My first memories of wrestling was of the WWF (no one watched WCW at all), and of Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake ending matches with his sleeperhold.  I was hooked as quickly as his opponents were lying helpless on the wrestling mat. Because of this, the sleeper has always been my favorite move; and although it has been modified throughout my 20+ years of watching wrestling, I will take the original sleeper hold to most any other variation.

The first thing that really intruiged me about the sleeper was the hand-arm placement of the person applying the sleeper, usually right above the victims’ eyes and as close to around the neck as possible, without truly suffocating/causing permanent damage.  This intrigued because, as I know now, facial expressions play a big role in my wrestling kink.  Seeing the victims’ eyes flutter, and finally succumb to passing out/unconsciousness has and always will turn me on.

However, there is another factor of the sleeper that I love, that does not really involve the person applying the hold nor the person in the hold, and I think that this part of the equation gets lost in the action of BG East, Thunders and other companies (though I am not an expert on the matter as my match viewing from these companies and others pales in comparison to some of the people who are reading this).

That factor is the referee:  his job when a submission was happening was to make sure the wrestler in the submission was OK, and whether or not he was all right to continue or if he wanted to give up.  However, with a bulging bicep around the throat, it is difficult to say anything; so the referee would raise the victims’ arm, and if it fell, would lift it two more times.  After the third time raising the arm, if the arm would not stay upright, the referee called for the bell, and the match was over, the loser down on the mat, more or less unconscious.

For me at least, adding a referee or an “unbiased” third party to a match (does not have to be submission, as this person could make the pin counts as well in matches) would add another dimension to the matches, and it would enhance the kink i get out of matches that either have sleepers in them, or end with sleepers.  Seeing matches that are not fully staged and choreographed on a grand scale, end with eyes fluttering and finally closing, an arm being raised and ultimately dropped three times, and the victor standing or flexing over his unconscious opponent, would bring full circle my love affair with the sleeperhold.

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Okay, so AH’s take on a sleeperhold nearly makes me a convert! I still go crazy for an OTK backbreaker, but I appreciate the fluttering eyes and the sinking arm-raise that much more, now. My thanks to AH for taking this conversation in new directions, and my thanks to BG East (as always) and Wrestling Arsenal for the pics.