About 6 months ago, I met up with Harvey Dale on a trip he took the area. We chat online often, so it was great to finally get to spend some time together and, as it turns out, wrestle. I caught up with Harvey as he was making a pilgrimage to BG East. And there was the ring. And there we were. So, we had a fun wrestling match, with this sort of surreal element of being in that blue ring where so many of my fondest homoerotic wrestling fantasies have been set. I’m happy to report that I squeezed my share of submissions out of Harvey. My leg strength continues to be my go-to for putting on the hurt. But fuck it all, Harvey started rolling near the end of our tussle and managed to manhandle me like a fucking bully.
Not that I’m trying to make excuses, but Harvey is literally about 9 inches taller and maybe around 40 pounds heavier than I am. Okay, sure, I’m making excuses for getting tossed around and taking a couple of pile drivers that cleaned my clock. Harvey looks so boy-next-door and innocent, it’s a real kick in the balls when he gets that low key smirk and clearly enjoys playing bully. So cute. So fucking irritating. Fuck.
It turns out that Harvey had managed to line up a bucket list match right after mine with none other than Jonny Firestorm. So, I “lingered” to get to spend a little time with the legendary heel, too. And, as it turns out, Jonny and Harvey were in need of a cameraman to record their match, and I did such a great job of promoting my filming skills after Wrestlefest NYC last February, that I got recruited for the job.
You can see my handiwork, and the absolute mincemeat that Jonny makes of Harvey, over at Watchfighters now. It was another layer of surreal watching Jonny doing his thing all over the 6’3 smirking boy-next-door-bully who’d just been running roughshod over me. Jonny and I are the same height, so there was pretty much that same visual contrast between them as there was with me standing in the ring staring up at Harvey. The similarities end there, though. Because I’m merely a wrestling enthusiast, while Jonny is a fucking professional bad ass. I’d like to say that I wore Harvey out for Jonny, but I’m not even going to try to go there. Jonny just fucking demolishes him for 35 minutes, non-stop.
“Got some fresh meat in here,” Jonny says when he steps onto the ring apron to find Harvey stretching out. Harvey is asking for an ass whooping from the start, pretending he doesn’t recognize Jonny. While Harvey is mid-stretch with his back unwisely turned, Jonny commences with the boy-next-door beatdown that, I’ve got to admit, was so fucking satisfying to watch in person after what went down earlier between me and Harvey.
Jonny starts stomping on Harvey’s balls immediately, which, you’ve got admit, is a seriously efficient way to neutralize a 9-inch height advantage. Harvey’s not smirking when Jonny clamps bodyscissors on the tallboy and threatens to cut him into two equal 37.5 inch halves. In fact, he’s screaming, and it probably says something about my character that I was getting so fucking much vicarious satisfaction out of it.
The punishing holds are long and lingering, because Jonny knows how to make a mauling really last. Somehow, the “height advantage” honestly seems to be all about the sensational ways Jonny manages to twist Harvey’s long limbs into pretzels. Seeing Harvey’s seriously fucking long legs spread-eagled over the ropes in the corner, just waiting for Jonny’s place-kick to the balls, has genuinely epic proportions to it. There are several moments when Jonny drags Harvey off the mat by the hair, when Harvey is nearly eye to eye with the heel while he’s still on his knees. And that contrast of size and absolute domination is fucking hot!
There are multiple piledrivers that knock Harvey senseless. You can’t see me smirking behind the camera at watching Harvey get absolutely buried under his own offense, but trust me. I’m biting my tongue not to gloat. Harvey’s way long legs don’t amount to shit after Jonny has ruined them in a figure-4 leglock. Honestly, Harvey crawls out of the ring and tries to drag himself to the exit. Maybe I should have felt bad for him. But then Jonny scoops him up, cradled across his chest, and slams Harvey’s spine into the ring post, and “sympathy” is just not what I’m feeling.
It’s an absolute masterclass, and I feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to witness it in person. For the record, I’ve no hard feelings toward Harvey. I mean, honestly, I got way more pleasure out of watching (and rewatching) him get bulldozed than I suffered when Harvey was throwing me around earlier. If that’s the price of admission, I have no problem paying it.
Just to pull back the curtain a bit, there were no hard feelings at all among the three of us after Jonny was done having his way with Harvey. Having worked things out in the ring, Jonny even invited us out to dinner afterward, where, I swear, Harvey and I hung on every word of Jonny describing his remarkable journey through amateur and indy pro wrestling on his way to becoming one of the most notorious heels in homoerotic wrestling today. There’s something downright gentlemanly about Jonny outside the ring that makes me appreciate his untethered brutality inside the ring in a whole new light. For all his low blows and mercilessness, there’s nothing reckless or chaotic about Jonny. He’s a master at what he does, but he’s not a snob about it. Harvey got (and deserved, IMO) an absolute top-notch, expert thrashing because Jonny takes pride in being the best at what he does.
At the end of it all, it was a great day for me, despite having taking some knocks from Harvey. And Harvey has since confirmed it was a great day for him, despite having gotten absolutely thrashed into a a pile of whimpering waste by Jonny. Check out Jobber Beatdown: Harvey Dale vs. Jonny Firestorm to get a little taste of what it’s like to have a front row seat to watch Jonny class the place up.
