Author: wrestlebard

I'm a gay man with an active imagination.

Potently Powerful Little Package

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My reigning homoerotic wrestler of the month and newly minted top contender for the title of my overall favorite homoerotic wrestling pornboy, DJ, is (obviously) a wrestler that has provided me a lot of entertainment. He’s been around Naked Kombat for over a year and a half now, working his tight little ass off in an astonishing 15 four-round matches. It’s no wonder he’s incredibly accomplished at the particular nuances of coming out on top in Naked Kombat!
DJ v Dean Tucker

DJ’s debut match was against another one of my favorite NK boys who we haven’t seen in a long time, Dean Tucker. The fact that DJ was up for a debut match with an oil round should have told us all something. He’s game for any challenge. He’s since been in three more oil matches. Dean worked over the rookie in the end, but DJ made the muscleboy work, and work hard from start to finish. Again, there was a clear lesson to be learned here. DJ does not roll over and take it from anyone without a fight to the very last second of the competition.

DJ v Dean Tucker

DJ has also been a star player in 3 undefeated outings in tag team competition. His first tag bout partnered with Spencer Reed was the last time NK offered a “live audience.” It seems the NK battlers were a little too encouraged to fight that much harder with a live audience, resulting in multiple injuries. Again in DJ’s tag outing with Spencer, Patrick Rouge drops out early in the second round with an injury. It should be noted, however, that even prior to Patrick’s injury DQ, Spencer and DJ were quite literally wiping the mats with the sweat soaked bodies of their opponents. And DJ got some sweet retribution in on his initiator, Dean Tucker, who found himself without his tag team partner and destined to get crushed and owned in round 4. The double team work performed by DJ and Spencer is, I believe, the most delightful double-teaming I’ve ever witnessed. Thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly delightful… particularly in working over Dean.

DJ & Spencer Reed v Dean Tucker & Patrick Rouge

There are a couple givens in a DJ match. First, his opponent will make a vaguely racist allusion to DJ’s dark kinky hair. I don’t actually know what DJ’s racial or ethnic heritage is, but frankly, referring to someone with wiry, curly hair as “a troll doll” (as most of his 18 opponents do!) is just unnecessary in my book. Perhaps that’s why I take such delight in DJ, more and more frequently lately, opening a can of whoop-ass on the cocky pale boys who can’t muster the appropriate level of respect for him in their pre-match interviews. As I’ve mentioned before, DJ is putting on more muscle, pound by pound, and he may still look “skinny,” but watch him muscle his way out of a tight spot on the mat and you’ll understand what I mean when I say this guy is one potently powerful little package!

Finally (for now), I just want to mention DJ’s tats. You know that classy, aesthetic tats are a major, major plus in my book. I love DJ’s tats. I’d love them in color even more, but the sunburst on his left pec and the fantastic turtle on his left shoulder are beautifully done. This is the quality of body artwork that makes me just one to reach out and lick it.

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Being Being Human

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So we’re 3 episodes into Being Human – American Redux. I’ve sat with this, because I don’t want to be impulsive (I’m trying something new). Here’s my take. Sally is the weakest link, here. I didn’t find Annie anywhere near as annoying as I find Sally.

The next-to-the-weakest link is Josh. Of course Sam Huntington was doomed to be compared to Russell Tovey, and as could be predicted, Sam doesn’t have the timing or cuteness or sexiness of Russell. In fact, to paraphrase myself, I didn’t find George anywhere near as annoying as I find Josh.
The strongest link, by far, is Aidan. I have no trouble at all believing that everyone he encounters wants to throw him to the floor and suck his cock, which is pretty much what the vampire mystique is about. 
He’s got sweet, sexy pecs and a sultry face with pouty lips. In some ways, he’s the least like his BBC counterpart, and perhaps that’s the key to why I’m liking him the most. I may even find his tormented addict on the wagon pathos perhaps even a tad more meaningful from Sam W. than from Aidan Turner. But don’t worry, Aidan (the actor, not the character), a hot Irish accent will always tip the balance Aidan’s way though in determining who I’d prefer to be bit by.

