I was talking with a first-time Wrestlefest NYC attendee while we were hanging out in the lobby of the New Yorker last weekend, and the newbie said exactly what I’m thinking whenever I’m socializing at a fest. “I see these guys and think to myself, wow! I’ve jerked off watching that guy wrestle!” I’d venture to guess that one of the top motivations to attend a Wrestlefest is to get to see and bump shoulders with the wrestling stars we get dehydrated over. I’d bet one of the other top motivations to attend is creators showing up to create wrestling content to market to the rest of us who are excited to get a chance to meet those on-camera wrestling stars.

I think that I occupy a novel place in the swirling constellation of people and events that constitute a Wrestlefest. I possess this curious type of notoriety mostly for slowly constructing this blog for coming on 17 years. A surprising number of attendees at a Wrestlefest seem to have read me, which always blows my mind. However, no one really recognizes me on sight. If folks are familiar with me, it’s not my face they recognize. It’s much more likely my words… maybe, occasionally, someone might recognize my voice from Sidelineland Sounds posts. I think my self-perception and the curated point-of-view of my narrative voice here on the blog is that of a relatively anonymous everyman in the homoerotic wrestling universe. And, honestly, I enjoy inhabiting that space.

But blogging about homoerotic wrestling for so long has placed me in tantalizing proximity to the real celebrities, which, honestly, I also enjoy. A lot. I remember early in my blogging days wondering whether a wrestler might ever read what I’d written about him. I assumed not, but along the way, I discovered that sometimes they did. A few months into blogging, Derek da Silva posted a link on Twitter to my review of one of his matches, and I just about blew a blood vessel with excitement. Wrestlers have reached out to thank me for something I’ve written, which is absolutely always a thrill. A handful of times, I’ve even had wrestlers contact me with a tactful request for a correction to something I’ve erroneously written, which, honestly, has the same effect on me (“fuck, he read it!”). Eventually, I got the opportunity to start interviewing wrestlers, and occasionally hang out with, share meals with, and in a few treasured instances, even wrestle some of the wrestlers I’ve enjoyed watching on video.

I found myself straddling that divide between the content creator crowd and the everyman homoerotic wrestling enthusiasts in a whole new way at Wrestlefest NYC this year, though. A few months ago, I got a message from Sir Dark, asking me if I’d like to help out behind the scenes with a new rumble match he was lining up at the start of the fest. I immediately and enthusiastically said yes, though I had no idea what I’d actually be doing. I switched up my train schedule to get there in time, and basically walked out of Penn Station and was immediately on the job helping wrangle wrestlers and get all of the participants in the right place at the right time. I can’t quite find the words to capture the vibe of an insane number of gorgeous wrestlers squeezed shoulder to shoulder inside a hotel room, changing in and out of their clothes, anxiously warming up, sizing each other up. I was wanting to look everywhere at the same time.

Sir Dark shoved a camera in my hands, gave me a 30-second tutorial, and suddenly I was manning the primary camera for the next 45 minutes! If I didn’t totally fuck it up, there’s going to be an incredibly hot cavalcade of sexy wrestlers battling it out in a Wrestlefest rumble match on Watchfighters in the near future. I’ll be very excited to review it once it comes out, because… fuuuuuck, so much fucking hotness was packed into that hotel room. But, holy shit, in the moment, the pressure of not fucking this thing up suddenly had me pitted out in under a minute. It’s fucking hard! I mean, it certainly wasn’t made any easier by there being anywhere from two to eight wrestlers on the mat at any given time. Where to point the camera!? How to restrain myself from gasping and moaning (“fuuuuuuuuuck”) and ruining the shot? I’m convinced this was karma for any and all snarky comments I’ve made about camera work in past reviews. But honestly, what a fucking trip being a few inches away from a steady stream of sexy mat wrestling playing out live right in front of me. It was almost an out of body experience, as I self-consciously observed myself being the one framing the action, attending to one angle versus another, circling this direction or that to give the camera one narrative lens at the expense of another choice I could’ve made. And, at the same time, I kept finding myself awestruck that these sensationally sexy wrestlers were tossing and twisting and squeezing one another to submission close enough that I could’ve reached past the camera and literally touched them.

