trapped by his muscles and under his control. I wasn’t just watching Jeff Phoenix twisting Brad Rochelle’s spine in an over-the-knee backbreaker, I was imagining myself, with Brad’s scorching hot body at my mercy, laid out before me, suffering at my will and whim. I was certain that the experience of wrestling wouldn’t be the same as the experience of watching it, but I wondered how close the experience of wrestling would be to where my imagination takes me when I’m watching. The quick answer is that I experience them very differently. Both are an intense turn-on, but with very different stimuli and reactions.
WrestleFest NYC last week presented me several opportunities to explore some of the nuances between what turns me on about watching wrestling and what turns me on wrestling. The first of these opportunities popped up unexpectedly during my first match of the fest. It was my first time meeting this particular hot, hunky opponent. As a veteran of several past fests, my opponent came prepared. He had a small suite with enough room to lay out wrestling mats he brought with him (mat wrestling is SUCH a different beast than making-do with a hotel mattress!). He was stocked with flats of bottled water and an impressive bar. And he had connected is laptop to the hotel TV, where he was playing classic, old school BG matches from back in the day (you know the ones, the blue mats, small room, mirrored wall). My host and I enjoyed talking wrestling a while before we actually wrestled (a way I work through my nerves with a first-time opponent), and I kept finding myself distracted by watching the screen where these beautiful, sweat-soaked twinks were stripping each other naked and grappling fiercely to settle who’s going to end up on top. Fuck. I kept getting sucked into the scene on the TV, turned on by how I imagine their hot bodies feel slapping and thumping and grinding into each other. When my opponent and I finally hit the mats, I was pretty primed by the on screen inspiration. But locking up and suddenly scrapping against his Brazilian jiu-jistu training and potently concentrated muscles, I tapped into something completely different. The scramble and flex and chess match of holds yanked me entirely out of my head and into my body. The hot video playing in the background disappeared, and there was just me and my opponent and the raw, fierce battle of strength and will and skill. And it was hot in an incomparable way to the hotness of watching the BG match moments earlier. The turn-on was related, but definitely not the same.
On Saturday evening, I had another fascinating opportunity to think and experience deeply what turns me on about watching wrestling in contrast to what turns me on about wrestling. That night, my friend Scooter produced WrestleFest Live, which was this cool scene for homoerotic wrestling in the round. I’ve been saying for years I want someone to save me a front row seat to watch some live hot homoerotic wrestling, and holy hell, that’s exactly what this was! I watched the first half of the card, featuring 3 intense matches starring incredibly sexy and talented wrestlers with extensive studio and self-produced wrestling resumes. I was one of about 20 audience members, with another 15 or so wrestlers and volunteers there with us in the New York loft a few blocks from the Empire State Building. Tickets were $30, and I sat next to my friend TxWresl, who I’d just wrestled earlier that day. Sitting right in front of me was my Gay Wrestling History panel co-moderator Bob Wood, and I made a new friend of the audience member sitting on the other side of me, as we all chatted before the matches began. Although I’ve been saying I want exactly this type of experience, I honestly didn’t know what to expect or how I’d react to being so up close to smoking hot wrestling while sitting alongside a few dozen other onlookers. Well, I’m happy to report it was intense and oddly intimate and sexy as fuck! Each of the three matches I watched (Sunny DeLeon vs. Jaxon Valliant, Gabe Steel vs. Tanner Ripley, and Bobby Carter vs. Seon Cruz) was a sensationally fought battle. The wrestlers seriously went for it. They had high impact blows, long held holds, and gorgeous, sweaty bodies working hard for domination. There were a few moments when I was a little worried Bob, sitting in the front row in front of me, was going to have a wrestler dumped in his lap, though I’m not exactly sure if Bob would have minded. It wasn’t like watching homoerotic wrestling in private on my screen. Rocky Sparks, the videographer, was spinning and scrambling across the mat in front of us, capturing the matches on camera to be uploaded to WatchFighters. The wrestlers worked up a sweat that was that much more immediate because not only could I see their muscles glistening, I could smell it and clearly hear the wet slap of their bodies in a more intense way than when watching a video.
Muscle hunk Bobby Carter rips Seon Cruz apart!