I cringe a little when SyFy promotional ads refer to this as “as original series.” I cringe a lot when I’m trolling for caps, watching the episodes online, and a straight Christian dating website is the primary advertiser (WTF?). But I’m firmly a fan of Being Human SyFy for a few reasons (beyond a desperate craving to see more of Sam W. naked). They American redux is already cleaning up some of the odd plot inconsistencies that the first run with BBC apparently didn’t notice (like Annie can pick up objects and move them around in BBC). They’re taking the time to bring the audience along, explaining carefully and conscientiously what we need to know about this version of vampires, werewolves, and ghosts that we might not have known from other iterations of them. They’re already working in more characters and more tension, even as they follow remarkably closely to the BBC script.

All told, and more to the point of this blog, this is absolutely heading to a Being Human Smackdown in a homoerotic wrestling universe near you. Russell and Aidan will be, without a doubt, climbing back into the ring together to face off with their wannabes-mini-me’s. I honestly don’t know how this will all turn out, but I predict that there will definitely be ear pulling, ass slapping, cock and pec clawing, and the sexual tension that both versions of this show effectively draw between the boys simply must be consummated. Stay tuned.

Free Will

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Addictions are serious stuff. I’m completely on board with all efforts to take control of one’s life and not allow addictive substances to steal one’s dignity or well-being. But frankly, I’m a little sketchy on “behavioral” addictions, like gambling or sex, if they don’t involve foreign substances that change brain chemistry. I’m certain that I will offend when I say it (and I accept complete responsibility for my decision to say something that may bring unpleasant consequences), but I think this “addictions ideology” we’ve built for ourselves for the past fifty years has grown into, at best, too often an excuse to refuse to accept responsibility for our own actions, and at worse, a particularly vile expression of self-righteous judgmentalism that both enforces narrow and rigid lines of social conformity and offers the tempting allure of transforming fully-functioning people into victims of a faceless fiction.
All this rant, really, is just my set up to point out the absurdity of “Porn Sunday.” Sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. Because, like the name of the promoters of this bait-n-switch, Porn Sunday is an intentional deception. It’s the creation of a “church” devoted to combatting online porn. Through the discourse of “addictions,” these folks are offering the metaphorical apple of temptation. Take a bite. Accept the illusion that you’re a victim of evil forces outside your control. You couldn’t help yourself but watch porn, could you? You, poor soul, have been stripped of your free will, and turned into a tool of immoral vice.


Never has the the term Satan-in-a-Sunday-hat applied more literally, if you ask me. The marriage of Christian theology (which, let’s face it, is unapologetically pre-modern) and a modernist perception of enslaving addictions through genetics and/or brain chemistry has always been a troubled, mismatched relationship. Now, there’s plenty about the porn industry that I don’t care for. It took them way too long to care enough about their performers and their customers to address the risks of AIDS, for example. I’m a perennial critic of porn that promotes homophobia and self-hatred, for another example. But come on… there is no invisible hand clicking the computer mouse. There’s no external force unzipping your pants or pulling out… your wallet. We who consume porn do so for multiple reasons: it brings pleasure; it’s a diversion; it brings pleasure; it’s a sexual release; it brings pleasure, etc… That we are controlled by some external force that compels us to gaze at porn despite our better judgment has zero face validity.

“Porn Sunday,” for those who haven’t been tracking it, is this coming Sunday, to coincide with the Superbowl. Some NFL figures are signed up for the effort. Because if anyone has the moral high ground to critique the objectification of bodies that leads to compulsive behaviors that can harm, it’s professional athletes who are payed obscene amounts of money to engage in an activity upon which millions of dollars worth of (mostly illegal) gambling rides week in and week out, isn’t it? 
It’s not as if these very same athletes signing up for Porn Sunday have ever sold skin shots to convince consumers to shell out cash on unnecessary merchandise, is it? It’s not as if precisely these athletes have ever gone shirtless for softcore capitalist commodification of the hot, bare human body, in order to call up sexual lust in the interest of corporate profit, right?
And it’s not as if the NFL promotes unhealthy lifestyles, objectifying and valorizing artificially enhanced physiologies, unhealthy behaviors and self-destructive, self-defeating, unrealistic body images. It’s not as if the hypermasculinization of the NFL has ever contributed to violence or degradation of vulnerable people, right?
I, for one, will be celebrating Porn Sunday this Sunday by making a purchase from a site that features “adult-oriented subject matter,” and requires that I am of legal age and willingly requesting to receive electronic transmission of “adult-oriented material.” And I’ll do it because I don’t think it’s the internet, or porn, or pornboys, or the joy of gazing at beautiful bodies engaged in sex or (wrestling) foreplay that makes me, against my will, enjoy the celebration of sexuality, sex, and bodies. Instead, I’ve got a sex-positive spirituality and sexuality that lead me to believe that this creeping (and creepy) “addictions ideology” smacks an awful lot of the same puritanical, anti-body, anti-sex, anti-gay, anti-women, anti-embodiment politics that has plagued this country since its inception.
God, save me from the self-righteous hypocrites who would try to convince me to be ashamed of my sexuality, my lust, my love, or my body (or yours).

