Writing a review of the Wrestlefest Live match between Bobby Carter and Seon Cruz is more challenging than I anticipated. As I watch the video on WatchFighters, I’m immediately biased by having been in the audience that night last month in NYC. It’s not just what’s on the video that I’m experiencing, but my vivid memories of sitting in the second row, instantly turned on as I watched Seon and Bobby face off on the mats 5 feet in front of me. The sights off camera, the smells, the other audience members sitting around me, none of that shows up in the video, but they’re an inextricable part of my experience of watching the recording these 4 weeks later. I’m also transparently biased because I’m watching my friend Bobby do his thing. I’m Team Bobby all the way, not only because he stepped in front of the camera that night like an absolute boss, in insane shape, instantly bringing the heat, but also because I consider him a good friend with as many and as varied opinions about homoerotic wrestling as I have. Reviewing the match for someone who’s thinking about watching it on WatchFighters is challenging because of so many layers of bias and background, but I’ll do my best, because I know a lot of homoerotic wrestling fans are going to enjoy this super intense, incredibly sexy match.

As they step on the mat, Bobby is the knock dead gorgeous muscle hunk rookie, and Seon is the cocky, smirking, pretty boy veteran. The tension quickly builds like the first bubbles in water coming to a boil, as Bobby stares down his seasoned opponent. I say “stares down,” but let’s be honest, at 5’6, Bobby has no choice but to look up to meet 6’0 Seon’s gaze. But honestly, Bobby’s the big man in his match. His luxuriously thick, stunningly built muscle mass has an obvious gravitational pull on Seon and the audience. The momentum ebbs and flows, but Bobby is primarily the aggressor through more than his fair share of the match, out-muscling his stunned challenger again and again, and quite literally savoring the taste of every mini-moment of victory. Locking on a dragon sleeper, he’s sucking on Seon’s nipples while smothering the overwhelmed veteran deep in his armpit. At another point, with brutal bodyscissors, Bobby is absolutely snapping Seon in half with his huge quads. When Seon is gurgling and gaping like a fish out of water, Bobby leans in and plants his mouth over his trapped opponent’s lips, absolutely sucking the oxygen directly out of Seon’s lungs like administering mouth-to-mouth, but in reverse. Fuck, it’s intense and intimate and has perfectly balanced portions of hot homoeroticism and aggressive wrestling.

Like I said, I’m biased. I’m Team Bobby from start to finish. But part of the magic of this match is the slow turning of the audience as Seon and Bobby wrestle to impress. Bobby gets a ton of oohs and ahhs from us when he’s manhandling Seon like a fucking boss. When Bobby takes his standing dragon sleeper to the mat by just dropping on his back and yanking his opponent down on top of him, there are literal gasps from the audience. He’s fucking powerful, and all of his mouthwatering muscles impress the onlookers almost as completely as they wring his long, lanky opponent out. One particularly vocal fan gushes (at least metaphorically) when Bobby rolls right in front of him as he crushes Seon into pieces with a full nelson and body scissors. “You’re hurtin’ him so good, Bobby,” the enamored fan purrs. “You’ve got some shredded-ass shoulders! And you’ve got the craziest-ass legs I’ve ever seen!” Bobby, large and in charge, was owning more than just Seon in that Manhattan high rise, with his rocking physique and merciless muscle-forward offense.

But then Seon casts his own spell on the audience in this spontaneous and audacious way that tugs at the crotch of even a Bobby-loyalist like me. The savvy veteran suffers hard and sells with authenticity that pulls at me deep in my gut as I watch. But he never panics, and he’s poised to counter at any second that Bobby loses focus (typically because Bobby distracts himself sucking face and possessing Seon’s trapped body… totally understandable). One such reversal of fortune relatively early on in the match features Seon, mid-liplock, popping out of Bobby’s rib crushing bodyscissors and using his long, strong limbs to yank the muscle hunk up into a kneeling abdominal stretch. It’s decisive and aggressive and graceful all at the same time. You can hear the unmistakable voice of Bob Wood who was sitting right in front of the action at this point, as Bob mutters his approval, “Right, stretch him out!” Another audience member from across the room calls out Seon’s so-pretty-in-pink-polished fingernails in this blunt way could have landed as a “man-up” provocation to Seon. But no, the pretty boy veteran lights up and wags his painted nails at us, and then sucks hard on each finger of his right hand, before jamming the heel of his palm under Bobby’s chin and stretching the trapped muscle hunk out that much farther. Every one of us in the room roars with delight, as Seon makes it clear he came to play and isn’t about to play jobber to this hard-bodied rookie.

The entire match has this intensely sexy catch-and-release, conquer-and-possess rhythm to it. Both wrestlers score seriously intense submissions that keep tugging us in the audience back and forth between them. Bobby has Seon literally weeping in agony and frustration, and you can hear my voice leading the cheers for the relentlessly hot strong man. At one point he’s got the long-limbed pretty boy folded like origami and pinned with absolutely nowhere to go, but with cocky swagger, Bobby waves off the ref when he tries to slap down the three count, so that Bobby can tenderize the fuck out of Seon’s abs and make the veteran submit. But Seon keeps pouncing on those rookie mistakes and making Bobby pay a premium charge for them. In this stunning reversal of expectations, it’s long, limber Seon who hoists a rocked, rock hard Bobby up across his shoulders in a torture rack, playing to the roaring applause of the audience and showing just how flexible his opponent’s massively muscle-armored body can be. They both showcase their hot bodies, compelling personalities, and intensely sexy submission wrestling skills, and they’ve got us (and you) in the palm of their hands as they milk the suspense and drama with stolen kisses, muscle groping, and achingly hot suffering.

Watching this play out in real time on the video does a seriously decent job of capturing that feel of spontaneity and the battling, seductive spells that these two sexy grapplers weave over each other and the rest of us. The running time is about 21 minutes, and there isn’t a break or a pause. It’s just intensely sexy wrestling drama rolling across the mat from start to finish. There were about 40 of us there in the room that know how the whole thing played out, but I’ll be intentionally coy about who scores the decisive final pin fall when that sexy-as-fuck masked ref with huge legs slaps down the three count. Both wrestlers get my enthusiastic endorsement for tossing together this incredible feast of homoerotic-forward hot wrestling in front of an unpredictable and intensely engaged live audience.

But at the end of the day, I’m still Team Bobby all the way.