The corporate experience was really what took me by surprise, though. There were grunts and groans and shouts of encouragement and taunts from audience members as the intense action played out. My voice was just one of the chorus, admiring the beauty and power and compelling homoerotic drama playing out right in front of us. None of us whipped it out like we probably would have if we were watching the drama in private, but I for one was aroused and it was a curiously intense experience for that to be the case surrounded by other homoerotic wrestling fans and the objects of my lustful attention close enough for me to literally touch. I’ll review the matches in detail soon, but for now, I just want to reflect on my subject experience, which included walking away, chatting with TxWresl and JJ Allen and others coincidentally in the elevator with us about what we’d just seen and experienced. And the debrief, having watched together, was totally added value.
Scott gets caught early in SeattleFight’s rear naked choke
WrestleFest NYC 2024 presented me with one final opportunity to reflect deeply on where the Venn diagram of me getting off on watching wrestling and me getting off on wrestling overlaps. I honestly didn’t actually know that two of my past opponents that I’ve written extensively about had a genuine grudge brewing between them. Scott Williams, the long-time object of my homoerotic wrestling infatuation, and SeattleFight, with whom I experienced such an immediate and intense spark in Toronto last summer, had some sore feelings toward one another predating my meeting either of them in person. Apparently, my fawning descriptions of wrestling each of them only added fuel to the fire of their rivalry after I had the intense pleasure of wrestling both of them, repeatedly, since last summer. It was SeattleFight’s idea that they should settle their scores at WrestleFest NYC, and both he and Scott invited me to witness, first hand, what would happen when my wrestling crushes collide. It happened late on my last night in NYC. Scott and SeattleFight squared off on mats in the living room of SeattleFight’s suite. His roommate and I perched expectantly on the couch, inches away from these two smoking hot grapplers stripped down to briefs. And, holy fuck, right there close enough for me to touch, they went at it hot and fierce. It was like my own private WrestleFest Live session, but even more intimate and intense and immediate. It had that same corporate experience of watching, with SeattleFight’s roommate and I reacting together, grunting at the same time to a particularly hard thump of pecs getting punched, moaning in that mixture of empathic pain and erotic pleasure at a particularly hard-earned and humiliating submission. Probably because I’ve been so turned on by my experiences of wrestling both of these gorgeous hunks, I was instantly and persistently turned on, without actually having to “imagine” the feel of their bodies. I wasn’t literally on the mat, but I hardly needed to “project” myself into the intense battle playing out at my feet, because I’d been locked in my own battle with each of these sexy-as-fuck gladiators several times before, including earlier that weekend. It was as close as I’ve come in being turned on by watching wrestling being identical to that experience of being turned on by engaging in wrestling itself.
Scott takes some payback with a headlock and armbar on SeattleFight
Whatever the thin line that separates what turns me on about watching wrestling and what turns me on about engaging in wrestling suddenly and decisively disappeared. Having worked out their pent up frustrations on one another, one of these hot, sweaty hunks came out the undisputed victor in this stunningly fierce battle. Perched on top of a schoolboy pin, taunting and preening and demonstrating that the loser could do nothing else to defend himself, the winner turned his attention on me and invited me to join him. Fuckfuckfuck. I’m not sure if I’ve ever ripped off my street clothes that fast before, because it seemed like a fraction of a second later I was also straddling the demolished muscle hunk. Just like that, I crossed the line from watching to participating. And what aroused me about watching Scott and SeattleFight’s grudge match morphed into what was turning me on about literally becoming part of the action. I wasn’t just imagining or remembering the feel of their bodies and the power in their muscles, I was feeling it. The erotic pleasure that plays out in my head, when I’m watching, stepped seamlessly over the line into the pleasure that plays out in my body when I’m part of action itself. They are intimately related pleasures, essentially different from one another in my experience, but deeply connected to that same thing inside of me that has, for my entire life, been powerfully reactive to wrestling.
SeattleFight flexes… in final victory?
