Author: wrestlebard

I'm a gay man with an active imagination.

Boy Meets Fist

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I assume that the algorithm for the Explore banner on Watchfighters is customized to me somehow, because 9 out of 10 suggestions are right in the sweet spot of my tastes (which is a way higher hit rate than Watchfighters in general). Most of the rolodex videos feature wrestlers I already crush on, but occasionally there’s someone new making me think the platform knows me eerily well. A particularly eye-catching body, a glimpse of intensely hot holds, a focus on sensational muscles getting worshiped in that blurry line between possessing and being possessed… fuck, I’m so seen. A few weeks ago, I tracked a particularly gorgeous body showing up a few times in that feed who made me click through and teeter on the edge of sampling, but when a superfan of The Jungle Boy (aka Anhgutpunch1) emailed me recently recommending I take the plunge, it felt like fate. Well, it’s either fate or the Panopticon in full force foreshadowing the end of all free will… let’s go with fate, because that feels a lot less dark.

The Jungle Boy’s superfan, who goes by Gut123, recommended I dip my toe in the hot hunk’s catalog by watching “The Jungle Boy and the Sado Master, part 6.” Fuck, yeah, that’s the body that kept successfully baiting my clicks! He’s a Vietnamese muscle boy whose videos look primarily gut punching focused. He’s dazzlingly pretty. The Jungle Boy serves up coverboy face, but fuck, it’s that body that’s got serious star quality. Clearly a ton of attention, particularly from frequent antagonist Sado Master, is focused on the Jungle Boy’s gorgeous six-pack, but holy fuck, I’m infatuated with the muscleboy’s pecs! Seriously, someone with a lot more money than me needs to arrange transportation for the Jungle Boy and Dio Characi to have an epic pec showdown. And now that I’ve said it, I’ll never quite be able to entirely stop thinking about the Hogwarts-level explosive magic that would be the Jungle Boy’s impenetrable vulnerability paired with Dio’s cherubic dom-demon brutality.

The Jungle Boy’s sixth encounter with the Sado Master is blunt and in your face. Well, more precisely, it’s the Sado Master getting bluntly in the Jungle Boy’s face. Honestly, the Sado Master is pretty damn cute, but in this mere mortal way that somehow makes the Jungle Boy that much more impossibly pretty. Their trash talk back and forth is helpfully (for me) subtitled in English, as the Sado Master bursts into the room where our dazzlingly beautiful hero is warming up. “Jungle Boy,” the Sado Master says with snarling contempt that needs no translation, “I like that you exercise so much.” Isn’t that just the truth!? Muscle boy jobbers devotedly sculpting their physiques is such a hot vibe, particularly when you and I know that their mouthwatering bodies solely function as heel bait. “I love punching you in the stomach and pressing deep into your abs!”

The chemistry here is heady. The Jungle Boy looks like he doesn’t give a flying fuck what this Average Joe thinks about him or his body. I suspect that parts 1-5 might suggest the Jungle Boy ought to care a bit more than he does, but he just dismissively turns to the camera, ignoring the Sado Master, and smirks and flexes his sweet, round baseball biceps in the international language of cocky muscleboys everywhere. Then, when the Sado Master makes a move to treat himself to a satisfying punch of the pretty boy’s abs, the Jungle Boy swats him away like a fly. “Sado Monster,” he intentionally gets his nemesis’ moniker wrong, “what are you planning to do?”

My favorite moments in this match are the first 2 minutes, when the Jungle Boy aggressively attacks his would be tormentor, taking the Sado Master to the mat and satisfyingly out muscling him. “Today, I will teach you a lesson. These muscles aren’t just for show!” Fuck, for a wild, scrappy moment, there’s a raw pretty boy jobber-sitting-pretty dynamic. I get just a hint of a taste of that same intoxicating elixir Dio Characi serves up as the boy-faced cherubic muscle bully, and fuck, I’d watch another 28 minutes of the Jungle Boy getting revenge on his long time bully if I had that chance.

But this is not that story, and like all narcissistic muscleboys with cover model good looks, the fates are lined up against the Jungle Boy and behind the Sado Master’s bare knuckles about to beat the living shit out him. I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m merely a dabbler in the gut punching genre, so the nearly 30 minutes straight of relentless six-pack pounding are more one-note than I typically look for. That said, fuck, the Sado Master/Monster seriously drills the fuck out out the Jungle Boy’s lovely abs! In a lot of pro wrestling that is more in my wheelhouse, punches are largely for show. The Sado Master’s punches (unlike the Jungle Boy’s muscles, it turns out) are most definitely not just for show! It’s a solid 18 minutes of the Sado Master pinning our pretty boy’s back to the wall and just drilling him again and again. The piece that grabs me by the balls is watching the Jungle Boy’s flawless body start to really glisten with sweat, and that bullseye, shaped like the Sado Master’s clenched fist overtop of the muscleboy’s navel, progressively flush darker and darker red.

The drama of the scenario gets a little lost in the tireless devotion to the gut punching theme, but I do find it a kick watching these all-in boys sell. The Jungle Boy is white knuckling it for the rest of the torture session, with this clenched-jaw, fierce determination not to be broken, but chip by chip getting worn to a nub anyway. But the Sado Master’s story is even more compelling, really. His devoted passion for being the one to break the cocky physique star is intense. He quite literally starts to wear himself out swinging for the fences. The Sado Master rides these cresting waves of hunger and frustration as deep, hollow thump after thump, this gorgeous muscleboy just fucking won’t go down. Every so often, his eyes widen. He gives this subtle head shake of incredulity, like he’d never say it out loud, but he’s grudgingly impressed with the brick wall of the Jungle Boy’s abs that just keep taking that beating and refusing to buckle.

Our tragic hero does, indeed, buckle however. And holy shit, Sado Master starts clawing and ripping into him like piranha smelling blood. He delivers a couple of nasty gut busters to keep my pro-wrestling sensibilities sated. When the Jungle Boy finally (finally!) collapses to the floor, the blood thirsty Sado Master just keeps ripping the fuck out of him with abdominal claws. When the demolished muscle boy tries to cover his wounded gut, the Sado Master swats the boy’s arms away and starts double-fisted pounding a literal brick into Jungle Boy’s quivering abdominal cavity. Jungle Boy passes out from the marathon torture session, with his abs so bright red you could land planes on them in the middle of the night.

I’m honestly wondering if I’m really the target audience around the 29-minute mark, because this has been so entirely devoted to the gut punching narrative. But then, Sado Master makes me a believer again by pulling out a bottle of baby oil. Fuck, it’s sexy satisfaction watching him lather then oil on Jungle Boy’s gorgeous, defeated muscles. When the pretty boy rouses and weakly tries to shove the Sado Master away, the hungry starts clawing JK’s shredded abs again until our boy is barely conscious and compliant. He absolutely throttles the wasted physique star’s perky crotch until he wrings that longed for submission out of Jungle Boy. And damn, Sado Master makes those gorgeous muscles and flawless skin glisten from head to toe.

For you gut punching fans, I’m assuming this should be, if it isn’t already, on your watchlist. Personally, I’d pay money to watch the Jungle Boy take a more head-to-toe wrestling beating, especially if that barely adequate red thong gives us an even longer and lingering look at his seriously gorgeous glutes. I definitely get how the Jungle Boy’s cocky smirk and dismissive flexing earn him the absolute demolition of his once proud six-pack, but I can’t be the only one seeing a whole lot more anatomy and physiology aching for demolishing and possessing as well. And I’m serious as hell, a body beautiful muscle boy who ends up turning the tables on his Average Joe former schoolyard bullies and fucks them over would get a thumbs up and a tip from me.

Sidelineland Sounds – Episode 4

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Hey there, again, homoerotic wrestling fans. This is Bard, longtime homoerotic wrestling blogger. It’s been a few months since my last episode of Sidelineland Sounds, and, honestly, that’s just how it is. I find it great fun to watch wrestling, to write about wrestling, to review matches, to cobble together these audio episodes… and I just wish I had time to do more of it, and be more consistent. Early on in my nearly 16 years of blogging I used to beat myself up about having to take breaks from it every so often, but I’m older and wiser now, and I’m just enjoying the fun of broadcasting my passion for hot wrestling whenever I get the chance.

In case you haven’t listened to the first three episodes of Sidelineland Sounds, check them out. Listeners have given a lot of great feedback to my audio musings about the written word in the age of instant video gratification. In episode 2 I sampled some of the hot trash talk that spices up my favorite wrestling fare, and in episode 3, I shared some of my thoughts about what I find hot about the sounds of a wrestler suffering. For this fourth episode of Sidelineland Sounds, I’m taking a step back from the action itself, and reflecting instead on one of the unsung heroes of homoerotic wrestling video post-production, the musical soundtrack.

[Bell Ring – sound credit: BG East’s Three-Way Thrash 6]

I’ll forgive you if nothing comes to mind when I mention the musical soundtrack of homoerotic wrestling. It’s easy to miss. In fact, depending on the source of your wrestling videos, music may or may not even be there. But there are some examples of musical soundtracks in homoerotic wrestling that have seriously imprinted themselves deeply on me.