And then the next morning, I went from my first ever duty behind the camera of hot wrestling content creation to my second opportunity. I heard that Mickey Knoxx and a couple of other wrestlers wanted to film a three-way match and needed a cameraman. Perhaps buoyed by unfounded confidence (I mean, I honestly don’t know yet how my camerawork played out for Sir Dark’s rumble), I offered my services and they were graciously accepted. Again, I knew practically nothing about what I was about to record. What that turned out to be was another swoon-inspiring three-way confrontation between Mickey, Nick Lean, and Leon Cyrus. Holy fucking hell! I don’t know when this will come out on Watchfighters (again, presuming I didn’t totally fuck it up with my camera work). I’m not exactly sure with what liberty I’m entitled to talk about it, but it’s not like I signed an NDA or anything. I’ll just tease that it’s a sensationally intense contrast of size and attitude, with even the combined aggression and craftiness of Mickey and Nick just barely stacking up against the beefy bulldozer, Leon. And talk about stacking… fuck… okay, I’ll save the details for when it’s actually released, but I’m thrilled to be able to sneak off set these little tidbits I’ve always wondered about as strictly a consumer: the grunts and moans and sweat are real. The whole thing is just so fucking intense and intimate and immediate in a way that’s completely consistent with what shows up on the screen when I’m watching matches like this on video. Fuck, these boys go at it, and however much management or producing went into it before I showed up, cocks were genuinely stiffened by the hot action, and I’m not just talking about mine.

My first two stints behind the camera were a blast. I have a whole new appreciation for the craftmanship that goes into creating homoerotic wrestling content. It takes a lot more than just beautiful men throwing down. These were absolutely immersive experiences unlike quite anything else I’ve experienced in my many, many years of obsessing over homoerotic wrestling. I had a whole new appreciation for Rocky Sparks and MilesX as I watched them man the cameras at the Wrestefest Live show on Saturday night. I chatted with Rocky about his camera work briefly after the show. Rocky brought up the “voyeur kink” angle of what can make being behind the camera exciting. Watching and being watched wrestling, recording and being recorded wrestling… there’s a super hot interpersonal dynamic there that makes the creation of wrestling content something a bit different than my experience of “just” wrestling itself or “just” watching. Rocky told me he loves being behind the camera, and after watching him record three Wrestlefest Live events over the past three years, I can testify that he’s fucking amazing at it. If the action in the ring wasn’t so incredibly captivating, I could probably get off just watching Rocky circling the ring like a shark and somehow magically always being in the right place to capture just the right angle, to document every moment of spontaneous agony and sadistic delight.

I feel like I’ve earned the right to consider myself an expert in terms of being a lifelong consumer of homoerotic wrestling videos. I’m really good at watching and getting off on hot wrestling content (I mean, I’m really, really good at that). I’m an enthusiastic novice when it comes to wrestling itself. Even “novice” is giving myself far too much credit, but it’s an entirely different experience and a different and delightful turn-on for me to be grappling with an opponent than it is to watch a wrestling match. And, it turns out, being the one behind the camera is a whole different dimension of wrestling turn-on for me. It’s powerful and intense and pressured. It’s immediate, and yet half a step removed from the drama playing out in front of the camera. Manning the camera is to be purveyor of a wrestling narrative in a way I’d never experienced before last weekend. It’s to be the designated voyeur, the appointed docent framing the wrestling art with context and perspective that might, if done right, accentuate and celebrate homoerotic wrestling action in a way that a consumer downstream might be able to be drawn into the room and feel the immediacy of the action, too.

Fuck. I hope I did it right. Rocky Sparks and MilesX deserve a raise!