I continue to love this journey I’ve recently been on exploring who I am as a wrestler, but I also remain a passionate fan of watching homoerotic wrestling. Much of the history of this blog has been about my curious examination of what it is that turns me on about wrestling. But even at this point, quite a way along in my lifetime relationship with homoerotic wrestling, it’s a delight to discover new things about myself and new aspects of what turns me on, and how it turns me on. I occasionally bump into conversations about the lines that separate homoerotic wrestlers and homoerotic wrestling fans, and I get the impression that some folks are deeply invested in reifying the lines that divide the two. I’ve caught more than a hint of low key contempt from some wrestlers, for example, for “consumers” of wrestling, like one is real and the other is a weak approximation for the feint of heart. At least for me, I can report that they both reside within me, different expressions of one passionate connection I have to wrestling. And I love how much I continue to be turned on by watching homoerotic wresting, and I love how much I’m turned on by wrestling.
There’s just so fucking much to reflect on when it comes to wrapping my head around my experiences at WrestleFest NYC 2024! As I mentioned last week, a major item on my schedule for WrestleFest was moderating a panel discussion and question & answer session centered on the History of Gay Wrestling. It started off as this cool idea that I’d fit in on top of wrestling and socializing at the fest. Then it grew and morphed into this spectacular and historic opportunity to gather together an unprecedented collection of wrestlers, in-front-of and behind the camera talent at BG East, and around 100 fans to reflect on how far we’ve come as a community. As it took shape, it had a special focus on the homoerotic wrestling video production industry as it relates to meet-up wrestling, wrestling clubs, BJJ training facilities, and other fascinating branches of the diversity of who we have been and who we are as the gay wrestling community today. In the weeks leading up to the event, I somehow went from being a talking head moderator for the event to chairing the planning committee. Lest “chairing” sound more self-important than it really was, let me clarify that it was largely devoted to trying to channel an ever growing number of creative, innovative, talented wrestling hunks into arriving at the same place, at the same time, in order to (roughly) accomplish the same task. No mean feat, trust me. By the time last weekend rolled around, I was showing up to WrestleFest to take care of panel business, and hopefully squeeze a little wrestling and socializing in on the side.
In the very early days of thinking the panel through, a few of us honestly didn’t know how this type of event might resonate with the rest of the WrestleFest vibe. We arranged to book a room at the community center that could seat 60 people, taking it on faith that we’d manage to raise the funds to pay the rental. By the time we showed up this past Sunday afternoon, we’d had to upgrade the room rental to accommodate the more than 100 people planning on showing up, and had secured pledges to cover the cost of the larger space and equipment. Watching people start to stream in when the doors opened was sort of surreal, to be honest. Guys looked curious and excited as they kept filing in, browsing the tables of memorabilia that panelists brought as well as silent auction items available. I was a bit of a nervous mess, frankly. The nerves were firing on several levels, including this being my first “public” appearance for me, after almost 15 years of relatively anonymously blogging here. I was also just nervous about speaking in front of 100 friends and strangers. And, sure, I was nervous about whether our planning was sufficient to wrangle the egos and anecdotes and honors necessary to pay proper respect to the shoulders on which an event like WrestleFest NYC 2024 rests. I had more than a few sleepless nights in the previous week imagining 1,001 things that could go catastrophically wrong. And, to my continued amazement, it went beautifully from start to finish!
The BG East crew video recorded the panels, and I don’t know what their plans may be for the recording. But the panel discussion in the first hour turned into a fascinating glimpse into the evolution of gay wrestling from the perspective of 6 wrestlers who haven’t just lived it, but have actively shaped it. No one had sufficient time for us to really get their full stories. We knew all along the time constraints were going to leave us all a little less than satisfied at any one step along the way. But the collegiality and camaraderie of all of the featured panelists wove its way into this fun, funny, inspiring narrative about guys just making it up and figuring it out along the way, and slowly and surely, what they were making up and figuring out became the geography of gay wrestling community we take for granted today. Like the evolution of finding wrestling opponents in personal ads in the Advocate, to regional wrestling club newsletters, to AOL chatrooms and Global Fight and MeetFighters. They talked about how wrestling with gay sensibilities have charted a path through freestyle wrestling clubs and jiu-jitsu training gyms still today. And there was this fascinating interplay between meet-up wrestling culture and the evolution of the homoerotic wrestling video production industry, with even pre-BGE roots in companies like AMG and Old Reliable, and then us largely focusing on the role of BG East, and the dozen or more other wrestling companies that have come and gone, modeled on BG East’s eye for the art, athleticism, and dramatic production behind their wrestling videos. Fuck. It was seriously deep and layered and flew by just way too fast! But it was exactly what it needed to be in that moment and for that occasion.