[Audio Clip – sound credit: BG East Wrestlfest 1 trailer]

That was the soundtrack to BG East’s trailer for Wrestlefest 1, and it’s the same soundtrack for several other BG East trailers. And it’s fucking hot! And, depending on how old you are and what digital era you started watching BG East, you might have a similar Pavlovian response to mine, after repeatedly hearing that music paired with seeing super hot wrestling clips.

So, where does music show up in the homoerotic wrestling canon? To explain, I need to go back to my early days of discovering the exciting and salacious world of wrestling for gay eyes. My first foray into purchasing homoerotic wrestling videos happened just before DVDs really became the standard format for video recordings (yes, I’m that old). So, for the younglings out there, before streaming, before blu ray and before DVDs, there were VHS tapes. And frankly, VHS tapes were a pain in the ass because they were literally on a tape.  Rewinding or fast forwarding to a particular spot you wanted to savor was time consuming and an inexact science. Some of my earliest wrestling VHS tapes actually broke from me playing, rewinding, and playing the same spot in the recording so often the tape wore out… and I know that you know what I mean about those super sweet spots in a favorite match that you’ve just got to watch over and over again. But the inefficiency of a VHS tape had an extremely fortunate side effect. So if you had a standard 2-hour long VHS tape, producers like BG East and Can-Am would release these collections of 3 or 4 matches to approximately fill a tape with, each match being anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes long. And then there’d be that extra bit of tape still left over at the end. Sometimes just 2 or 3 minutes, sometimes 10 or 15 minutes of space. When I started ordering them, I discovered, to my delight, that BG East ingeniously cut trailers for other products to fill every last inch of available tape, padding the matches you ordered with, essentially, commercials at the end.

I’ve blogged about this before, but let me just say that I LOVED those fucking trailers. Honestly, some of the worn out spots in my VHS tapes were actually during the trailers at the end of the tape. They were these hot, sort of impressionistic short outtakes from full-length matches. Like, they’d have a five second clip of one sweat soaked muscle hunk cranking on a Boston crab, and then a quick cut to later in that same match when the tables had turned and the other hardbodied stud was pumping on headscissors. You couldn’t tell the plot or understand the momentum of match from these trailer, but the point was just to whet your appetite, to make you need to send in more cash and get another tape of matches. These trailers had no audio from the actual matches themselves. Instead, they had these super sexy electronic dance music scores with what can only be described as a distinct homoerotic wrestling sensibility to them.

[Audio Clip – sound credit: BG East’s Submissions 6 trailer… “I submit, sir!”]

That’s the soundtrack to the trailer for BG East’s Submissions 6, and they used that music for other trailers. I think that one’s got to be one of the most on point musical accompaniments in history. Again, it has that intense, driving electronic bass beat in the background, with that plaintive, pleading high pitched voice-over begging to be allowed to submit. 

[Audio Clip – sound credit: BG East’s Submissions 6 trailer… “I submit, sir!”]

Fuck, that’s hot! Someone at Wrestlefest New York told me last year that he thought Kid Vicious was the actual musician behind these BG East trailer soundtracks, but Kid Vicious told me they were produced by a friend of BGE, but not him. I feel like whoever wrote and produced these has got to be in the club with us, right? I mean, I could be totally wrong, but they *feel* like the musical transcription of an erotic reaction to incredibly hot wrestling.

[Audio Clip – sound credit: BG East’s X-Fights 20 trailer soundtrack… “Heavenly Bod”]

That was the soundtrack to the X-Fights trailers from BG East, with this upbeat attitude and the indulgent celebration of the heavenly bodies of sex gladiators. In case you didn’t catch the lyrics, the slow, sexy voice is singing, “I face you in a match, be prepared to try your best, you will struggle, you will fight, but you’ll give up like the rest. Meet your master, be my slave, I will whip you with my rod, you will surrender yourself, and you will worship my heavenly bod.” Like, fuck, yes! That’s the vibe of some of the sexiest homoerotic wrestling, right? The X-Fights genre lands squarely in that conquer-and-possess end of the wrestling pool, with an unflinching focus on the erotic attraction between the wrestlers. Some homoerotic wrestling is more explicit, not just in terms of nakedness and sex, but more explicit in terms of exploring how wrestling is turning on not just the audience watching, but the wrestlers themselves. Like the driving, upbeat soundtrack, they celebrate that edge of competition fueled by desire, where the passion to win is just the first wave of erotic passion you’re going to see in a wrestling match.

Not all of the BG East trailers were quite so in your face. Some soundtracks for these trailers were a little less literal than those first three examples. Though, those first three are my favorites. But there were others that were more tone-setting, with more instrumentals, more like the way a cinematic score is designed to signal to a viewer the intended emotional impact of a scene. Like the soundtrack to the Undagear 3 trailer…

[Audio Clip – sound credit: BG East’s Undagear 3 trailer]

These more straightforward, solely synthesizer soundtracks were more major chords, less cheeky, literally no lyrics, just a driving electronic dance beat to accompany clips of quick, hard action. I feel like my conditioned response to that Undagear soundtrack is all about eager anticipation of the relief of suspense. It scratches that itch that I often have for the drama and storytelling of hot, competitive wrestling, where two legitimate contenders walk in, both thinking they’re going to walk out of there the winner, and the back and forth of the action slowly wears away the pretense and leaves one of them with a seriously bruised ego.

[Audio Clip – sound credit: BG East’s Undagear 3 trailer]

So I’m listening to this soundtrack to the Undagear 3 trailer and watching Brigham Bell, that ultra lean gorgeous boy absolutely taking it from muscle hunk Steve Corelli and, in turn dishing it right back. You’ve got no idea from the clips in the trailer who comes out on top, but you know for a fucking fact that the battle was nasty and intense!

I think the BG East trailers have been the most on point in translating a specific homoerotic wrestling vibe to music, but they haven’t been alone in bringing some professional polish to post-production with a soundtrack. Hunk Wrestling has this whole sexy world-building montage before Ivan Guerrero and Steve Mason step onto the mats, for example, that has this almost ethereal dance music with an alto voice musingly singing, “Look into my heart and see what, my love, you are to me.”

[Audio Clip – sound credit: Hunks Wrestling Ivan Guerrero vs Steve Mason]

I don’t know that it strikes the tone of the seriously mean mat scrap about to break out between Steve and Ivan, but the soundtrack accompanies this luxurious, slow look at each of them, separately, working out their hot bodies, perhaps speaking more to the viewer falling in lust with the two of them in the abstract, before our lust to see them work each other over finally breaks out. 

A lot of what I’ve seen in pairing music with homoerotic wrestling videos is less about the vibe of a particular match, and more conveying an ethos of a production house in general. In many cases, the music is just part of a visual and audio branded logo, speaking to the particular sensibility of the producer, overall. UCW, may it rest in peace, had that quick 80’s guitar riff to start off matches. 

[Audio Clip – sound credit: UCW College Boy Beatdown #4]

It’s very “80’s garage band” which was totally apropos of UCW’s cinder block walls and relatively low budget, high earnestness staging. Just to give credit where due, I sampled that last clip from my copy of UCW’s match between Marcus Ares and Quinn Harper entitled “College Boy Beatdown #4,” now for resale on Underground Wrestler.

And speaking of Underground Wrestler, while I haven’t watched a lot from them, yet, I have caught the high gloss finish to their branded logo of a neon sign blazing to life, along with the Tron-esque audio of a live wire, followed by this ominous horror film minor chord chime fading into silence as the screen fades in on Nordic muscle god Chase Lundqvist stretching out in preparation for his $1,000 Challenge Match against Chasyn.

[Audio Clip – sound credit: Underground Wrestler $1,000 Challenge]

These audio brands don’t drill down quite so deep into the specific ethos of a particular type of match like the BG East trailer soundtracks, but I like the attention to detail, to establish a tone of a production house, if not of any one particular match. Which is probably why polished post-production really stands out, I find, when I come across it on Watchfighters. I mean, the genius of Watchfighters is that everyone from major underground operations to just a sole wrestling enthusiast with a camera phone can share what they produce and let wrestling fans vote with their credit cards for who’s making a move in the market. So, it’s probably no wonder there’s a lot, including a lot of hot wrestling, with little-to-no post production, sometimes no credits, no logos, and certainly no soundtracks. But, a couple I’ve seen deserve an honorable mention for bringing some forethought and creative style to bedazzle a relatively straightforward homemade wrestling video into something with self-conscious character.

A couple of Watchfighters matches I’ve reviewed on the blog stand out for me. The first I want to mention is the growing Uruguayan production house headed by Muscles77 (who wrestled for BG East a while back as Marcelo Muscle). The crew behind matches like Muscles77’s match against Rocky Big Guns opens with a slow motion survey of both hardbodied wrestling hunks in turn, posing, flexing, sneering with cocky confidence at the camera as this unhurried, electronic melody with (mabybe?) a South American sensibility provides the soundtrack to our eye fucking, giving us time to decide whose mouthering muscles we want to see on top.

[Audio Clip – sound credit: Muscles77’s Alpha vs Alpha: Big Muscle Domination]

My last shout out for self-produced wrestling content with a self-conscious, perhaps even cerebral post-production footprint goes to long-time friend of this blog, Mason Brooks. I reviewed his apartment match against Dio Characi after Dio told me it was one of the favorite matches he’s filmed by that point in his early career. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that Mason has crafted super-stylized opening credits with a funky, quirky beat and an A-Ha-style life-to-storyboard visual effect.

