The best of BG East in 2012 poll results have been posted. Joe’s also posted a summary of the winners, implying that he and the popular vote may have parted ways at several points. Same for me, I think. Honestly, I can’t remember who I voted for in several categories, despite the fact that I voted just a few days ago. It’s probably the remnants of my anti-inflammatory and pain meds working their way out of my system.
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| Sexiest Match: StripStakes 3 – Morgan Cruise vs Damien Rush |
I do like numbers though, and I’m happy to see a few more data points available than just who won. For example, Morgan Cruise’s rip ‘n strip ‘n force to cum rookie welcome of Damien Rush in StripStakes 3 scored the trophy for sexiest match in 2012, but check the stats. The match I voted for, Cage Thunder and Lightning Rod’s insanely sexy 2-on-1 destruction of achingly adorably Stinger in Masked Mayhem 9 was just 1 percentage point behind. I think the heat of this competition deserves seeing Cage Thunder and Lightning Rod tag team once again, this time against Morgan and Damien!
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| Best Mat Battle: Matie Rookies Eli Black v Jake Jenkins |
I was with the herd in selecting best mat battle. Jake Jenkins and Eli Black’s Mat Rookie confrontation is a match I think will stand the test of time. And it was 20 percentage points ahead of 2nd place! When we do a best of the best vote for the next decade anniversary or 100th catalog of BGE, I think Jake and Eli could contend for the title against a broader field.
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| Best Ring Match: Babyface Brawls 2 Austin Cooper v Cameron Matthews |
I can’t remember for certain, but I think my vote for best ring match went with runner-ups Jonny Firestorm and Jake Jenkins in Jobberpalooza 12: The Works, rather than category winners Cameron Matthews and Austin Cooper for Babyface Brawl 2. I wouldn’t argue with that outcome at all, really, even though just 5 percentage points separated 1st and 2nd place. I thought that was a very competitive category with several very worthy contenders.
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| Top Babyface: Jake Jenkins |
For best babyface, I think I again went with the herd in picking winner Jake Jenkins who pulled it out by 6 percentage points over Austin Cooper. There are extremely fierce fans in both of these boys’ camps, so I’m not surprised they rose to the top. I’m sort of pleased that of the two, Jake topped Coop.
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| Top Heel: Jonny Firestorm |
Honestly, I just can’t remember who I voted for top heel, but it could have been winner Jonny Firestorm who beat out equally likely candidate I may have voted for, Kid Karisma, by 11 points. Since there was no category for most mindblowing forearms (next year, people!), I’m glad Jonny tucked this one under his belt.
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| Best Squash: Jopperpalooza 12: The Works Jonny Firestorm v Jake Jenkins |
Best squash was not close at all, but I sided with the 17% of decisively swung for Kid Karisma’s gorgeous, sexy beatdown on Skip Vance in Mat Mayhem 23 rather than category winner Jonny Firestorm and Jake Jenkins for Jobberpalooza 12: The Works. I’m glad The Works got a shout out somewhere in the poll results, though. And the writing was on the wall, really, with Jake voted top babyface and Jonny voted top heel!
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| Jobber of the Year: Rio Garza |
Jobber of the year went to fan favorite Rio Garza by 9 percentage points over my pick, Skip Vance. Rio’s got an extremely loyal and not infrequently aggressive (to the point of rude) fan base that makes this result unsurprising to me. For my tastes, however, Skip is much more a classic jobber and entertaining sell. Rio’s awfully entertaining to watch job, too, though.
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| Debut of the Year: Eli Black |
Again, I think was with the herd in picking Eli as the best debut of 2012 by 12 points over Damien, though this could easily have gone a different direction and I’d have been entirely on board. It feels like Eli’s been at BG East for years and years, which suggests to me why this was, as Eli would be happy to tell you, his year!