The panelists were the cream of the crop, starting with our featured speaker, Kid Leopard, himself. One of the early New York Wrestling Club contributors, Bill Erland talked about his journey from pro wrestling fan to wrestler. Shane McCall shared a glimpse of his transformation from a quiet, relatively nonathletic gay kid into the LEGEND Shane McCall, babyface battler and rookie of the year turned dangerously badass erotic warrior. Scott “the Man of my Dreams” Williams took the podium to talk about his journey from solidly accomplished submission wrestler in his BG East filming days to finding his way into a BJJ gym, where he’s been training and accepted as a gay man in the often hypermasculine world of MMA. Kid Leopard reflected on his storied career as a performer, a pro wrestler, an on-camera wrestler for BG, and then his entrepreneurial genius in building BG East into the pillar of the gay wrestling community it has been for the past 45 years. And Kid Vicious reflected on embodying both one of the most notorious sex fight characters in gay wrestling iconography, while also transitioning to behind the camera, directorial, and management responsibilities, helping to navigate BG East through the increasingly turbulent and uncertain waters of technological revolutions and the gig economy of self-produced wrestling fare. Fuck, how did we get through that much depth and breadth!!!?
Scott Williams and Shane McCall seemed to enjoy themselves
Despite how wound tight my nerves were to start with, the event turned quite emotional for me, as I’ve heard it did for several other folks who were present. I was already getting chills just listening to Shane talk about the liberation of letting his inner gay wrestling badass out. When Scott was bearing witness to just how accepting and affirming his jiu-jitsu training gym was, I was seriously torn between having my heart warmed and my cock hard, because… Scott. The heartstrings really took a tug, though, when Kid Leopard started his remarks off by awarding a trophy, in absentia, to Jonny Firestorm, who at the last minute wasn’t able to join us at WrestleFest. And then, Kid Leopard delivered another surprise award to my co-moderator and legendary ring announcer, Bob Wood (watch BGE’s Wrestlefest 1, Live at Metro, or Live at Campus for a taste of what Bob brings to hot gay pro wrestling drama).
Ricky Roma and Gabe Steel were in the house
Kid Vicious and I had a little surprise planned of our own, though. I think we genuinely caught Kid Leopard off guard by handing him an award in honor and gratitude for his lifetime contributions to promote and elevate gay wrestling. He got two spontaneous standing ovations from a room full of passionately grateful fans and colleagues. I think it may be the first time I’ve ever seen Kid Leopard at a loss for words, and it was sweet and powerful and brought a tear to my eye. Of course, Kid Leopard’s speechlessness only lasted about a minute, but, fuck, yeah. I think the weight of a ton of gratitude and respect landed just right.
Shane McCall and Scott Williams feeling the love from fan and friend Tarz Lando
We switched up the panel for the second half of the event, populating the front table with 8 or so BG East wrestlers, which honestly was a little random, because there were at least that many more of them still in the audience. Here’s where I got to ask questions I gathered from the live audience assembled that day for the event, as well as from blog readers and social media followers. So, for example, I did deliver the question that Alex posed in the comments here last week, asking Kid Vicious “who coached/trained him originally to be so amazing at erotic wrestling, and how did he get into it?” The answer can be boiled down to Kid Leopard, and he sought out Kid Leopard. But it was this spontaneous and funny answer where, I kid you not, Kid Vicious looked almost a little embarrassed by the praise! Again, I’m not going to do the answer justice, so I’m hoping folks may have an opportunity to watch the recording sometime soon. I was expecting the wrestler Q&A to be mostly fun and cheesy, maybe with a mix of kayfabe and BTS glimpses. And it was totally that, but holy hell, it was also astonishingly moving, too! One audience member anonymously wrote a question, asking for advice for an aspiring jobber looking to finally follow his gay wrestling dreams, now that he’s in recovery from addiction. Woah. WOAH. I got chills just reading the question, and I honestly had no idea who among the wrestlers might answer or how they’d respond. And they lined up to share their words of encouragement and concrete, serious as fuck gems of advice (e.g., make sure you negotiate ahead of time and trust who you’re wrestling so you stay injury-free, and sell your heels!!!). Another question from the audience asked about the desire to see more wrestlers of color and trans men in gay wrestling, and, again, I didn’t know where that was going to take us. And it took us into some real talk about the BG East audience, profits, and the marginal return on investment when the studio recruits and tapes wrestlers of color knowing that their existing customer base doesn’t respond the same way as to white wrestlers. It wasn’t the sad truth and the realities of racism and transphobia in the market that gave me chills, but the earnest opportunity this audience member was taking to talk to the powers that be and have that real conversation, and then the willingness of the wrestlers and the wrestler-producers on the panel to wade into those waters and respond with an authenticity that doesn’t solve the problem, but respected it and named it. Where in the FUCK else do we have those conversations so spontaneously and respectfully like that!?!?