[Audio Clip – sound credit: Mason Brooks’ Mason vs Dio Characi]

The music is high concept. Like, I’d expect to hear it on the floor of a gay dance club AND playing the elevator of a museum of modern art. Which, honestly, is a pitch perfect capture of exactly the way I think of Mason Brooks in general.

In summary, I confess that a hot musical soundtrack is, by no means, a requirement for me to get turned on by homoerotic wrestling… but it certainly doesn’t hurt. Honestly, I’m all about the blending and blurring of artistic media. I do it every day. Every morning, I wake up before the sunrises and write homoerotic wrestling fiction with my best wrestling buddy and graphic artist, AR. Getting turned on by the overlap of watching hot homoerotic wrestling with a conscientious musical soundtrack is why this infatuation I have with homoerotic wrestling feels like something more than just my taste in porn. It’s a sensibility that translates well beyond pushing play and watching wrestling on video. It’s a worldview that translates into literature and audio podcast and visual arts… and into music.

So, that’s about it for this much anticipated fourth edition of Sidelineland Sounds, my audio accompaniment to my longstanding blog Sidelineland. Email me at Wrestlebard@gmail.com, or message me at Wrestlebard on Instagram and BlueSky, and let me know what music speaks to your homoerotic wrestling sensibilities. It can’t promise when the next episode of Sidelineland Sounds will drop, but my plan for episode 5 is really inspired by the BG East track “I submit,” slowing down and taking a long, slow listen to the panicked pleading of once proud wrestlers begging not to get broken. Until then, keep enjoying homoerotic wrestling, and let me know what’s catching your eye and what’s turning you on hardest in the world of homoerotic wrestling, because you know, I’m going to keep telling you what’s turning me on about it. 

[Audio Clip – sound credit: BG East’s Submissions 6 trailer… “I submit, sir!”]

[Bell Ring – sound credit: BG East’s Three-Way Thrash 6]

The Curated Self – Ryan Reilly

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At Wrestlefest NYC last month, I happened upon a super sexy hottie who I’d seen earlier at the kickoff party traveling in a herd of hot Canadians. Ryan Reilly was momentarily alone at the club this time, so I was able to shove my low-level social anxiety down and introduce myself. About every third person I met at Wrestlefest had heard of Sidelineland. I was absolutely humbled by several wrestlers telling me that they read the blog and appreciate my words. But I never know if introducing myself and mentioning that I blog will provoke a spark of recognition or a totally blank stare. Ryan seemed to recognize the blog, which I swear isn’t a requirement for me to like you… but it never hurts. He’s somehow even more adorable in person than on social media and in his videos (which is an extremely adorable baseline to start). He’s long and lean. Really, he was the term “heel bait” personified in his tight singlet, with those disarming dimples and yankable ears. I asked him what’s his favorite match he’s wrestled on video. He thought about it a bit, then explained that his first match, in which he wrestled Denzel Dixon, remains one of his favorites.

So, my choice of what match to sample from his Watchfighters collection was obvious: Living Room Battle. This was my first time seeing both Ryan and his opponent, Denzel Dixon, in action. Both of them have caught my eye, though, so it was exciting seeing the two of them on their knees, poured into sexy singlets, sizing one another up. I have no idea how old they are, but they’re both serving up big helpings of babyface beauty and youthful exuberance. There’s something genuine and raw (in a spectacular way) about what looks like an actual meet-up where someone just decided, “hey, let’s record this” before they started. It’s about 45 minutes long, with precious few cuts in the action. There’s nothing frenetic about it. The holds are super long. There’s no better word that “milking” to describe the pace. It’s deliberate and spontaneous and both of these beautiful men are just fucking stubborn when it comes to refusing to submit well past the point that they should. That all adds up to heavy doses of slow and sure domination and soul crushing suffering that hits me (and clearly both Ryan and Denzel) just right.

There’s an upperclassman feel about the dynamic between them. Denzel is at least one or two levels above adorable Ryan when it comes to strength and grappling skill. My first impression of Denzel, as just as intensely babyfaced as Ryan, sort of fades a bit once the more experienced wrestler starts enjoying himself, having his way with Ryan. But he’s so fucking chill about it! I mean, Denzel is transparently having fun tying long-limbed Ryan up like a pretzel, but he just cracks a smile, sometimes no more than a smirk, most of the time. They’re so fucking quiet, I’m wondering if there have been noise complaints or something. Instead of loud cries or shouts, it’s a story told in subtle grunts that come from way deep. When he’s got Ryan’s long, lean arms twisted into a hammerlock for the thousandth time, easily in position to rip the rookie’s shoulders apart at any moment, Denzel’s just got this sweet grunt of satisfaction to narrate his thoughts and feelings. When Ryan has caught the upperclassman in bodyscissors (Ryan’s most effective offense by far in this match), it’s Denzel’s quiet gasps and grunts of respect that chart the dynamic between them.

They’re both intense, but damn, Ryan’s intensity is about 66% of the heat in this extremely hot match. Damn it, he wants the fucking submission so bad he can taste it! He’s able to control his more seasoned opponent for periods of time with tight headlocks and front facelocks that earn some more of those grunts of respect/pain from Denzel. But slowly and surely, Denzel patiently works for escapes that start to look inevitable about 10 minutes in. Like, sure, Ryan’s aggressiveness and rookie eagerness put him on top over and over, but there’s something irrepressible about Denzel. Eagerness and hunger and exuberance from Ryan just aren’t going to balance the scales against Denzel’s strength and mat savvy.

I love Ryan’s scissors, though. Fuck, the boy is lean, but when he’s got those bodyscissors clamped on, those legs of his look wicked dangerous. And his hot ass flexing as he powers down on the scissors is nothing short of sumptuous. His MF profile says he’s 5’11, but damn, those long legs of his go on and on as he milks the air out of Denzel’s lungs. I also love the look on his face when he’s dishing it out. Don’t get me wrong, he’s on the receiving end way more often, but somehow that makes the satisfaction on his face that much more delightful when he’s the one doling out the punishment. And every minute he’s milking the pain out of Denzel, he’s getting himself deeper and deeper into debt with his skilled, patient, powerful opponent. I want him gloat a little more, honestly. I want him to let loose with that adorable smirk of his. But, fuck, he’s super earnest. I get the feeling he’s just wanting respect, more than as if he were some babyface with a sadistic streak. So when he’s on top, he’s controlled and fierce, but he doesn’t gloat.

Still, Ryan earns the schooling he gets from Denzel in return. There are some moments where I’m pretty sure Ryan’s long limbs are literally going to get tied up into a bow. Denzel on cruise control is just as patient and relentless as he is when he’s biding his time, plotting his escape from one of the rookie’s tight squeezes. And Denzel notices what I’ve noticed: the harder Ryan gets punished, the more enthusiastically Ryan’s cock squirms to life inside that tight singlet. I’m standing up and cheering when, around 19 minutes in, Denzel has Ryan’s face stuffed up his armpit in a dragon sleeper, both arms trapped behind Ryan’s back by Denzel’s legs. And with this buffet of babyface hotness laid out in front of him, Denzel starts peeling Ryan’s singlet off. Fuck, yes!

Both singlets come off, and the jock straps underneath, and there’s a solid 10 minutes or so of full on naked wrestling that’s sexy as fuck. It’s hungry and fierce, teetering back and forth between competitive and foreplay. Denzel’s cock has a gravitational pull all its own, as evidenced by Ryan being unable to keep his hands and lips off of it. But damn, when Denzel starts cranking on Ryan’s cock, it looks like that adorable babyface beauty I met in the bar last month is going to fucking explode! Ryan’s orgasm face is that mix of being in awe and being totally untethered that might look like pain, if you weren’t following the plot… and if you didn’t stick around long enough to see him shoot that impressive load over his shoulder, followed moments later by Denzel doing the same.

I can see why this one remains one of his favorites. Like, I have nothing to base this on, because I literally had about a 45-second conversation with him in the basement of Red Eye, but the feeling I get from watching Living Room Battle is that I’m actually seeing Ryan there on my screen, literally and figuratively stripped naked. It doesn’t feel performative or self-conscious. It comes across as passionately genuine, like I’m seeing this super hot cutie disclosing everything that lives at the heart of him right on my screen.

Last month, it was also a delight to see Ryan the very next night climb into the ring alongside his tag team partner, Kid Canuck, and bring down the house with a sensationally told professional tag team match with a lot of those same elements. There was the same rawness, the satisfaction of climbing on top, the heartache of getting out-muscled and outmaneuvered that I enjoy in Living Room Battle. But without the ring, without the screaming audience cheering them on (me loudest), without the pro wrestling melodrama, it’s incredibly hot to see Ryan fierce and passionate, turned on and totally topped off by these 45 minutes of brutal, sexy wrestling with Denzel back at the start of Ryan’s wrestling-on-video career.

Who’s Your Daddy?

