In my life prior to going to Wrestlefest Canada, I had watched thousands of hours of homoerotic wrestling videos (not even an exaggeration) and written more than 1,670 posts here, pouring over every detail of what turns me on about wrestling, but had really only wrestled 3 times. Well, there were a few sessions in my early teen years, wrestling a friend, trying to pull off that this is seriously competitive, all the while attempting to hide my erection. And, then yeah, there were frat house scraps in college, 80% fun and lightly competitive, 20% attempting to hide my erection. But scheduling multiple matches to happen over 4 days in Toronto felt like kicking this experiential side of wrestling for me into overdrive. I set some intentions for myself, mainly to focus on learning more about how to wrestle and exploring what I liked and didn’t like with an open mind. I know other WF participants who had different intentions, like wrestling as many matches as possible, or recording matches for WatchFighters, or wrestling particular types of matches (group, tag teams, oil, etc.). As my buddy Scooter is fond of pointing out, WF can be what you make it. I was aiming to focus more on the journey than any particular destination.

One of the first tests of “explore with an open mind” came in the form of invitations to group matches. I don’t know that I’d given a lot of thought to group matches before this past week, but I had a couple of invitations to groups by the time I arrived in Toronto. My initial thinking was that I very well might be too self-conscious for groups. Stripping down and laying bare my insecurities and inexperience to wrestle is a lot, and doing that with others watching on is that much more. But almost right off the plane, I had my first WF match, which was a group of four of us hosted by an incredibly generous, hospitable, and fucking fierce local hottie. This was my first time wrestling more than just one opponent, and it was new, overwhelming, fun, and intense. My three local hosts knew each other well, and the chemistry they shared the instant everyone was in the room together was palpable. Since “Hey, I’m new to this” is still printed on my business cards, we paired off, with two of them demonstrating some holds, and then the third letting me try them out on him. There was a lot of anticipation on the mats for letting loose, and pretty quickly we paired off and started rolling. Having two stories happening side by side on the mats was wild. Long-time voyeur that I am, I kept getting distracted watching the other pair, which frequently contributed to me getting locked down and worked over worse (better?). Just when I was settling in to this parallel play vibe, seamlessly and organically, partners traded around. And then playfully vicious double-teaming broke out. And then, finally catching on, I joined in on some sweet triple teaming (these guys were way, way tough enough to handle it). And by the end, I was the one on the receiving end of a triple team by these three sweaty, sexy, fierce studs. It was all super collaborative and negotiated, and, at the same time, unexpected. Afterward, I told them that I felt like Dorothy in Oz, having learned valuable lessons from each of them. I left it up to them to decide who was the Scarecrow (wrestle smart, Bard!), the Tin Woodsman (wrestle with passion, Bard!), and the Cowardly Lion (wrestle fucking fierce, Bard!). Additional lessons I learned from this awesome threesome included BRING WATER (fuck, I sweat a lot). And bring towels. Lots of towels came in handy by the end of this match. Really, really handy.

Not long after I arrived, I scored an invitation to another group a couple of days later, thanks to connections through my buddy Scooter and the Tin Woodsman from that first group. Whatever self-consciousness I felt from a group of 4, I was now facing 9! The extremely generous local host, MadeinCanada, welcomed us to an incredible set up with tons of mat-covered floor space. MadeinCanada also offered a systematic way for everyone to pair off and take turns rolling with different opponents over the course of a few hours. Well, that plan lasted about 2 minutes. Pretty spontaneously, everyone was on the mats going at it in groups of two, three, or four (or occasionally more). There were wrestlers of different sizes (I wasn’t the smallest!) and levels of experience (I wasn’t the rookiest!), which created a lot of interesting dynamics. One particularly fun moment included me locking a crotch ripper onto my cousin, Scooter, so that my fellow lightweight rookie, David DeLeon, could climb on top and mess with him. Karma came back to bite me in the butt when I was double-teamed not long afterward, but it was all good, ferocious, sweaty, safe fun. As irrepressibly interactive as it was with all of us on the mats, I had a hard time resisting the urge to sit back and watch the wrestlers bigger and more skilled than I am do their thing. I was so turned on watching fiercely skilled Sunny DeLeon (WTF? I was on the mats with Sunny DeLeon!) and a fucking hot hunk who goes by the handle SeattleFight (who has more than 450 confirmed opponents on MF, I later discovered), tear into each other. SeattleFight caught me watching (more than once), and waved me over to take my turn. Somewhere in the middle of it all, I found myself feeling more confident, less inhibited, and just riding the wave of being locked together with another wrestler (or 8).

My third group meet-up experience had been planned ahead of time. This group was referred to by some as the “Veterans.” Being a rookie, I couldn’t bring myself to say that I was part of a group of veterans, so I called it the “Upperclassmen” (though that name didn’t stick with anyone else). In practice, it was a select group of finely aged wrestling hunks (I think I was the youngest allowed in the door). Despite having such amazing group experiences already, I still walked in not sure if I’d actually wrestle, or just get to know guys on the sidelines. One of the awesome 1:1 opponents I’d had earlier in the week (Txwresl, tons of experience and incredibly generous coach) was there, and he talked me into stripping down to my compression shorts (because I DID come prepared), and getting some practice in. This setting probably should have felt more conspicuous, because mat space was limited, and for any one or two pairs wrestling, there were that many or more on the sidelines chatting and watching. But maybe my confidence was growing, or, with experience, my inhibitions were just lowering, because it was the most fun group experience yet. SeattleFight was there again, and, holy hell, all he had to do was lock eyes with me and crook his index finger to call me over, and I was irresistibly drawn back on the mat, getting bearhugged relentlessly, trying to employ just a few tricks I’d been picking up from earlier in the week.

My last group experience (three of us) was the hottest and most spontaneous yet, bringing together at the last minute a sensationally hot hunk I’ve been getting to know online for several months and someone I’d grappled with already. I don’t know if it’s because all of us had some prior personal connection, or if it’s because it happened so spontaneously (from possible idea to reality in about 15 minutes), or if I was just riding this learning curve right up and over the top, but this was the most wildly intense group of all. That element that I mentioned in my last post about WF, of managing to get out of my head and just be present, sort of fell into place in this final three-way match.

I had to unlearn some things in order to really learn some things at Wrestlefest. Like, I needed to unlearn my preconceived anxiousness about the idea of group matches. I needed to unlearn my default of watching, and instead, lean into wrestling. In the spirit of learning more about how to wrestle and exploring what I liked and didn’t like with an open mind, I had an amazing set of experiences with about two dozen awesome wrestlers that I met in super hot batches. Group matches, even more than 1:1 matches, take a lot trust and chemistry, clear expectations and generous, collaborative, creative wrestlers. And it’s worth the extra choreography and planning!

And that doesn’t even begin to really discuss my one-on-one wrestling experiences at Wrestlefest Canada… (to be continued…)