Early BG East wrestling hunks back in the day
There was also this subtle moment in the Q&A that snuck up on me in terms of how powerful it turned out to be. I asked a question my buddy AR had suggested that I ask, inquiring of the BG East wrestlers who they wish they could have wrestled, but who had already left the scene before they arrived at BG East. The instant I asked the question, Mason Brooks’ hand shot up like Hermione Granger in charms class. With eager earnestness, Mason said, “Brad Rochelle!” That started this popcorn of earnest answers from the panelists, and then the BGE wrestlers in the audience, and then anyone and everyone else, naming their favorite BG East wrestlers who’ve starred in our personal fantasies. Alexi Adamov,Mike Columbo, Blaze, J-Rock, Aryx Quinn, Dark Rogers, Nick Archer, Justin Pierce … answers kept coming, and with each name, there were spontaneous corporate sighs and grunts of agreement rising up from the entire room. It felt like we were tapping into some collective unconscious, naming out loud our lustful objects of fantasy and discovering 100 others were right there with us. I honestly got chills as the names and sighs and collective moans kept coming, not only because it was just cool to witness BG East stars tapping into their own inner fanboys, but because it felt like this visceral manifestation of the way in which wrestling videos have helped to weave each of us, independently watching our own screens in privacy, into a community of shared passions and common experiences.
They’ve been cracking each other up for decades!
My head is still buzzing from just how incredible I felt the panel turned out. It was about history, and it was fucking historic. Things were said there that needed to said. Appreciation long overdue. Praise that’s never quite been articulated in that way before. I had this powerful impression that there was a lot less dividing the panelists up front from the 100 or so audience members watching than I’d imagined there to be before the event started. I’m left with this profound appreciation for the way that gay wrestling pioneers before us blazed a trail that was never a sure thing, but yet has led us to a place where we can celebrate homoerotic wrestling in more ways than ever before. And I’m left with this sense of awe at the way that homoerotic wrestling videos have shaped not just my tastes, but my sense of myself. And clearly I’m not alone in that. Seeing a diversity of wrestlers celebrating homoerotic wrestling, making themselves vulnerable on camera, and lending their voices and bodies and creativity to giving form to what we find most erotic leaves us feeling a little more seen and heard and respected. I may not be the LEGEND Shane McCall or Scott THUNDER Williams. I’m definitely not the legendary erotic warrior Kid Vicious, or the godfather of gorgeously sadistic heels Kid Leopard. But thanks to them, I feel more powerful and attractive and interesting and empowered. I feel like I’ve got a place in the world that seems like it was just handed to me, but in reality, was hard-earned from thousands of acts of courage and innovation. My sincere thanks to all of the panelists and the wrestlers who showed up and treated your fans with such authentic and spontaneous respect and love.
Classic wrestling hunks paving the way
At the risk of forgetting someone, I just want to personally thank BG East’s Kid Leopard, Kid Vicious, Sailor Rob, Shane McCall, Bob Wood, Bill Erland, Mason Brooks, Drake Marcos, Ricky Roma, Ben Monaco, Mickey Knoxx, Ollie Watts, Seon Cruz, Randy Roberts, Matt Carleton, Ethan Andrews, Kayden Keller, Brian Powers, Gabe Steel, and… fuck… I’m sure I’m missing some more. Chime in and remind me!
