Congratulations to all of the winners of the BG East 2020 Fan Poll! Excellent choices all around, as far as I’m concerned. My votes lined up with the majority for 3 of the 15 categories. Being on the winning side 20% of the time is only slightly better than random chance, and I’m not surprised that my tastes diverge that much with the critical mass of voters. It merely demonstrates the importance of a robust and diverse homoerotic wrestling industry. I don’t think of any of the results of the Fan Poll as upsets, really, but I do think there are some interesting takeaways.

Kayden Keller secures Top Heel title a 4th time in a row, and I think that accurately reflects his dominance at BG East. As his 2020 matches demonstrated, he’s an incredibly accomplished heel who ticks off all of the boxes. He’s so fucking lovely to look at. He possesses a sensationally deep arsenal of wrestling holds that he executes to devastating effect, as evidenced by the fact he features in the match with the Best Submissions of the year. He’s a magnificent sadist who savors the tears and whimpers of his opponents like fine wine, which really makes Tag Team Torture 22 such a standout for Best Overall Match. And the factor that really separates him from the heel rivals who also possess all of of those other qualities: wrestling, and dominating his opponents, gets Kayden off. This is a prime mover in what made me crush so hard on Grudge Match 6, and surely a key ingredient to explain why that climactic match secured the title as Sexiest Match of the Year. Honestly, what Kayden touches (and crushes) turns to gold. He’s been the heel to beat for years, and he’s unbeatable, yet again in 2020.

Kayden was the one who pointed out on social media the interesting factoid that Chase Addams has featured in the Best Submissions matches for the past 3 years. Having interviewed Chase several times, I have to imagine that this is exactly what he would want and expect. Chase’s contribution to homoerotic wrestling has always been about innovative and technically outstanding wrestling holds (well, that and his magical nipples). Back on social media, Chase’s submission match dominance has prompted Kayden to issue a challenge for a rematch against him, once the pandemic is over and we can get back to scheduling super hot wrestling matches. Just like their Learning the Ropes match, I’ll be incredibly torn as to who to root for!

Ash DeLeon is coming on strong in the category of badass heels, as evidenced by his half of the heel team in that Best Overall Match, as well as his singles match with Rocky Sparks that earned the Best Squash and Hottest Liplock title this year. If he picks up where he left off when the pandemic hit, could baby heel Ash come back and unseat his mentor Kayden? Considering he could have split the votes for Hottest Liplock, but still came out on top in that category, should Ash be crowned BG East’s newest Kisser-in-Chief? I think nothing can settle that last score like a liplock face-off against longtime kisser champ Christian Taylor!

Rocky Sparks certainly made a remarkably good showing, participating in Best Overall Match, Sexiest Match, and Hottest Liplock, and winning Best Abs and Jobber of the Year. This, on the heels of being Best Debut last year! Any one of those titles seems like a big red target on your ass, so all of them combined surely add up to a whole lot of hunks lined up to dish out a beating on Rocky, once everyone is vaccinated. And probably my most controversial opinion of this post, I’m also looking forward to Rocky getting a haircut.

I think Jake Jenkins dominance in the Babyface category over the years is entirely understandable, but as JJ appears in fewer new releases, I’m looking forward to seeing who the next breakout babyface heart throb is going to be at BGE.

Alexi Adamov winning best body merely amplifies the rant I go off on every year about just how amorphous are our collective standards for this category. It goes without saying that I’d slather every inch, bulge, and valley on Alexi with maple syrup and lick him dry, then wet again. I very well might vote for Alexi as possessing the sexiest body in the running, mind you. But I think of “best” to imply slightly more objective criteria, like conditioning, muscle size and proportion, and a balance of all of those other body-part categories like best abs, butt, bulge (and legs, pecs, shoulders, and arms). While I’m sucking the maple syrup off of Alexi, I’m also thinking that there are harder hunks with thicker muscle mass and even more stunningly, painstakingly built bodies. And no, I’m not only thinking of contest-ready Lon Dumont! Well, okay, I certainly am thinking of Lon, but other worthy beefcakes as well.

Best Bulge went to Kirk Donahue, and sure, I certainly get that. It depends on the gear Kirk wears, though. But from some angles, in certain gear, his bulge looks pretty porn-ready. When looking back at past winners of this category, I think Kirk is lucky that the likes of Joshua Goodman (that’s Mr. Joshua to you!) and Pete Sharp didn’t wrestle in new releases last year. But I’ll give Kirk his due, as long as we don’t have a repeat of Kirk’s Best Butt scandal of 2017.

Finally, there’s Ty Alexander’s butt. After lobbying the academy shamelessly for years, Ty started winning this title in 2018, and claimed the trifecta in 2020. Ty’s cheeks are undeniably juicy, round, and perpetually in our faces. For my tastes, I key off more on muscle butts, thick, powerful, granite carved ass cheeks that you can just picture flexing hard and holding on tight. But, clearly, the criteria that adds up to the Best Butt of the year is subjective, which is exactly the way it should be. Kirk Donahue as runner-up is concerning to me, as I think he needs a lifetime ban from this category for his involvement in past malfeasance, so there’s at least that silver lining in Ty’s victory. Congratulations to Ty (even as I’m over here, tongue out, a little faint, on my knees worshiping the seriously comic-book-superhero bodybuilder butt cheeks on Devil Devitt).

Cheers to you of the winner! I’m cuing up the Sexiest Match of 2020 again to keep myself warm on this frigid, winter day.