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| Best Spotlight Release: Wrestler Spotlight: Austin Cooper |
Best spotlight release feature was an 11 point spread between Eli and category winner Austin Cooper. While this doesn’t surprise me, and if I were a betting man I’d have put money down and made money back on this outcome, I placed my vote for last place winner Denny Cartier because his Leopard’s Lair 4 anchor position was fucking AWESOME, and essentially 4 barnburner and brutal bouts for the price of 2. I love, love, love me some Denny Cartier and one of my fondest wishes for 2013 is to see him tap into a nasty streak and headline a new category for next year’s voting: best heel turn!
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| Best Abs: Eli Black |
Best abs was a surprisingly (to me) narrow victory of 2 points by Eli over Jake. What makes for “best” when it comes to bodies and their parts is, obviously, subjective, however my vote went for Lon Dumont by a mile and a half. At the risk of pissing off Eli, I just have to say Eli’s phenomenal 8-pack seems to me to be about 60% conditioning and 40% mass, whereas Lon’s anatomy chart abdominals (the whole pacakge: serratus, obliques, abdomini) are a more aesthetically balanced and all around stunning beauty. I don’t begrudge Eli’s victory at all, mind you, but I just shake my head and contemplate my vast distance from the herd when I see that Lon placed last. For me and my tastes, I think this calls for a Lon v Eli gut bash in 2013.
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| Best Bulge: Mr. Joshua Goodman |
I was, however, right in the middle of the pack in voting for best bulge winner (by 4 points) Joshua Goodman (that’s Mr. Joshua to you!), who slapped down his junk to power hit past Gabriel Ross’ anaconda. There wasn’t one candidate in this field that couldn’t easily own the title, and I’d go so far as to say that this year was a bumber crop of mountainous packages. Now the task for 2013 is for one of those club boys that he likes to take home and challenge to wrestle for the chance to put Mr. J on his knees, to literally shock the pants off of Mr. J and finally, finally, finally unleash the beast within. I guarantee I’ll buy three copies of that release!
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| Best Butt: Kid Karisma |
Best butt was a horse race between category winner Kid Karisma and 2nd place finisher (by a nose) Cameron Matthews. While we can’t go wrong with any of the contenders for this title, I’m happy to admit I voted for and was campaign chairman for Kid K’s glorious glutes to grab this title. Again, I say, the ferocity of this competition clearly warrants a Kid K v Cameron rip ‘n strip ring battle to be decided by who makes whom kiss his ass. I’ll pay a premium for a front row seat to that one!
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| Best Body: Rio Garza |
Best body again revealed the distance between me and the herd, with Rio Garza taking the title by 4 points over 2nd place Austin Cooper. Arguably, this could be the most subjective of all of these wildly subjective categories, because what bodies turn us on follow such divergent tastes in bodies among wrestling fans. If this were strictly about physical conditioning and muscle mass, the 2 bodybuilders at the bottom of the heap, Magnus and my choice Lon Dumont, could have easily vied for the top spots. Again, this line of reasoning makes my loins ache to see Magnus and Lon in a head-to-head catchweight ring match of bodybuilding beauties. However, 21% of fans preferred the body of beautifully proportioned, lickably smooth Rio, which I get, despite my tastes drawing me strongly elsewhere.
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| Hottest Liplock: X-Fights 34 Gabriel Ross and Drake Marcos |
The final category placed me back among the masses in selecting the blazingly hot X-Fights 34 match between Drake Marcos and Gabriel Ross, obliterating the competition with 54% of the vote! Truth be told, I could easily be tempted to swing for the incredibly sexy and, yes, I’ll say it, wrestling romantic liplock that Enforcer slapped on Maskador in Masked Mayhem 10 as the ripped hunk hung battered and helpless in a tree of woe, halfway to being entirely unmasked. I admit it: I’ve also gotten off to that scene from Spiderman where Tobey Maguire hangs upside down, his masked half pulled off, as his co-star sucks hero face. Gorgeous fantasy! But holy hell, the heat generated by Drake and Gabriel could heat Reykjavik for year!