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I’m always impressed with the iconic stature of the Brooklyn Bodywrecker. I’m particularly impressed with how many young homoerotic wrestling fans are dialed in to his matches, considering it’s been a couple of decades since his last release from BG East. Take my young friend Harvey, who recently told me that Jobberpaloozer 5 was the first homoerotic wrestling match he’d ever watched. Harvey reports that he continues to watch it frequently, turned on every time by the legendary pairing of Brooklyn Bodywrecker, at the apex of his career as one of the most infamous leather daddy heels in the business, and Brendan Byers, confessing at the start of the match that this was the first time he’d ever set foot in a wrestling ring. There have been hundreds, if not thousands of homoerotic wrestling matches produced since then, including the stunning evolution of lean Brendan from his 20-year-old baby jobber incarnation into the big, muscle bruiser bad ass who just won the title as BG East’s Top Heel of 2024. But for Harvey (and many others), Jobberpaloozer 5 started wiring him for what continues to turn him on still today. When we were recently discussing the match, Harvey subtly pointed out that I’ve never written a review of it. So, in honor of Harvey and all the younglings (and the rest of us) who revisit Jobberpaloozer 5 often, here you go.

First of all, Brendan is nearly unrecognizable, if one were to only know him from the hulking muscle beast he’s grown into since. When he shows up for Jobberpaloozer 5, he’s lean and lush and cute as a fucking button. BG East puts him at 6’2, and he towers over Brooklyn Bodywrecker when the veteran struts into the ring checking him out. BBW does that same mental calculation I often find myself doing, trying to tamp down an instant turn on until I can check his I.D.. “How old are you? What, are you like 15?” When Brendan says that he’s 20, BBW can’t believe his ears? “Twenty!?” The salt-and-peppered veteran heel tugs on his leather jacket. “This is older than you are! Twenty?!” BBW is literally licking his chops at this point. Brendan plucks up the audacity to make an oldie joke about whether BBW is having problems hearing him. And fuck, you didn’t have to read the title of the match to know that this is about to turn into a massacre.

Stunningly, BBW offers a legitimate handshake of welcome to the tasty kid who admits it’s his first time in the ring. “You know I’m BBW, right? The Brooklyn Bodywrecker?” Brendan’s adorable game face cracks into a grin. He doesn’t have to say a word for the answer to be clear, but he admits it anyway. “I’ve heard.” BBW peels off his vest, his sun glasses, and his cap. He’s fucking peak BBW. Hairy and raw, looking like he just walked away from a bar fight, he’s fucking hot as hell. He’s got some gray in his goatee that gives this whole interchange the feel of the big bad wolf stalking Little Red Riding Hood through the woods. “Look, I’ll try not to hurt you,” he offers, flexing his hairy pecs. “We’ll try to have a good time,” he says with a disarming smile. “Just don’t fight me, kid,” he adds coldly, making it clear who’s about to have a good time and who isn’t.

There’s a coaching vibe for a few seconds as BBW talks the rookie through a collar and elbow. It’s almost adorable, really. Brendan’s long, lanky limbs flex as he locks up with the solid as granite muscle heel. About 3 seconds in, the “coaching” session is over, and BBW starts beating the living shit out of doe-eyed Brendan. If the veteran is holding anything back, I can’t see it. Sure, he pauses every so often to look into the camera and announce almost incredulously, “Cute kid!” But I don’t see him letting up on the gas pedal even a fraction, as he catapults the 20-year-old from corner to corner. It’s a lot of brute force pummeling, with punches and stomps and knee strikes pounding the snot out of skinny little Brendan. Brendan is just white knuckling it for the next 35 minutes or so, hanging on for dear life, while BBW remains absolutely in the driver’s seat with the pedal to the metal.

In classic Brooklyn Bodywrecker fashion, he frequently breaks the fourth wall. He’s knocked his pretty prey senseless, so he pauses to stare into the camera and have a leisurely chat with you and me. I’ve heard this approach is actively discouraged by most of the wrestling producers because it can disrupt the fantasy, but there’s something even more intensely threatening about it when BBW does it in his matches. “He’s cute, huh,” he asks you and me, stretched out over top of his oblivious opponent. “A little young,” he says thoughtfully, before adding with a mischievous smile, “but he’s less naive than he was two minutes ago, huh?” A little later, he’s been pounding the shit out of Brendan’s abs, trapped in the corner, when he pauses to call the camera over again. “So, boys and girls, don’t try this at home. We’re profe -….,” his voice trails off as he rethinks what he’s about to say. “Well, I’m a professional. And him?” He looks down at the sexy, dazed newbie. “Well, you gotta start somewhere.” Then he climbs the ropes to scissor Brendan’s head between his legs and flex his huge, veiny biceps.

Brendan is a lamb to slaughter. He just doesn’t see anything coming. BBW absolutely manhandles and mauls him with the relentless certainty of the rising tide. He smothers the adorable kid in his hairy pit, in his crotch, in his ass. He delivers a swarm of ring-rattling scoop slams that look like they might have left Brendan-shaped indentations in the ring. He’s got him spreadeagled across the ropes in the corner and place-kicks the future-brutal-one’s balls relentlessly. The repeated over-the-knee backbreakers that are nothing short of erotic sculpture, with BBW’s huge, hairy muscles flared and Brendan’s long, lean, lithe body twisted to perfection at the edge of snapping.

The squash is legitimately epic, but it’s the subtle things that make my cock twitch hardest. Like, when BBW pauses the brutality to just tauntingly slap Brendan in the face. Or when the muscle heel applies a spine snapping camel clutch and then slides his hands up from a chin lock to start clawing the cute boy’s face off. Brendan sells sweetly, groaning in agony in time with his panicked, labored breaths for about 35 minutes of near-hyperventilation. But it’s BBW’s sell that turns the heat way, way up. About 2/3rds of the way through the match, he starts roaring with this feral intensity that gets my already hard cock even harder. It’s the sound of a predator having made a fresh kill. It’s hungry and bloodthirsty, with this savage edge that says his cock is itching hard for a sexy, smooth, 20-year-old ass.

A tombstone pilediver puts the exclamation point at the end of this nearly 40 minute soliloquy. That tombstone didn’t just knock Brendan out cold. It was nothing short of transformative for my friend Harvey. I don’t think anyone could describe it in more loving detail than someone as fanatical about this match as Harvey is, so I got his permission to share his account of how he came across, and to, this moment. Here’s how Harvey puts it…

“So, picture a young gay boy who is super into wrestling and gets obsessed with the tombstone piledriver. I click on Google late one night and type “gay wrestling” into my mom’s laptop (sorry mom) and stumble upon BG East. I go into the search bar, and I type in “tombstone piledriver,” and this match pops up. I then rent the video, and slowly watch the eroticism unfold. Now, me being so young, I didn’t appreciate all the nuances about this match that I do now. But back to the tombstone…. So, when BBW had just knocked out young Brendan with a bearhug, he then looks at the camera and says, “What’s the expression” Then dragging a thumb across his throat, signals the end for Brendan, but then makes the same signal across his crotch. I knew we we’re in for a wild ride! BBW then picks up Brendan and asks him, “Let’s see if you you learned anything. I am Brooklyn Bodywrecker. Who’s your daddy?” Brendan replies with, “You are sir!” Then BBW looks at the camera and says, “Music to my ears.” BBW then hoists Brendan up and gets him into position. He always makes these noises when he lifts up opponents, and it’s so hot. It just reeks of domination, really. If you listen closely, you can hear Brendan moan, which only makes my dick moan, too. Then BBW pulls him up just a bit closer for safety, and to make sure Brendan is getting a full taste of his Daddy’s crotch. He walks Brendan around the ring until they are facing the mirror, which is such a Heel move, really. I love that BBW is always posing and making us appreciate his body! And, in a sense, he does that as well with Brendan, because he knows how much he and Brendan are hot together here. I also love the contrast of their trunks, because it shows off BBW’s best assets, and Brendan looks good in his sexy trunks. Then BBW goes up for the windup, which is very methodical, making sure Brendan gets plenty of time trapped there, before BBW drives the top of his head down and then sits bad to marvels at his work. [Harvey, aka, my Tombstone-obsessed friend]

So, Brendan was done at least 20 minutes earlier, but he’s knocked out cold and flat on his back, and somehow even more at BBW’s mercy than he has been the entire match. BBW pins him with his crotch, stretches out on top of him, nuzzles Brendan’s erection straining the boy’s pouch, and looks like he’s just going to tuck in and devour the lucky kid. The rawness and authenticity of the open lust is nothing short of magnificent. And then the genleman erotic gladiator quotes Shakespeare and leaves. “Goodnight, sweet prince. Parting is such sweet sorrow. That I shall say good night till it should be morrow.”

Like I said, it’s nearly 40 minutes of daddy domination. It’s iconic all on it’s own, but it’s made that much more fascinating by the evolution of that doe-eyed 20-year-old Brendan into the massive muscle brute who absolutely earned his status as reigning Top Heel last year. I don’t know if this ring initiation in Jobberpaloozer 5 was formative for Brutal Brendan’s sense of self as the raging bull he is today, but I know for a fact that there is a whole generation of young homoerotic wrestling fans who imprinted HARD on this sensationally intense, high impact, hard and hungry squash.