Just a Little Dickish

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I feel a little guilty about basking in the backyard sunshine with a good book this morning, after having watched the national news reports of the crippling “monster blizzard” encasing a third of the U.S. in ice and snow. I don’t think of where I live as a particularly weather-enviable location most of the time. But relatively speaking, today is awfully sweet for me and sucky for so many of you.

Rob Riches – for ES Swimwear

Of course there are a variety of strategies for dealing with winter weather blues. Some of us hunker down by the fire, crank up the heat, and do our best to appreciate the cozy intimacy of being trapped indoors. On the other hand, dreaming of warmer days and sun drenched bodies can help to take some of our minds off of the bitter chill of winter’s wrath.

David Costa – for ES Swimwear

You know full well that I’m not above being dickish or a punk, but in all sincerity, these images are intended as entertaining distraction from the icy grip of winter. I’m not trying to make anyone feel jealous or resentful by showing these fine, fine, fine specimens soaking in the summer sun.

Todd Sanfield – for DNA Magazine

Making note of my sunbathing in the backyard with a book this morning was, however, probably intentionally a little dickish. It’s just so rare that I have anything to brag about when it comes to weather.

Stay warm, everybody.

Homoerotic Wrestler of the Month

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I’m finding slim pickings for a strictly January new release option for my homoerotic wrestler of the month. BG East is between catalogs. I have trouble tracking exactly when to credit Can-Am’s new releases, so just in case I haven’t considered them, I’ll go ahead and include Chris Bruce, Donnie Drake, Rio Garza and Kyle Braun from Hollywood Mat Battles 1. Otherwise, I don’t think that Can-Am has anything new brewing for consideration. Thunder’s Arena has recently released Bodybuilder Battle 26 (and therefore nominating big, muscle bruisers Johnny Bravo and Conan), and Mat Wars 23 (nominating crossover RHW boy, Cody, along with Big Sexy, Tony, and Cage). And speaking of Rock Hard Wrestling, I’ll toss Brody Hancock in the running for his battle with Ethan (who I’m not even considering because he needs a haircut), as well as Jeff Hollister and Tyler Reeves for their sweaty face-off. Finally, I have to say that I thought Naked Kombat had some weak matches this month, so I’m only including veteran, Mr. Franchise himself, DJ and his tag team partner, rookie Brandon Bangs, for their January 12 destruction of Hayden Russo and Jake Austin, and DJ gets extra credit for showing up merely two weeks later for a singles rookie-crushing of carb-deprived Dragon.

There just isn’t the depth to this month’s field that I’ve enjoyed in recent months. That said, there’s just one standout wrestler in this relatively ho-hum crowd for me. Not that there aren’t some hard working performances represented in this month’s offerings, but for my money and my tastes, there’s one homoerotic wrestler who shines notably brighter than the rest this time around…

…DJ.

DJ has grown on me over time. He’s got an impressively long Naked Kombat fight record, and speaking of impressively long, his uncut, erect cock never ceases to bring a smile to my face. His tag team wrestling with rookie Brandon Bangs this month illustrated abundantly what makes him stand head and shoulders above the rest of the field for me. He’s one hot, hardworking, tenacious battler whose tight, slender body turns about 30.32 times sexier for me when he’s working his leverage on the mat. He’s quickly developed into a full-on veteran, with cool confidence and mat savvy along with a smart eye always on NK points, which, after all, is what it’s really all about at NK.