Classic wrestling hunks loving what they do and the community they’re part of
This past weekend, I enjoyed participating in my second WrestleFest gathering, and my first in New York. It was intense and fun and, not unlike my experience of NYC itself, dozens of different things at the same time. My first adventure to a WrestleFest was last summer, when I thoroughly enjoyed attending WrestleFest Canada. In Toronto, everyone I met I was meeting for the first time. This past weekend felt more like a reunion, catching up with old friends. Well, maybe less like a reunion and more like going back to summer camp to rekindle friendships forged in the intensity of periodical pop-up community. Well, summer camp in Manhattan… with snow falling… in mid-February. Okay, okay, metaphors fail me. It was awesome. I’ll just start there.
I squeezed in a healthy amount of hot wrestling action, I’m happy to report. As in Toronto, I got to enjoy some group scraps and several 1-on-1 matches. In the weeks leading up to WrestleFest, I actually dabbled with the idea of just scheduling matches with wrestlers I’d already matched with, and enjoyed so much, last summer. But the opportunity to wrestle some guys I’d never met in person sort of fell into my lap (in one case, quite literally). Wrestling with new faces turned up that intensity of trying to anticipate the unknown. I’d have had a blast if I’d only wrestled with friends I already knew I was going to have a great time with, but there’s definitely value added in that nervous lead up to the knock at the door, and the reveal of finding out how well the wrestler on the other side of the door matches his MF picture and, more importantly, my mental picture of what it would be like to lock up with the hottie with whom I’ve been exchanging messages and negotiating what to expect of each other. I sincerely hope that my new-to-me opponents this past weekend go into the looking-forward-to-the-rematch column for the next time. They were hot, sweaty, and exhausting times with genuinely fascinating and incredibly sexy guys. My first-time opponents were snarky fun and funny and all had a similar laid back vibe that really resonated with me this weekend.
Opportunities to rematch and reconnect with former opponents/pals was, of course, a major highlight. I got to tussle with SeattleFight and my buddy Bobby again. I thoroughly enjoyed another round with one of my coaches from WrestleFest Canada, TxWresl, who generously assured me that I’ve improved since last August. And I got to go a few entirely unexpected rounds with Scott Williams, who I knew was going to be attending WrestleFest, but with whom I hadn’t managed to actually schedule a match ahead of time. I was less inhibited and less in my own head in these rematches. Knowing a little bit about what to expect, and what was expected of me, let me jump into the middle of the intensity of a match right from the start. With familiar opponents, I spent less time battling my insecurities, less time wondering if I was as skilled as they’d hoped, as attractive as they’d hoped, as competitive as they’d hoped, as I am when squaring off against new opponents. The rematches are sort of a blur to me because they all felt like one furiously intense chapter in a much longer story, and I love that.
I was humbled many times this weekend by blog readers coming up to introduce themselves and offer praise and encouragement for this labor of love I’ve been typing away at for almost 15 years (I just double checked… my first post was May 15, 2009… someone bake me a cake in May). It’s sort of stunning and surreal to hear guys say how meaningful my seemingly aimless ramblings have been to them, often as an early point of contact with homoerotic wrestling community. Like, woah. A few guys this weekend described discovering for the first time that there are others with an erotic interest in wrestling by stumbling across my words here on the blog, and then fast forward to 2024, and those guys are in Manhattan with 300 other like-minded guys celebrating homoerotic wrestling in person. Amazing! Humbling. Like, fuck, I need to go back and edit all of my old blog posts for the infinite typographical and grammatical errors I keep piling onto these pages and making myself cringe when I re-read them, considering this is seriously formative stuff for some of you!
All joking aside (well, some of the joking aside), my first and biggest impression of Wrestlefest NYC 2024 as I try to digest it all these few days later is community. It was about relationships, new and continuing. It was about more than just not being alone, but being part of something that feels vital and grounding and connected to something I know is deeply true in me. It was all about that knowing grin we share when we recognize that same thing that’s inside me is also inside you, and even if it isn’t something we talk about with just anybody in our lives, for this one moment at this event, it’s right there, out in the open, connecting us to one another.
I’ve got more to say, but just wanted to start there in downloading and debriefing this past weekend. WrestleFest NYC was plugging into community that I didn’t always know existed, but now can’t imagine my place in the world without being part of it.
Sidelineland 