Wrestlefest Live – 2025

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Like Wrestlefest itself, Wrestlefest Live grew in leaps and bounds this year. I attended WF Live last year, and it was an awesome, fascinating, intense, and immensely entertaining event. Last year, the Live show had the feel of getting smuggled into a speakeasy during prohibition. We were escorted, one elevator-full of wrestling fans at a time, to the undisclosed location. Seating was limited in a sparse, Manhattan loft space on the upper floor of a high rise. It was mat wrestling in front of an intimately small but enthusiastic crowd. The matches were bigger than the setting, really, with some fantastic, high profile wrestlers from the underground scene, stars of both self-published and corporately produced homoerotic wrestling. Seated inches away from match after match of sizzling hot bodies grappling for dominance was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before, and when the box office opened online for the show this year, I eagerly snatched mine up hours after they went on sale, which turned out to be a good thing, since the show sold out in about 12 hours.

Wrestlefest Live this year was billed as more. More matches, a lot more wrestlers (accounting for tag teams, celebrity refs, and unannounced ring takeovers, turned out to be A LOT), but the one element that piqued my interest most was the promise of a full blown pro wrestling show in a ring. I was in suspense, wondering how they’d pull this off, knowing it was set in the same club where the kickoff party had occurred the night before (see my account of drooling over Dio Characi there). I tried to moderate my expectations, frankly. I was picturing the possibility of sort of a backyard wrestling feel, but in this case, in the backroom of Red Eye. Let me be clear, I admire the fuck out of backyard wrestling, with the young wrestling enthusiasts who improvise a pro wrestling setting on the cheap in order to live out (and record and share) their fantasies of being larger than life pro wrestlers like the ones they love watching on TV. Sometimes the “ring” is a trampoline or maybe just a few traffic cones and an unsecured rope marking the imaginary boundaries of a ring. Seriously, I’ve enjoyed watching some backyard wrestling from time to time on YouTube, when I find some hot young men going all in for the raw love of it. However, I wondered if Wrestlefest Live this year might similarly require the audience to imagine more than it literally delivered, sort of like backyard wrestling enthusiasts with the passion, if not the actual equipment and budget, of indy pro wrestling.

But, whoa. Like, WHOA! This was a legit show, the actual incarnation of unapologetic pro wrestling for a homoerotic wrestling audience that I’ve always fantasized about but never quite believed I’d get to witness. Sometime between the end of the kick-off party and the start of the show, an army of elves (who I’ve since learned were primarily made of up many of the wrestlers in the show) literally assembled a pro wrestling ring in the back room of the club. It took up about 80% of the floor space, and they packed in the 70 or 80 of us who purchased tickets into the remaining 20%. You know how eager I was for this, considering I gave up the opportunity to keep chatting up Ben Monaco, Beau Jordan, and Mickey Knoxx at the bar to elbow my way to near the front of the line as soon as the doors opened. I scored a ringside seat near the corner of the ring where the wrestlers made their entrances. I mean, everyone had an up close and incredible view, but fuck, I could literally reach out and touch the ring. When Mickey Knoxx made his ring entrance with Rocko Mortis for their tag team match, he peeled off his top and tossed it out of the ring at my feet (I haven’t asked Mickey, but I prefer to believe it was intentional). Moments later, when their opponents, Beau Jordan and pinch-hitter Seon Cruz took the ring, Beau ripped off his tear-away stripper pants and also tossed them down right in front of me (again, I tell myself it was an intentional bit of titillation especially for me). Like, fuck, I was right fucking there! When Sid Shaw and Zach Reno’s off-the-rails match spilled out of the ring, it was nearly in my lap. For a couple of seconds, Sid had a hold of my shoulder and was trying to climb over me and my buddy next to me because sensationally sexy lightweight Zach was about to thrash the living shit out of him. Fuck, I was right there, and we were ALL right there, and what played out in front of us was incredibly hot, hilarious, and gorgeous pro wrestling action.

Most of the wrestlers on the card have grown up before our eyes, turning their passions for wrestling into entertaining videos on WatchFighters. Quite a few have headlined for companies like BG East, Wrestler4Hire, and Weekend Wrestling. I suspect few of them have done anything quite like this before, pulling off a live match in front of a roaring crowd of guys turned on by wrestling. But honestly, you wouldn’t have known it. The entire show had polish about it. There was an earnestness and unblinking sell about it that was totally un-self-conscious. The slams where hard and loud. Bodies were literally catapulted off the ropes. The face plants into the turnbuckles shook the ring and hurt just to watch. The slaps and stomps popped with this spontaneous authenticity that left bright red hand prints and yellowing bruises behind. I’m mean, sure, I’m certain there were moments that I needed to suspend my disbelief, but as I look back on my memories of the event just over a week ago, I honestly don’t remember them. I just remember the stories playing out in front of us. And the hot bodies. I remember those really well.

There were competitive matches packed with impressive athleticism and wrestling technique. Babyface hero Dash Halley put those meaty pecs of his on the line against massive muscle bruiser Leon Cyrus in a best-of-5 battle that hit hard and kept us guessing to the sweaty end. My buddy Bobby Carter’s match against the institution, Lobo Gris, also started as one of those highly competitive and suspenseful battles, with pounding muscles and long, wrenching submission holds. But all of the matches showcased personalities and drama at least as much as they did stunning athleticism and technical wrestling. Both of the tag team matches were both dripping with melodrama, which is what tag team wrestling demands. When Kid Canuck and Ryan Reilly faced off against MPJ and Bruno the Beast, there was a shocking tag team partner betrayal culminating in a humiliated jobber pile of hot, sexy, demolished pretty boys. In most of the matches there was the teetering back and forth of the balance of power, with wrestlers owning the momentum and taking liberties and threatening to count their chickens before they hatched. Oh, and did I mention there was hot, hunky stripper wrestling? I feel like that deserves to be repeated.

The messiest and the most polished matches were back-to-back. My pick for messiest match was Gabe Steel taking on Drew Harper… and then Gabe taking on Dash Halley… and then Gabe taking on surprise reveal of Jonny Firestorm… and then Gabe taking on both Gabe and Drew. It was all high impact moves, with piledrivers for days. Honestly, there was so much going on I lost the thread of what the hell was exactly happening and who I was rooting for. Entertaining? Absolutely. But way, beautifully messy. The Weekend Wrestling feature of the evening was pretty much the opposite. Sadistic Sid Shaw took on Zach Reno, as I mentioned before, and it was smooth and polished to a glistening shine (just like Zach’s ass, which yes, we saw). Sid and Zach told the story of the underdog little (hot) guy refusing to be intimidated by the big, unhinged muscle brute. There was forced stripping, trunks pulled to show off two sets of hot glutes, and spanking. It was tightly told, with a couple of extensively experienced wrestlers to make every bump and spank feel spontaneous and part of a bigger story, including pulling in some ass whooping on Cole Cassidy (Weekend Wrestling Producer) which was oddly satisfying (not sure why I keyed off on seeing heartthrob hunk heel Cole get his ass kicked as much as I did).

And then there were just these unique moments that speak to the diversity of wrestlers and wrestling that populate this fabulously sexy community. Sir Dark’s match was just entirely off the hook and unlike anything else in the ring that night (in a super fun way). He was feral and bloodthirsty, out to fuck someone up so bad that he impulsively takes out the ref before a pop-up challenger can be identified from the audience. When KC Ryder steps in to be the beautiful blond babyface hero to stand against the forces of chaos uncorked by maniacal Sir Dark, the drama really got intense. Their match was ego-fueled and larger than life. It was sexy as hell and had me holding my breath in suspense and awe. Not sure if I’m conveying it, but it was just a whole different flavor to add to the buffet of Wrestlefest Live. The inaugural championship match between beefy babyface Ben Monaco and take-no-prisoners muscle heel Tarz Lando was (possibly) the the most thoroughly sweet treat for squash fans. The championship belt was decided in a super hot muscle massacre, dripping with cocky swagger and taunting trash talk and gorgeous, huge hairy pecs everywhere. The range throughout the evening was delightful, and the bench was deep.

It wasn’t perfect. There was a 20-minute delay at one point to try to troubleshoot the livestream that stopped working. There were blown moves, an occasional oversell, and even a frew more undersells. I saw Gabe Steel icing a swollen-shut eye after his match, and I’ve seen hints on social media that he may have more story to tell about things that didn’t go to plan. But as a gay fan turned on by wrestling, by sexy wrestlers and the drama and the battle for domination, it was magnificent. It was larger than life. From the rainbow ring to the ball claws and face sitting, it luxuriantly gay. It showed a ton of respect for the art and science and athleticism and beauty of professional wrestling. And it felt deeply respectful to a standing-room-only crowd of homoerotic wrestling fans. Those with credits for this sensational production included KC Ryder, Rocko Mortis, Cole Cassidy, and my cousin Scooter for what had to be a shit ton of upfront organizing and legwork, and there was another small army of guys holding the cameras and running the equipment. A quick shout out to the hot, handsome nerd-hunk ring announcer who should’ve thrown down the mic and ripped off his shirt (but didn’t). All of the celebrity refs (Chase Addams, Ethan Axel Andrews, and new-to-me muscle god Boy Radio) brought the sexy-in-stripes vibe and helped stir the pot of drama inside the ring at every turn. The Red Eye staff were uniformly delightfully hospitable and gorgeous (especially the bearded server with that hot-ass singlet serving drinks at ringside). I look forward to posting more detailed reviews once the matches go up on WatchFighters, but in the meantime, I’m combing through my hundreds of pics and videos I snapped, despite the announcement at the start of the show encouraging us to only take pics and videos “sparingly.” So not sorry!