He’s also developed some fantastically sexy muscle tone. His hairy legs are looking thicker and more powerful just about every outing. He still has that stoned look about him, but somehow, now I take it as supreme, cocky self-confidence rather than… well, stoned. There’s nothing tweaked about his speed and focus on the mat. You can just see him mentally counting up his own NK points as he swiftly moves from subduing his opponents for riding time to sewing together a tapestry of sexual domination moves that NK rewards. A face sit, a ball claw, his fingers up his opponent’s ass, pec and ab punching, ass slapping… DJ knows what puts you on top for round 4, perhaps better than most any other.

DJ is also earning a second distinction from me. In addition to being January’s homoerotic wrestler of the month, he’s also clawed his way into the ranks of my reigning favorite homoerotic wrestling pornboys. Specifically, he’s landed himself into the top contender position. Readers who’ve been following my angst over learning that Rusty Stevens is out of “the biz” as of late last fall may not be surprised to learn that he’s been toppled completely out of the running, after reigning as my favorite homoerotic wrestling pornboy for almost 10 solid months. For crushing my lustful anticipation of more Rusty wrestling, Rusty has been figuratively picked up and slammed down in an over-the-knee backbreaker by my newly crowned champion, my brand new, first-time number one favorite homoerotic wrestling pornboy, with a body that makes me gasp, tats that make me marvel, and an all-in determination that makes me smile: Trent Diesel.

More of "It"

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The din of my work life is starting to drown out the rest of my life these days. Posts and new stories may be a little more sparse for a while, but I’m sure I’ll find some things that I just have to put into print. For example…

Superherofan reposted this clip from Ellen, in Alex Pettyfer’s debut talk show appearance in America. Truly, welcome, Alex! This kid is just adorable.

Alex’s shirtlessness comes up frequently in conversation (thanks, Ellen!). He’s pretty cool and suave about the whole thing to start with. He even accepts the invitation to strip out of his button up, starched white dress shirt in order to don Ellen’s gift of an “I ♡ Ellen” T.

Sweet mother of god, that boy has world class abs. He soaks in the screams of the fans with just a little twinge of self-consciousness to start with, but obviously, Alex knows what the paying public appreciates most about him.

But when Ellen toys with him, offering him the t-shirt and then pulling it away to make him stand shirtless under the stage lights a little longer, there appears to be the most adorable wave of self-consciousness wash over the Brit “It Boy” on the rise. He tries to grab the shirt, but when he realizes what Ellen is doing, he turns his back and lowers his head, looking genuinely embarrassed.

Ellen relents and hands the hunk the t-shirt, which he quickly squeezes into as he turns back to the frenzied audience. There’s just something completely adorable and human about the hunky kid that makes me swoon just a little. I know that there’s NOTHING unscripted in Hollywood. I know that this is precisely why they refer to these people as “actors.” But both Ellen and Alex sell this playful little scene of self-consciousness so well that I’m completely sucked in and rooting for him as if I was his personal sugar daddy. He’s welcome to consider me an adoring patron for the $11 I’ll most definitely be shelling out to see him in his upcoming sci-fi flick.

And this bonding moment makes me that much more excited to give my homoerotic superhero character, Arthur (with Alex’ body and face as model) the back story he’s got coming to him.

A Greek God

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I’ve given 80’s pro-wrestler Billy Jack Haynes probably inadequate credit for turning me gay and carving a wrestling kink deep into the core of my sexual fantasies. I never bought any of his attempts at a heel turn. He was always a big, brutal, musclebound face, cock sure that his physical superiority was all that he’d ever need to tear his opponents limb from limb until they screamed in utter despair and he crushed him like a grape.

After struggling with my reaction to the ultra-skinny physique of NK rookie, Dragon, yesterday, I found myself craving big, thick, powerful beef like few have ever offered on the scale that Billy Jack did. Happily, more of Billy Jack’s matches continue to find their way onto YouTube, immortalizing the performances that grabbed me by the crotch and rocked me to my core as kid.

The commentators for this match between Billy Jack and Gerald Finley are nothing short of awed body worshipers. “Look at that… now, he looks like a Greek god, the way he’s built!” These are pretty much the first words of commentary for this match. And true enough, Billy was simply exquisite. He had a flat-footed, straight-forward stance that made him look like even more of a mountain of a man than his thick, hard muscles and 6’2″ frame already did. When I was watching Billy Jack weekly, it was a few years before this match, when Billy was even more a figure stolen off of the Acropolis, with a narrower waist that made his hard, round muscle ass and tree-trunk thighs look that much more divine. But that beard, the gorgeous head of hair, the furry pecs and bulging… well, the bulging everything made this version of Billy Jack perhaps the most erotic of his incarnations.