What a year! BG East pieced together an incredible collection of outstanding homoerotic wrestling, and all of the nominees and the entire catalog of 2012 releases deserves all this and much more credit. Nicely done, gentlemen!
Sidelineland 
As I noted, I don't have opinions on some categories. Some of my preferences would include:Babyface BrawlAustin CooperKKKK vs. VanceRio Garza–Austin CooperLon DumontGabriel RossKKAustin CooperRoss vs. MarcosI'm a bit repetitive,but I like who I like.
Understood, Almatolmen. That's what makes this (homoerotic wrestling) as much art as science or trade. Austin is a sweet dish, isn't he?
A terrific post, Bard, and I like your approach to measuring yourself against the mainstream. Though I voted in every category, as the polling instrument insisted, I have forgot my picks in categories that were not particular interests of mine anyway, such as Jobber of the Year or Best Abs. I think I nailed only one category (best spotlight release), hitting "runner-up" for a good number of others. I was furthest from the pack on Best Babyface (I went with Cam), Best Squash (strictly speaking not a category with my name all over it, since I usually shy away from matches easily summarized in their titles, unless "naked" or "oil" appear in the title … though I voted for Morgan Cruise vs Chace LaChance), Debut of the Year (Ethan Axel Andrews, sentimental of me, I know), Best Bulge (Dylon Roberts), and Best Body (Chace LaChance … to be thoroughly gross, distasteful, and offensive, i.e. my trifecta, Jason Vorhees could chop off the guy's head and I'd still be humping that body an hour later). And, for the record, I'm sure Rio Garza has some delightful fans too, and he himself appears to be a charming and attractive young man, as I am sure you'd agree.
He makes my teeth ache! 🙂
It's really interesting to see how the broader fanbase voted. I was pretty well aligned, with 4 first-place, 9 second place and one outlier, a fourth place finisher. I mainly voted for Jake, Jonny, Kid and Skip where they appeared.I did have some write-ins, but I thought it would be a waste to bother.
It's probably our fault for not stating it specifically, but the contenders after first and second place were NOT in any particular order. You mentioned a fourth or fifth place finish for a couple of matches which actually finished better. We didn't see any point to listing the vote percentages beyond winner and runner-up but we should have made it clear that the order of nominees was not in order of vote totals.Kid Leopard
Thanks for the clarification, KL, and I'm glad to hear it! I'll choose to believe that none of my picks were last place finishers. This was great fun, and I'm thrilled to hear you all had such a big turn out of voters! I hope we'll see more awards seasons to come.
It was interesting to see how my preference aligned (or didn't) with the general (or very niche general) populace. I tend to like bigger muscle jobbers, which seemed to be a little less represented in several categories; of course some of that could be simply due to sampling statistics based on this years release of video.Which led me to the question I have wondered about: Are wrestlers in videos(and match compilations) based on who is available at the time and then combined to form a particular video or are wrestlers for videos chosen a priori based on the needs to satisfy a particular video compliation/theme?I imagine it is a mixture but have always wondered about the process
I know I'm really late commenting on this, but work was killing me last week. I believe I picked 9 of the 14 winners, which probably makes me part of the bunch rather than an outcast. And that doesn't count that I lent my vote to Pete Sharp on the Best Bulge category, even knowing that Mr. Joshua was going to be the winner (and will probably be the winner as long as this category exists in the future). And it appears that Eli Black fanbase is made of the same stuff from which Justin Bieber fans are made. No matter if he does good or bad they will rally for him. Just kidding, I like the guy. : )I really liked this initiative and I hope is carried over the next years. It is always interesting to be able to compare one's preferences with the general audience. I'm curious know to see what BG East will do now with all of this. A poll is not just a way to gather information and I can see many ways KL may use all of this for future releases, including developing some storylines, adapting product line-ups for new catalogs, scouting new stars and generating some buzz.Lets just wait and see!
Hot… All of it 😀💪