A Few Are Familiar With Me

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I’ve been flying a bit under the radar this year for Wrestlefest NYC, but I’m happy to report that I’m back to enjoy it again this weekend. It’s a bit wild how quickly events like this went from being crazy intimidating to me the first time to just cruising in and looking forward to seeing old friends. Reports are that this is likely the biggest fest by far, with more than 600 attendees having RSVPed. I know for a fact some of the RSVPs didn’t show, and there’s really no “registration” or check-in, so how many wrestlers have descended on Penn Station this weekend is unknowable. However, based on the opening kick-off party last night, I’m convinced there is a huge collection of wrestlers concentrated in just a few city blocks in downtown Manhattan right now, and it’s pretty exciting to be part of it.

The kick-off party last night was overstimulating in every way. Scooter and his tireless band of volunteer organizers put together an amazing event at a club devoted, for the evening, to just those of us here for Wrestlefest. Two floors were packed pec-to-pec with sensationally hot wrestlers in singlets, trunks, or less. The eye candy was dizzying. Bodies in all shapes and sizes were there, but one mantra kept echoing in my thoughts about absolutely everyone: “Fuck, wrestling does a body good!”

Photo Credit: Mickey Knoxx

Everywhere I turned was another homoerotic wrestling celebrity sighting. Many of them I count as friends, but are nonetheless members of the pantheon that set alight the homoerotic wrestling fantasies of so many of us. Canadian Mickey Knoxx was there wearing nothing but irony (i.e., an American flag leather jacket and star-spangled ultra briefs). I also got a hug in on Bobby Carter, showing off the body that’s been setting BG East and Watchfighters on fire this year. It felt like coming home, getting sweaty hugs from Drake Marcos, Chase Addams, and Ollie Watts.

Photo Credit: Sir Dark

Just as exciting was meeting some new friends for the first time in person. I may, or may not, have awkwardly insisted on giving Beau Jordan a hug. I mean hell, I can’t really start my day without a strong cup of black tea and Beau’s fashion singlet morning jerk off on Blue Sky, so I feel like I know him intimately despite having never met before last night. It was Sir Dark who gave me an spontaneous hug after figuring out I’m the guy he’s chatted with on social media and who’s been swooning over his Watchfighters matches. I unabashedly fanboy-ed on Steve Mason, who managed to be disarmingly and smolderingly magnetic despite being one of the few there in street clothes.

Photo Credit: Sir Dark

It’s hard to describe just how overstimulated I was, hoarse from shouting over the noise, packed in tight with acres of sexy wrestlers, some of whom I only managed to admire from a distance. I’m not ashamed to say I swooned over JJ Allen’s tree trunk thighs, Lobo Gris’ magnificent ass, and Tarz Lando’s huge, hairy pecs. I clocked celebrity sightings of Matt Larsen, Rocko Mortis, Nero the Beast, Isaac Andrews, and Ben Monaco. I introduced myself to Ryan Reilly, who’s been grabbing my attention on social media lately, and discovered that’s he’s as adorably charming as he is stunningly sexy.

At one point, I caught sight of this blindly hot hunk across the way waiting for a drink at the bar. I didn’t get a good look at his face at first, distracted as I was by his hot body poured into this absolutely perfect singlet. When I did finally get a look at his face, I knew that I know him… like, know him well! But, still, it took me a good half a minute before I realized who I was eye fucking: Dio Characi. Dio traveled as part of a herd of devastatingly sexy, gorgeous young hotties in singlets, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to fanboy. I blatantly interrupted his conversation with his hot, bearded companion (truly sorry, bearded hot guy), and managed to introduce myself. Now, I’ve chatted just a bit with Dio by DM before, but for some reason, I was nervous as hell. He’s almost ethereally beautiful. I mean, one of the epiphanies for me last night was that every single wrestler I’ve lusted over watching wrestle on video was even more stunningly beautiful in person by at least a magnitude of 5. But Dio was even more stunningly beautiful than he is on video by a magnitude of 12 (approximately). I honestly kept thinking that I should probably let him get back to grazing with his herd of gorgeous hotties, but no shit, his face lit up when he placed that I was “that guy” who writes about him. Turns out, he’s charming as fuck (sorry Chase), seemingly almost as delighted to be fanboyed as I was to fanboy. I had to explain to a friend who was with us who Dio was (I know, and I totally agree with you… I need to slap that friend upside the head someday for somehow NOT knowing who Dio Characi is). And I was explaining, in front of Dio, that Dio is a wrestling superstar. And Dio quietly, demurely shrugged his big, muscular shoulders and shyly corrected me: “A few are familiar with me.” Lest my poorly informed friend believe the grossest undersell of the century, I repeated more emphatically that Dio is a fucking SUPERSTAR! And I kid you not, Dio practically blushed, and again, humbly insisted, “A few are familiar with me.”

I say all this for a couple of reasons. One reason is to just fucking brag that I had a delightful, real life conversation with Dio Characi. If I die in the forecast blizzard on my way home tomorrow, I still say it was worth it. But really, my point is just what a delight it is to get to swim around in so much good will in this wrestling community of ours. I mean, sure, there are egos. There’s drama. Literally, I overheard in the deafening din of the club last night conversations about ageism and racism and body fascism. It’s not like being united by a shared delight in homoerotic wrestling breaks down all biases and barriers and makes us better human beings. However, I do suspect it might make us, on average, happier human beings – and not in just an “I’ve got mine” sort of way. I suspect a large majority of the hundreds in attendance last night shared, at least briefly, the same sense of wonder and awe that I experienced at the size and scope of the community gathered there, and the unmistakable fact that who was there was just the tip of the iceberg. It’s bold and ballsy and beautiful, and it’s something to be celebrated. What divides us doesn’t surprise me at all, and I don’t mean to minimize it, but what unites us and what seemed to infuse that loud, sweaty club full of wrestlers last night, was a shared passion and the remarkable good will that can emerge from being community together.

Reason to Grudge

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Another wrestling hunk I’ve crushed on from afar without watching wrestle yet is Matt Larsen. He’s intensely handsome, with a hairy, muscled torso and super sexy thick legs. He’s gives me this hypermasculine hit, with his scruff, shaved head, aversion to smiling, and preference for tighty-whities. I’ve cruised his social media for quite a while for his flexing selfies and occasional caps of his matches, but only recently really explored his WatchFighters channel to see the serious depth of his catalog. He’s wrestled pretty much every other wrestling crush of mine that publishes on Watchfighters, so I’m assuming he’s also got good taste going for him. So I decided to sample Matt’s intensely sexy cottage industry going on there on the mats, in some super tidy apartment with gorgeous wood floors.

His opponent for this “Sweaty Competitive Match” is a masked hottie I’ve caught sight of (and done double-takes at) just a few times, NonoZ. I can’t speak to what his face looks like, but holy shit, the rest of him is a work of art. It’s his lightly hairy pecs that I keep fixating on most, and I’m in good company, because Matt’s clearly into them also (again, good taste!). NonoZ is aggressive, initiating the intensely competitive mat tussle over and over again in this cold and cocky way that’s not quite swagger, but close. While his identity remains a mystery, I’m suspecting his name could be Reed Richards, because he somehow manages to stretch that 6’2 frame in ways that seem to defy what I learned in Anatomy & Physiology 101. He just sort of casts his sweetly muscled right arm at will and keeps catching an impressively tight and punishing front facelock on Matt again and again.

The vibe is intensely, intimately competitive. There’s not any 30 seconds of the first 20 minutes when both hot hunks are failing to work their asses off. It’s a battle for inches between two hungry competitors fighting hard for taps. I’m thinking early on that Matt’s got more than he bargained for. He’s on his back the majority of the time, and he’s having to fight hard to keep his masked opponent from ripping his head off. Matt’s clearly wicked strong, though, muscling his way free again and again in a way that keeps frustrating NonoZ. Matt also neutralizes any momentum the masked hottie tries to build by digging his knees into the masked hunk’s kidneys and keeping Mr. Fantastic unable to lock on the chokes he keeps pitching. But despite Matt keeping up an impressive defense, NonoZ persists in aggressively attacking, repeatedly wrapping those hotly muscled arms around Matt’s skull and working on screwing that lid off the jar again.

Over the entire 36 minutes, about 67% of them are devoted to that intense battle for inches, getting sweatier by the second, grunting with effort and frustration, twisting and scrambling across the mat. But that other 33% is this not-quite playful hunger that telegraphs that both of these grapplers want more than just taps out of all this skin-on-skin flexing chess match. NonoZ starts landing hard, cracking slaps on Matt’s gorgeously meaty ass when he’s got the no-nonsense handsome hunk locked up, if not able to get the submission. I’m also digging the masked man’s chuckles that sneak out. Again, they aren’t quite playful, but he’s having fun. He laughs lightly when he’s almost, but not quite, got an armbar locked in place. He chuckles when Matt manages to dig his way out from under the masked hunk’s avalanche of muscle. There’s nothing funny going on, but NonoZ is loving every second that Matt makes him work hard to try to find the key to that stubborn lock.