The elements of this match are all classic Billy Jack, as far as I remember him from the early 80’s. He delivers (entirely legal) forearm smashes that crush his opponent helplessly into the mat. He milks his fully suspended bearhug for every ounce of punishment it has to offer, rolling his fists savagely deeper and deeper into Finley’s tortured back. When Finley launches the one offensive effort he puts up in this contest, he literally bounces off of Billy Jack’s gargantuan pecs as if he’d just tried to tackle a brick wall. And, in the end, Billy Jack looks like he a out to rip the poor sucker’s arms out by the shoulder joints as he applies his signature finisher, a full-nelson for the ages.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if perhaps my love lost with mainstream pro wrestling might be rooted in the way that WWF plasticized and softened up Billy Jack in the 90s. I realize that jumping promotions is frequently accompanied with an entirely rewritten character, but WWF wrote everything out of Billy Jack’s persona that grabbed me so powerfully years earlier. Billy Jack was “pretty” for all of about 3 weeks in 1982, as far as I’m concerned, but he was never “ugly” until WWF got a hold of him. To me, though, he’ll always be the Greek god, carved out of marble and equally as hard and crushingly brutal as cold stone, ever committed to the illusion that the best man will win, and always somewhere along the story arc of building the image of the juggernaut or suddenly shocked disbelievingly by derailing dirty tricks of mere mortals, unjustly stripping from him the dignity of victory that he always believed to be rightfully his. Thanks for the delightful memories, avk62.

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I’m the first in line to marvel at a ridiculously defined physique. The sight of striated muscle born of astonishingly low body fat can frequently send me into a swoon, all on its own. One need not be a competition bodybuilder to turn me on, by any means, but a hyperfit wrestler with musculature straight out of Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body will nearly always work for me.

Newbie Naked Kombat fighter Dragon, however, gives me pause. From a distance, I think this could totally work. He’s got a washboard and nice, broad pecs. He looks handsome and hard. But up close, I’m actually a little concerned for the guy. Granted, he may be marathon runner with legitimately undetectable body fat. But I just keep thinking to myself, “This guy needs to eat more!

I’ve noted KL at the BG East Headquarters yahoo page often caution commenters from getting too catty with criticizing wrestlers’ bodies. These guys are real people with real feelings. I’d bet my bank account that more than a handful of homoerotic wrestlers have serious body image problems, even with you and me seeing them like the Greek gods they resemble. I don’t want to be catty in the least as I sit back in my armchair and comment on Dragon’s physique. But I just have to say, this guy looks unhealthily skinny.

He says at the beginning of his match with DJ in this week’s NK release that he’s 5’10” and 135 pounds. I’m no physiologist, but a quick look at a BMI calculator says that Dragon is just barely over top of the “underweight” category (and I’d venture that he may be exaggerating his weight). Perhaps he’s still in a healthy range, clinically speaking. But he looks too damn skinny!

In Dragon’s match with Mr. Franchise, DJ, I seriously worry that the poor rookie is going to get snapped in half. It takes a lot to make DJ look like anything other than a (hot) skinny little scrapper himself, but relatively speaking, DJ’s looking like a big, bad bully face-to-face with his somewhat freakishly skin-and-bones opponent. Dragon works hard, but this is unsurprisingly a squash. Not to spoil things too, too much, but the rookie doesn’t make it out of single digits in “NK Points.” To be fair, I didn’t watch the whole match, so there may be more there than I’m giving it credit for. But frankly, I couldn’t watch the whole thing. I had to fast forward when I found myself tempted to look up interventions for anorexics. It made me uncomfortable. When DJ climbed on for his victory lap pony ride, I found myself gritting my teeth, hoping that Dragon’s pipe cleaner arms could bear the weight.

