I think I may have become too serious in the past 41 days or so. Sure, I believe the very fabric of our fundamental social contract as a modern society is unraveling. And, yeah, I have to acknowledge that I’ve been feeling happy not to have children to worry about suffering in the coming new world disorder. But there’ve got to be some reasons to smile these days.  As if reading the secret thoughts of my darkest hours, a long-standing, anonymous, yet dependable friend suddenly reached out and dropped a boatload of candid, behind-the-scenes photos smuggled off the sets of BG East, starring some of the most sensationally sexy wrestlers on the planet taking a little off the cuff joy in life.

OMI (Our Man Inside) has long been aware of my pleasure at seeing candid images of the heroes, villains, and whipping boys who star in the homoerotic wrestling fantasies that I enjoy so much. Far too easily, we who are fans can forget that there are actual people behind the made-for-pro wrestling characters and storylines that we tune in for. Too often, we take our prerogatives as consumers too literally. We collapse the people who put in the time to craft their bodies for wrestling sport entertainment into the products they star in. So we too often feel free to critique not just the products, but the people. We act as if it’s our right, from the anonymity of our side of the computer screen, to trash people based on our tastes and preferences in wrestling entertainment, dismissing the people themselves as worthless if we judge their wrestling products or performances to be uninspiring. I delete comments from the pages of this blog when I think they’ve stepped over that line, because that’s not what this blog is about. People can, and do, do that anywhere and everywhere else on the internet. This blog is about celebrating the industry, promoting the best of what I enjoy in homoerotic wrestling, and encouraging producers and wrestlers alike to continue to titillate and innovate for a homoerotic wrestling sensibility.

So I particularly enjoy these candid shots that give just a glimpse of the men behind the masks (whether literal or figurative). I know that there are some who would likely prefer not to see behind the curtain. I respect that. But these rare glimpses of these hot hunks’ humanity make me love this industry even more.

We don’t have to like them all. Fuck, that’s the whole point really. Some of the hottest wrestling happens when hunky characters who I despise lie, cheat, and steal their way into contention in the ring. The rules of polite (straight) society do not apply in the homoerotic wrestling universe in which these magnificent men show up and throw down, putting bodies and egos and sometimes even their asses on the line in these Greek melodramas that we enjoy so passionately. In that world, these men can fly. They can be broken to pieces and pick themselves right back up and battle on with nothing but sheer will stitching them together. In that world, they’re devious and diabolical. They’re naive and gullible. They’re virtuous to a fault and psychologically flawed to perfection. In that world, they may or may not even be aware that we are crushing on them, debating about them, pulling for or rooting against them. They are apart from us, operating by different rules, and the distance can make us imagine that our estimation of them, in this world, also need not abide by conventions of common decency.

But in this world, they’re guys like you and me. Well, guys who probably work out more, eat better, and, if they’re any good, train to wrestle beyond what 99% of fans ever do. But in my experience, they’re just guys, most of whom are charming and complex, a patchwork of pride and insecurity, just like all of us who are afflicted by this human condition.

And in these waning days of 2016, I could probably use with more glimpses of genuine humanity. I wish every one of these smiling studs success and good fortune in the coming year. I want them to know that they are appreciated, even beyond being adored by those of us who are fans. When they’ve peeled their bruised and battered bodies off the mats, when the cameras are off and the street clothes are on, when they clock into their day jobs where people don’t even know that they are phenomenally sexy fantasymen with superhuman strength and skill when they strip their hot bodies down to supertight trunks, I hope their lives are filled with happiness. They are beautiful and brave, powerful and provocative. They’re terrifying and titillating, inspiring and inciting. They turn us on and transport us to a world in which our fantasies of gorgeous  gladiators locked in erotic combat play out, live action, before our very eyes.

Wrestlers, when you’ve had your spine snapped in an OTK backbreaker and punched in the testicles until you’re a screaming, writhing mess on the mat, after you’ve gotten us off with your beauty and your might, I hope the world is kind to you in the coming year. Thanks for smiling.  ~Bard