I’ve been giving a lot in the give and take of balancing my wrestling infatuation with my day job. Not only has it taken a bite out of my opportunities to watch new wrestling, I’ve also not been keeping up with the other excellent bloggers covering the scene. So who’s covered Jonny Firestorm and Ty’s Wrestling with Pride match? I definitely defer to the judgment of eyes on the scene, but this is my take from this side of the screen.

Okay, this is fucking sexy. To start with, Ty is full on, well into beefcake territory at this point in his incredible physical transformation. It’s hard to connect the dots between his beefy, muscular, cover boy body in the Wrestling with Pride ring and his skinny, smooth, boyish vulnerability just a few years ago. Ty’s sell has always struck me as right at that line between compelling and camp, but when he struts to the ring at Wilton Manor, smirking, winking, inviting the gay crowd to appreciate his hotness, that thoroughly Ty character of his perfectly hits the sweet spot.

Ty’s possession of the pretty boy role is only that much more locked into place when Jonny arrives with his hot and hairy bear daddy belly, wearing a leather harness. I don’t know how many of the fans in the live audience follow BG East quite like you and I do, so it’s hard to tell if they recognize the set-up of, historically, one of the company’s most prolific babyface jobbers squaring off against, historically, one of the most lauded badass heels in the business. If they did understand the historical context, they might have expected a squash. If they did expect a squash, they were sorely disappointed.

Fuck, I LOVE the give and take in this match! Ty’s infamous narcissism (he does, after all, have the words “Cocky: Suck It” printed across his ass) is sensationally tasty when paired with his quickly developing ring skills. He absolutely takes it to leather daddy Jonny. There are many moments when I actually feel just a little sorry for Jonny getting fucked up and humiliated, after such a dominant career as a sadistic heel, in front of this live audience. Ty is a mean mother fucker, asserting a classically heel mix of beautifully executed wrestling and vicious, underhanded rule breaking. I’ve told Ty that I’ve longed to see him become an unmistakably dangerous competitor after serving such a long sentence in prettyboy jobber purgatory. He’s been emerging into adulthood in several matches I’ve seen over the past 9 months or so, but never as commandingly and persuasively as in this match.

And I know that there are plenty of fans who completely disagree with me, but I find a badass heel with strong notes of vulnerability one of the sexiest things ever. I love seeing Jonny struggle. I love seeing him have to fight for it. Hard. I love seeing this irrepressible head of steam he’s generated over the course of his career, plowing into, over top of, and through countless opponents like a tidal wave, sputter and stumble. Don’t tell Jonny, but frankly, I’m turned on incredibly by the sight of him suffering hard. My vote for Top Heel a few months ago joined a majority of BGE fans in catapulting Kayden Keller over top of Jonny for the first time, and for me, it’s because Kayden has perfected the seductive allure of a vulnerable heel. Jonny’s performance at Wrestling with Pride, however, could make me rethink my vote come January of next year. There’s not a thing less “heel-like” for those moments when Ty is fucking him up. I don’t subscribe to the philosophy that being a heel and executing a squash are intrinsically linked. Jonny repeatedly and convincingly turns the tables on the babyface challenger, and in entirely Jonny-style, he does more than his share of fucking his opponent up as well. But honestly, the suspense of not knowing which badass beauty is going to pull it out for the adoring gay crowd in attendance makes this bout so succulent for me.

Ty’s ultimate downfall in this match is not due to any character flaw or inadequacy on his part (and thus I love this match so much more than many matches earlier in his career). He’s a completely legitimate contender who grabs his burly opponent by the balls (literally… and the ref’s balls, for that matter), and battles to the wire in a compelling bid for victory.

And he comes up just short. And the ghosts of Christmas past come to haunt his beefcake body laid bare (well, thonged) and wasted at Jonny’s feet. I love the cameo at the beginning of the match when Ty bitches about his ex-tag team partner turned tormentor, Chase Addams, who’s been invited to give color commentary over the PA. I pop my cork at the end of the match when silver fox fantasy-daddy Shane McCall climbs in to perform the post-mortem on Ty. If you don’t follow these two on FB, you may not know that Ty has continued to talk trash at Shane ever since Shane laid waste to Ty back in his twink days. There’s a lot of value added for me seeing Shane in street clothes, mount Ty’s ass, pry him into a camel clutch, and cinch on a dog collar and leash.  Please revisit my comments earlier about the gaping hole in homoerotic wrestling that needs to get filled by the likes of hot daddies like Shane (preferably going pec to pec for the daddy championship title against man-of-my-dreams Scott Williams).

Collared and crushed, Ty is served up to the front row fans in the most generous moment of Wrestling with Pride. Jonny parades his trophy-boy in front of the fans, inviting them to spank Ty’s pride and joy bubble butt. A few of them seriously get into it, which makes me less bitter toward the ones who momentarily balk at the opportunity to put a hand on Ty’s vulnerable ass shoved in their laps. The public humiliation and fan-participation-spanking again harkens me back to my favorite live wrestling match (in which Shane also makes a post-match appearance!). It also almost makes up for no one (NO ONE!?) accepting Elite Eliot’s invitation to check his gorgeously packed pink trunks for weapons in that earlier match.

I feel like there was a tragically missed opportunity to have Chase join Shane in doling  out some satisfying Ty humbling. For that matter, can we just consider the magnificence of a Chase & Shane (Shane & Chase?) tag team? I can’t think of a sexier daddy-boy wrestling partnership since BBW slapped the dog collar on Shane and they showed up in the same corner to pry apart and ball gag another daddy-boy tag team to victory.

Well done Ty and Jonny (and Shane, and Chase) for making this match multifaceted and engrossing. So many moving parts could, I’m sure, have sent this train flying off the tracks. Instead, this was the sensationally gayest, hottest, most homoerotic match of the night. And this was Wrestling with Pride, so that’s saying something!