I’ll bet Dragon is 110% up someone’s alley out there, and both for you and for him I’m completely supportive of what it is that gets your blood pumping. But… (and I sincerely hope that I’m not sounding too catty)… please, please, feed this sincere little scrapper some more carbs, have him put on another 20 pounds of muscle and 5 or 10 pounds of unashamed fat, and then send him back out for another go. As is, he’s just too damn skinny to make me anything but patronizingly worried about his health, and this doesn’t make me proud to admit it.
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The Arts

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I should have loved Black Swan. But it was a near miss for me. Perhaps if there were an equally explicit sex scene between Vincent Cassel and Benjamin Millepied as there was between the two female leads, it would have put me over the edge.
The Hollywood story is that Millepied, who played the principal male dancer in the movie and also choreographed the movie, is now Natalie Portman’s baby daddy and owner of the pedigree of straight privilege: her fiance. Whatever. Just let me get another look at that man’s incredibly muscled ass in tights again!
Baby daddy also has an artistic tummy tat on that smokin’ hot dancer’s body. Seriously now, Vincent Cassel wrestling Benjamin to the studio floor, blowing him until he pops, and then flipping him over to his stomach to plow those big, screen-worthy glutes… surely that would be an Oscar winning flick.

While the movie left me disappointed, I’m now a little obsessed with Benjamin in tights. It brings to mind the intuitive connection between homoerotic wrestling and dancers. As my mind’s eye muses over an image of heel daddy Vincent tossing Benjamin into a wrestling ring and making that fine body suffer in a merciless boston crab, I’m reminded that this wouldn’t be the first classically trained dancer to have his body on the line in a wrestling ring.

The description for X-Fights 3 match between Kid Leopard and Joey Smit sets the scenario this way:

Joey says he’s a professional ballet dancer and experienced sex-fighter. Let’s see, who else is a professional dancer? Uh huh, the lightweight X-fights champ himself, KL, jazz and flamenco specialist. “A ballet boy? Sounds like a pussy to me.”, KL scoffs.

KL was a classically trained dancer. It makes me wonder how much this fact has shaped my own wrestling fetish tastes, since it’s BG East’s brand of homoerotic wrestling that feeds my hunger most satisfyingly. The fact that the Boss himself was a dancer has got to lend some quality to the shape of the homoerotic wrestling history crafted by KL through producing BG East. 



Like dance itself, homoerotic wrestling is really about story telling. Both arts build characters and craft plots primarily from the physical forms of the principals. Both are grueling athletic feats of strength and endurance. Both wrestling and dance combine physical mastery and artistic performance to transform a stage/a ring into a boundless reality all its own, with rules and morals that often run counter to the standards of more pedestrian settings.

I haven’t sorted through all the strings that connect my current infatuation with dancer Benjamin Millepied with my wrestling kink ala dancer Kid Leopard, but I’m convinced that there’s at least one direct line connecting the two.

The Give and Take

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At some point I lost track of Wrestling Arsenal’s fine blog, but I just found it again. He has a nice, smart take on wrestling, and he’s got a fun sense of humor. Wrestling Arsenal’s post yesterday, for example, offers an insightful examination of the suffering wrestling hunk.

“The true beauty of pro wrestling,” he writes, “lies not in the strength and stamina of the winner, but in the frailty, vulnerability, and suffering of the loser.” The ironic twist is that so many of us want to see our favorite wrestler suffer. Hell, I’d venture to guess 99.9% of the readers of this blog get wildly aroused to see our favorite wrestler suffer! Wrestling Arsenal argues that the sight of the suffering hero stirs the most profound pathos. Our sympathies and identification with the sufferer are boiled down to the most potent essence of humanity as we watch the vulnerability of one man laid out so completely, without the least pretense of dignity left to him.

I like this deconstruction of the iconic moment of a wrestler’s suffering. It strikes a chord in me. It also makes me think about the additional element that causes a drastic drop in my blood pressure: the victor gazing down upon the suffering loser. I think all the same elements apply that Wrestling Arsenal describes. And I think that there’s also an element of profound intimacy in that exchange between the two battlers that speaks directly to the inherent homoeroticism of wrestling.