Personally, I’m totally turned on by the hungry, competitive back and forth wrestling here, but I’m not exactly complaining when, clearly, Matt and NonoZ also turn the corner to getting turned on, too. Somewhere after the second tap out, they venture into no man’s land where it’s hard to tell if this is still about wrestling submissions. They start grinding crotch to crotch. Matt can’t stop groping NonoZ’s pecs and bulging biceps. The masked hunk’s slaps on Matt’s ass turn hungrier, more claiming than punishing. The two of them seem to be as uncertain as I am as to whether their simmering lust is taking over, or if there’s another tap or two to wring out of each other. It’s an incredibly sexy tightrope they walk, building my suspense as to whether it’ll be another submission or an orgasm that happens next.

I’m delighted to offer the spoiler that it’s both. They careen back and forth between working for joint locks and chokes and just burying themselves in each other’s sensational muscles out of lust. By the time one of them is locked up in this sensational rear choke, the victor cooing in his ear as he whips out his enormous, gorgeous cock and starts pounding on himself, I’m perfectly in sync with what’s happening on the screen. Fuck, I can practically smell the sweat and cum, the passion is so spontaneous and genuine.

It’s about 36 minutes from start to finish. There’s an agile cameraman recording, who, I’m guessing, is also a skilled grappler. That’s my guess because, while the action is framed nicely, I’m constantly wanting the camera to linger longer on those tasty asses and the scorching hot aesthetics of these two sensational physiques. The way the loser stares into the camera when he’s blowing his load though… fuck, it’s like he’s looking into my soul and knowing exactly what I want to see! I like the respectfully dangerous vibe between them. I walk away pretty certain that either one of them would have been delighted to beat the living shit out of the other one if they weren’t so closely matched. The story of hard, sweaty wrestling burning so hot it erupts into the loser losing his load with the winner’s arm cranked tight across his throat is my favorite genre, and this is a sensationally satisfying example of hot homoerotic wrestling! Now, for that “erotic grudge match” I see they’ve since wrestled…

Accepting Help

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At BG East, Dio Characi has jobbed pretty hard. He always struts in with hot attitude dripping with erotic tension. There’s always a strong hit of just how much Dio gets off on intense wrestling. Like, there’s no doubt in my mind at all he’s totally one of us, not some casual traveler solely here for a paycheck. I always think he looks like he’s enjoying being on offense more than he’s enjoying getting buried under (his WrestleFest 4 match when he’s rolling on Jonny for a while being perhaps the best example). But he definitely suffers beautifully. In fact, his suffering just gets more and more intense and full throttle. I’m still having recurring intrusive daydreams of Dio’s shocked face as Manny Mendez rips him in half in Babyface Bash 3. I noted that Dio snagged runner-up for Top Jobber this last year in the BG East Besties, even, though it was Top Babyface he won for the third year in a row. But there’s something pretty intoxicating about watching this 6-foot, curly-haired Adonis with that boy-next-door innocent baby face getting thrashed on and owned. Still, though, his social media persona and glimpses of his WatchFighters content keep me hungry to see his lip-curling, sneering sadist show up at BGE. The cherub-Adonis getting nasty is an angle I’m here for. And happily for me, that’s who shows up to generously give perennially unlucky lightweight Sunny DeLeon some coaching in Undagear 40.

Sunny ties me up in similar knots as Dio does, frankly. He’s wicked hot, and he regularly leans in to the erotic end of the pool in this effortless and unselfconcious way that I love watching. I know for a fact Sunny’s no traveler here, having enjoyed the rare privilege of being on the mat with him once, then seeing him wrestle live at WrestleFest NYC last year, not to mention his quickly growing catalog of matches at BGE and on Watchfighters. Sunny’s got flashes of badassness that send me places, like the bro-battering domination he gets in on Nathan FX in Undagear 38. But there’s something that speaks to vulnerability about Sunny that keeps upending him in match after match. His coiled, hot body worked over and worn out is just too hot. Those flashes of BJJ fierceness are just too tempting for opponents to skip out on smacking him around and luxuriating in bullying the lightweight hottie. He regularly ends up on the wrong side of the stick, and I totally get why fans keep tuning in for it.

Dio has noticed how much Sunny gets bullied, as well. I suppose it’s in Dio’s babyface DNA to show up and offer to give the lightweight hottie some tips. “I was watching your last match, and I have some stuff to talk to you about,” Dio says, finding Sunny stretching on the mat. “I can show you some moves to make you better. And, as I am more skilled and more practiced, I’m here. What do you think?” I honestly can’t tell if Dio is intentionally being insulting, or if it’s some subtlety lost in translation, as the typically fluent Brazilian heartthrob occasionally stumbles over his English. Sunny, quite clearly, just hears the insult. “Well, I don’t think I need your help,” Sunny claps back indignantly. “I’m doing pretty good on my own!”

While Sunny’s boast is debatable, no shit, he’s doing more than just “pretty good” once this would-be-coaching session breaks out. True, true, Dio scores a lightning quick submission in under 10 seconds with an aggressive arm bar, but Sunny strikes back almost as quickly, submitting Dio with bodyscissors and a shoulder-threatening hammerlock. “I told you, I don’t need your help,” Sunny sneers.

Seriously, though, Sunny is giving away a reported 50-pounds to the mighty Brazilian It-Boy. And Dio doesn’t look like he’s happy to give away a second quick submission to his ripped little lightweight opponent’s revenge arm bar. Did I mention each submission earns the loss of an item of clothing? Oh, yeah, that deserves mentioning, as they are both is down to just jock straps about 5 minutes into this match. And then here’s where Dio kicks it into high gear. Sunny just cannot handle the avalanche of nearly-naked muscle crashing down on him again and again. He spends days at a time trapped between Dio’s thick, hairy legs, that the Brazilian is so appropriately proud of. “Once you’re trapped between my legs, you can never leave!” And, no shit, Sunny twists and writhes and shoves, and gets absolutely nothing but an even bigger sneer of contempt out of Dio in return. Dio wrings more agonized taps out of Sunny, but the Top Babyface is done being generous. “So cute, your suffering,” he taunts as Sunny clenches everything trying to survive the onslaught. “Now, OPEN YOUR EYES AND LOOK AT ME!”

Fuck, Dio starts seriously bullying, and the erotic tension (already high) goes through the roof. Burying Sunny under all that gorgeous muscle, he smothers the overwhelmed lightweight between his legendarily juicy pecs. He can (and does) get taps anytime he wants in the final 15 minutes or so, but taps aren’t what Dio is hungry for. “Suck my nipples,” he demands. When Sunny isn’t enthusiastic enough about it, he barks down, “Use your tongue! Harder!” By the look of bliss washing across Dio’s cherubic face, he gets what he asks for. He chuckles like a comic book villain as he makes Sunny nearly pass out, buried in his sweaty pit. He pounds the hot jobber’s washboard abs, perched on top of Sunny’s face deep up the Brazilian’s ass crack. He may be a champion at suffering hard, but holy fuck, I’m way into the way Dio clearly relishes possessing Sunny every which way he wants to.

The smothering schoolboy pins, the face sitting, the slow, lush stroking and savoring of Sunny’s tight body… of all the things that Dio can be, and that Dio is, our boy enjoys being in control. Whether he’s a heel on-the-down-low, or whether he’s genuinely just trying to be a helpful babyface and toughen hot little Sunny up, watching Dio unstoppable and voracious is incredibly hot and sexy!

Infatuation Shared

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Awards season always reminds me of the awesome diversity of tastes that co-exist among us wrestling fans. Sometimes my favorites get lauded. Sometimes wrestlers and matches at the top of my brackets don’t even show when the awards are dished out. And throughout the year, it’s not uncommon for wrestling fans and readers of this blog to give recommendations, some of which I’m instantly into, while others don’t do so much for me. I appreciate the evangelists who are convinced everyone ought to be as infatuated with a particular wrestler as they are. It’s that passion that’s at the fanatical root of what it means to be a fan, right? I’m totally okay with it, though, if others don’t dial in to Mitch Colby or Lon Dumont or Kid Karisma the way I do. And I respect the hell out of the passionate opinions of other fans that I don’t share. But sometimes, someone drops a recommendation in my inbox, and I instantly catch the fever.

That’s what happened when long time friend of Sidelineland, Alex, told me that I needed to check out one of Weekend Wrestling’s new finds, Stefan Stone. Alex and I have compared notes quite a bit, so it shouldn’t surprise me that one of his infatuations would totally be up my alley. And holy hell, Stefan Stone is way up my alley. He’s fucking pretty. Gorgeous, built, sexy body. He’s super handsome, with a tidy beard that frames a charming face and lends grit to his otherwise smooth, shaved, tanned and toned physique. I get it, why a Weekend Wrestling subscriber would pay for a custom match between Elite Eliot and Stefan. If you’re into hot jocks with serious pro wrestling skills to tell a story, this may be the most perfect casting possible.

I’ve been on the record as being way into Eliot. His attitude, his body, his face… Eliot’s got the corner on the market when it comes to being almost painfully pretty, as if born to be a babyface, but with sadist DNA that destined him to be a contemptuous bully. He’s almost immediately playing mind games, intentionally getting Stefan’s name wrong after specifically asking for clarification. Eliot is on brand from the start, smooth and punishing. He gets the jump on the handsome new hottie transitioning quickly and smoothly from a side headlock to a hammerlock, cranking on Stefan’s shoulder hard enough to make the handsome hunk dance on his toes.

Honestly, Eliot and Stefan are remarkably well matched on so many counts. Eliot may be a fraction more aggressive out of the gate, but Stefan’s got coldly confident escapes and reversals in his back pocket, and he milks a punishing hold with every bit of relish that Eliot does. They look nothing alike, but they’ve both got closely matched, gorgeously fit and toned bodies, smooth and aesthetic, with pumped and functional muscles that work up a sheen of sweat as testimony to their no-shit athleticism on display. The distance that distinguishes them is, on the one hand, super subtle. Like, Eliot sports that deceptively cute-kid face, whereas Stefan’s got more of a Colt male model masculine maturity. While I’ve argued in the past the Eliot’s ass may be the most underrated in homoerotic wrestling, I think (and I’m shocked to be saying this) that Stefan’s glutes may be even hotter. Eliot is, from start to finish, the contemptuous narcissist who can’t bother to remember how to correctly pronounce his opponent’s name. When Stefan points out that they’re all even at one pin a piece to start the third and decisive fall, Eliot rolls his eyes and snarks, “Maybe numerically, but calling us even is a stretch.” Stefan, on the other hand, is curiously complimentary. “Nice transition,” Stefan admits, grunting a little after Eliot has smoothly chained from a bearhug back to a side headlock. “I see why you’re elite.”

Fuck, I love so much the way Stefan hands out cred like that. On the one hand, it has this earnest babyface-ness about it, but on the other hand, there’s something hotly defiant about him measuring out precise quantities of apt praise. Eliot is slapping down “I’m out of your league” taunts, and Stefan just deliberately keeps offering these concise, totally legit, collegial gratuities that keep demonstrating he’s not buying it that he should just walk away with his tail between his legs after Eliot takes the first fall, like the Elite-One suggests. It’s all the hotter for those moments when Stefan starts building up a head of steam. He twists free from a hammerlock and winds Eliot seamlessly into a nasty wristlock, cranking on it like starting a stubborn snowblower in early winter. In the third and final fall, when things go off the rails and bruised egos demand satisfaction, I keep hearing those earlier, respectful compliments from Stefan echoing in my head as he crushes Eliot’s throat between his huge, sweaty thighs, milking it long a luxuriously, slapping Eliot in the chest and demanding the submission. Turns out a little respectful complimenting early on don’t cost a thing when you’ve got the strength and skills to put a major hurt on when it counts!

It’s the low blows that tip this battle of near equals over the edge. Stefan is literally begging, “Please, no more ball shots,” after he takes a solid jab to the crotch. Of course, his pleading earns him almost immediately a blindside knee to testicles from behind, that leaves the sweaty hot jock weeping, ready to get swept up and dumped in the trash can once Eliot’s soothed his threatened status as the nasty sadist in gorgeous babyface clothing. But holy shit, did Stefan Stone come from out of nowhere and out-pretty, out muscle, and nearly out wrestle Elite-fucking-Eliot!?

Like Alex, I am now officially a member of the Stefan Stone fan club!

Happy New Year – 2025

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I wasn’t planning on penning a new year retrospective, but then I sat down to watch the History of Gay Wrestling Panel that I participated in last February, and I got all nostalgic. That got me thinking about the panel, which got me thinking about my first Wrestlefest NYC, and then it was totally a slippery slope to reflecting on another amazing year of getting to enjoy wrestling in so many different ways.

BG East Arena members can watch the History of Gay Wrestling video streaming there in the Arena, if you’re interested. It’s not your typical homoerotic wrestling video fare, I’ll grant you. There are no nearly naked hunks throwing down and getting hot and sweaty trying to dominate each other in the video. However, in the video there are dozens of wrestlers who have been those nearly naked hunks launching a thousand fantasies, talking about their experiences as wrestlers, as participants in the wrestling business, and as founders and builders of the homoerotic wrestling community that I enjoy so much today. I blogged about it a lot early on the year, so I’ll try not to repeat myself too much. Honestly, my first time watching the video these many months later was mostly motivated by wanting to see if I came across as a dork. I’m happy to report that my dork-quotient was well within levels that I’m happy to own. But what stuck out to me when watching the video was the room full of good will and the genuine camaraderie and esprit de corps that was so evident and spontaneous and such a privilege to witness. We can make so much drama for ourselves, can’t we? But for about an hour and a half that Sunday afternoon in Manhattan, there was just a ton of appreciation for being part of something that gives us pleasure, but also joy. You can practically see the common thread running between every person who showed up on camera up front, and I promise you that same thread was visibly attached to the heart of the 100+ attendees behind the camera.

Wrestlefest NYC was a trip in 2024. I got a lot of wrestling in, happily getting my ass kicked and happily kicking ass in proportions that I’ve grown to enjoy. It was also the setting in which I got to attend my first live wrestling event. Yeah, I mean, like, any wrestling. I’ve never been to a mainstream pro wrestling show, though they’ve always been happening (and continue to happen) in proximity to me throughout my life. So it was a very special pleasure to get to enjoy a remarkable event pulled together by Scooter at WFNYC, giving a small audience the opportunity to watch live, hot, intense mat wrestling action within arms length. And like that history panel vibe, there was this intense common thread connecting everyone seated around those mats, grunting and groaning in unison, eye-fucking these drop dead gorgeous wrestlers going at it for our pleasure. Fuck, that was hot.

And speaking of fucking hot… like I said, I got in some super fun wrestling action at WFNYC, and managed to squeeze into the rest of my life a few meet ups over the rest of the year. The majority of my wrestling in 2024 was with Scott Williams, though. I don’t blog about every encounter like I did that first meet up, because I think we all know we’ve got to be careful about stroking that man’s ego too much. But I’m happy to report, for those of you following that particular journey of mine for so long, that Scott seems almost as eager to get another shot at his number one fan as his number one fan is to get another shot at him. I’m pretty sure it burns his ass that my passionate enthusiasm (“passionate enthusiasm”) for watching him get worked over translates repeatedly into his cocky bluster crumbling to just a fan. I’m happy to report that Scott’s already been texting me for a shot to redeem his cred as a wrestling star muscle hunk in 2025. Even when he’s whimpering and tapping, though, he’s always a wrestling star muscle hunk to me.

As I’ve mentioned for the past couple of years around the turn of the New Year, another highlight of 2024 continued to be co-creating wrestling fantasy fiction with my good buddy AR. We were recently trying to guess how many pages of wrestling fiction we’ve written together in the past two and a half years. I’m certain it’s in the thousands, with literally hundreds of illustrations AR has rendered with jaw dropping hotness. The creative process itself, and the sharing and refining and bouncing wrestling fantasies off of each other, is the real payoff, but we’ve both agreed to try to package some of this hotness up and share more of it with fans of the genre in 2025. Stay tuned.

The last thing I wanted to mention that was truly remarkable for me in 2024 was trying my hand/voice at some audio recordings for the blog that I called Sidelineland Sounds. The first time I mentioned the concept to my sounding board, AR, he clearly thought the idea was out there. And, honestly, so did I, but it sounded fun, and I ended up recording 3 episodes. Their fucking time-intensive, though, and time got away from me to keep recording some of additional episodes I’ve got planned. But the really remarkable part wasn’t just creating something entirely new (and having fun with it). The remarkable part was the reception that Sidelineland Sounds got. I was pleased and a little relieved when I saw on my stat counter that people were downloading them, presumably listening to them, and quite a lot of folks commented, added their opinions, asked questions. Once it was clear that Sidelineland Sounds wasn’t too out there of a concept, after all, I stopped tracking the downloads. As 2024 came to a close, it occurred to me to take another look. The first episode audio file has been downloaded 99,000 times. The second and third episodes were downloaded close to that. What the fuck?! I’m pretty confident that some readers/listeners have downloaded/listened multiple times, but still, I had no idea of the draw that me talking about and sampling hot homoerotic wrestling would have. I’m extra motivated now to get additional episodes created… when I can find the time!

As I sit here and type this, I’m going to be painfully honest and say that I worry about the future. The world was a fucking dumpster fire from day to day in 2024. At this point in my life, I can definitely say it was more so that than I can remember it being in a long time. I hope that, as a species, we get our shit together in 2025, but frankly, I don’t know that I have faith that that can even happen. There’s this intense counter-revolutionary vibe in the air, with a maelstrom of conformity and convenient lies and the clutching fingers of the privileged doing everything in their power to claw back the right to decide what’s normal for everyone else. I worry for the place of our little homoerotic wrestling community in the midst of that social discourse. But I also take heart watching those panelists from the event last year talking about finding each other, exploring that thread that connects us, back when the risks felt so great that guys rented PO boxes to exchange contact information for fear of being found out. I don’t think we’re headed into Handmaid’s Tale territory or anything, but the guys upon whose shoulders we climb are witnesses to the truth that the authentic draw to what turns us on about wrestling will find a way. Stay strong, folks, and wrestle on.