When Jack Guerin climbed into the ring with Joshua Goodman (that’s Mr. Joshua to you!), he had a grin that stretched from ear to ear. He was a young, hard, eager rookie. Seriously sweet pecs and thick shoulders. Ominously, he’d not done his homework, though. He didn’t really know who Mr. Joshua was. He didn’t know what Mr. Joshua was capable of. He didn’t know that 15 minutes later, he’d find himself flat on his stomach in the middle of the ring, completely dazed and nearly delirious. And the key thing that young Jack didn’t know was that Mr. Joshua was standing overtop of him, his feet straddling Jack’s torso, staring down at the young buck’s muscled back. There’s an element of self-congratulations about the victor’s gaze upon his beaten, defenseless opponent. He’s appreciating his handiwork. He’s admiring the effect of his labors played out so explicitly on the suffering body of his once-invincible challenger. Of course, Mr. Joshua is also just waiting for poor Jack to crawl back up to his hands and knees so that he can drop his ass down punishingly into the small of Jack’s back, sending him crashing back to the mat (and then needing to adjust his massive package for his effort). But before that, there’s something almost more intimate about Mr. Joshua’s fixed gaze on upon his outmatched opponent suffering beneath him than any physical contact exchanged between the two.

I haven’t yet seen the classic battle between Dante Rosetti and Davey Dee from Fantasymen 13, but I confess that I’ve been nursing a growing infatuation with Dante lately. The sight of Davey smiling down so malevolently as Dante is flat on his back in the center of the ring is an entire novel of story telling in one photo. Okay, set aside (if you can) the distracting sight of Davey’s cock so clearly outlined beneath the taut, shiny fabric of his white tights. And once you’ve managed to tear your eyes away from both men’s stunning physiques, take another look at Davey’s face. With his head cocked slightly to the side, he’s soaking in Dante’s defenseless. With his hands planted domineeringly on his narrow hips, Davey is simply delighting in the physical vulnerability of his gorgeous opponent. Even though I haven’t seen the match, I can tell with absolute certainty that the the gorgeous dark Italian that climbed into the ring with such a sense of inevitability about his victory couldn’t have imagined he’d be flattened and helpless soon enough. Whatever these two got up to in the ring (or out of the ring, for that matter), this pleased, assessing gaze that Davey gives his beaten hunk just seems astonishingly intimate to me.

My last case in point comes from one of the all time great mat battles in my book. Mitch Colby, the then owner of my favorite homoerotic wrestling pornboy title, faced off against the timeless physique and constantly growing mat savvy of BG East veteran Patrick Donovan. These two stunning hunks compare stats before the match starts. Mitch has an extra inch of height and a couple handfuls of pounds over Patrick, but both coldly calculating studs agree that they’re evenly matched on paper. When the scramble begins, it turns out that they’re evenly matched in practice, as well. The submissions fly fast and furious. Both boys are twisted and crushed to the point that it makes me wince just to watch it. They both fight a little dirty, taking unnecessary advantage, refusing to break on submissions, resorting to crotch claws to steal the wind from each other’s sails. When Patrick suggests a bearhug challenge, both long, tall slabs of beef are soaked in sweat and put on gorgeous display as they take turns willingly suffering in each other’s arms. Back and forth, back and forth, you begin to wonder if either of these boys will manage to build the momentum to finally derail his tenacious opponent.

But in the end, Mitch conquers like the reigning champ he was. Patrick is lying in pools of both boys’ sweat, flat on his back, pretty much oblivious to the world in the exhausted haze Mitch left him in. Mitch flexes and preens. He throws his own little victory party as he celebrates while Patrick slowly writhes on the mat with Mitch’s foot planted alternatingly on his ass and then crushing his crotch. And then Mitch takes up that familiar position, his feet straddling Patrick’s ridiculously narrow waist as he stares down long and hard at the fallen gladiator. Patrick’s instantly inadequate orange thong barely does the job of reigning in the veteran’s swollen moneymaker. True enough, Mitch pretty quickly connects all the dots going through your mind and mine by dropping to his hand and knees, grinding his own pouch into Patrick’s, pinning the loser’s wrists over his head, and tasting the sweet taste of victory. But I swear to you, that moment that Mitch is hovering, gazing down at his beaten man, that’s the most intimate moment of this match in my mind, as Mitch simply witnesses up close what Wrestling Arsenal calls “the vulnerability, frailty, and suffering of the loser.”

Power and vulnerability. Strength and weakness. Dominance and submission. Victory and defeat. It’s the combination of these elements that write the wrestling stories that grab hold of us. I keep watching not for the sight of one man’s hand raised in victory, but for that erotic telling of the story of a relationship, of power against power and the slow turning of power into vulnerability.