I have a complicated relationship with mainstream pro wrestling. I religiously watched my local independent wrestling shows on television through my adolescence and young adulthood. Honestly, it was always primarily motivated by the erotic turn on I got from it. So, it was the matches with chemistry, with hot, aggressive drama, usually involving hardbodied babyface muscle boys getting manhandled and humbled in front of a stunned crowd. As I’ve mentioned before, I still blame a young Billy Jack Haynes, the babyface uber-muscleboy in his early career jobber stage in my local shows, for my erotic obsession with wrestling. When WWF/WWE started eating up the indies, I started getting bored with it. Maybe it was my changing tastes (or, the wrestling gods forbid, my growing maturity), but the stories seemed to get more obvious, more contrived, less spontaneous and competitive. I found the wrestlers less attractive, less compelling, the heat more scripted and less and less about the wrestling. Around the same time, I discovered homoerotic wrestling producers, and honestly, I took a long, long hiatus from pro wrestling for the masses.
Over the past 10 years or so, with the magic of YouTube, I’ve rediscovered mainstream pro wrestling. Well, I’ve mostly discovered independent pro wrestling produced outside the U.S. It’s not like I watch it religiously, and still, it’s the erotic turn on that fuels my search terms. But these days, I’d estimate about a third of my wrestling consumption is indy pro. It gives me a strong hit of nostalgia when I find myself doe-eyed and in lust with a pro hunk climbing into the ring in front of a roaring audience. I do catch some US indy pro, but at this point I’m pretty partial for productions from elsewhere. I still get about half my YouTube ads delivered in Spanish (of which I speak not a word) because I’ve watched so much Mexican lucha.
Sometimes, a particularly hot wrestler in a particularly hot indy pro match can top me off on his own. A lot of times, it serves as mood setting for me, getting me revved up before I pull up some erotically oriented wrestling produced for gay eyes. Discovering a new pro wrestling infatuation is a sweet delight that sends me and the YouTube suggestions-algorithm combing through often obscure, small wrestling productions across the globe. But I definitely have a short list of wrestlers I regularly use my date-added filter for to savor their new matches with almost as much passion as I used to hope and pray that Billy Jack Haynes would be wrestling on the Portland Wrestling’s Saturday late night weekly broadcast.
One of my current favorites is the French masked wrestler Aigle Blanc, who’s wrestled for a few different European productions. Physically, he’s just fucking stunning. I throw around the “physique like an anatomy chart” metaphor too often, I realize, but seriously, Aigle’s super ripped physique is like an anatomy chart. He’s ultra lean, in a way that honestly I’m not always into, but he wears it in such a mouthwatering way. He’s been tracked at 5’11 and 154 pounds, which is probably an exaggeration of how fucking lean he is, but I bet not by much. I always feel like I’m seeing him in double vision. Like, I see this super lean (bordering on downright skinny) dude (particularly in contrast with the solid as fuck beefcakes he’s typically facing), but almost superimposed on that is this lovingly sculpted muscle god with magnificent proportions and legitimate muscle thickness that takes my breath away. He’s skinny and stacked? Skacked? I fucking LIVE for glimpses of his face, like when he’s in a particularly vicious match when his mask gets partially clawed off. From that and the oblique angles partially disguising his face in his selfies on IG, I have this mental image of a handsome, angular face framed by his long, dirty blond locks. It’s probably totally a fiction, but I’m convinced I’d be as enamored with his good looks if I spotted him fully clothed in the wild as I’m infatuated with his hot body on display in the ring.
Hot bodies, while necessary, aren’t sufficient to satisfy what turns my crank, of course (see the past 15+ years of blog posts for further reference). Watching Aigle Blanc wrestle is a fucking kick! Like, literally, he somehow looks 6’11 instead of 5’11 when he delivers a straight kick to the face of a charging opponent. He goes by Aigle, so definitely, he’s a flyer, too, and fuck, I love that drama. He looks like he should be cannon fodder when he’s squaring off against massive muscle bear opponents with a center of gravity a good foot and a half lower than his, which makes it intensely entertaining to watch his wicked hot strikes and twist-tied submission holds more than just level the playing field. Sure, sure, I’m staring at his startlingly hot, ultra-lean, flexing glutes that nobody can possess and still be called “skinny,” but his speed, intense aggression, and elevation (the boy SOARS) get me going so hard.
And finally, I have to say Aigle Blanc’s social media game is a major part of infatuation, as well. There’s a shy narcissist vibe to the way he shared his workout vids and face-obscured shirtless selfies, like, fuck yeah, he knows how inhumanely hot he is, but he’s sort of low key about it. Like his captions are all about putting in the work juxtaposed against the images of his touched-by-divinity, genetic lottery-winner of a perfectly proportioned physique. He carries the babyface battler theme throughout his nicely populated IG profile, selling in out of the ring in this way that seems earnestly devoted to the craft of professional wrestling. And, no shit, not a single post that doesn’t get my blood pumping.
I’ll share some more of my global indy pro wrestling infatuations in the future, but who are yours?
After my first review of an Abs Art wrestling video, I had a couple of different folks recommend that I take a look at their boy Bruno in action. Honestly, I’m so fucking infatuated with Mario, I thought curly haired pretty boy Bruno might be too baby faced, too boyishly pretty by comparison. But I finally took the plunge and watched one of a few wrestling matches in which achingly angelic-looking Bruno squares off against solid as fuck Armin in their “Legends Long Awaited” mat match. And, fuck, this is why we have wrestling buddies who give us recommendations, right? Sweet fuck, this is an insanely hot match!
I’m tickled at how personality-forward this 22 minute scene is. Mop-headed Bruno is doing sit ups (of course), showing off his incredibly ripped body and the requisite signature focus on the abs of Abs Art. He’s an anatomy chart, sporting a infinitesimal percentage body fat that makes me just a little concerned for his health. I swear, seeing him there, eyeing big, hunky Armin when the bearded, tatted muscle man walks in, I’m wondering if this kid can actually defend himself. He’s just so fucking pristinely pretty. Armin must be wondering the same thing, as he circles Bruno and picks up a dumbbell. Armin’s got a sly grin on his face, sort of hungry and mischievous, as he puts down the dumbbell and kicks it, making it roll over and bump into Bruno mid-sit-up. Bruno chews him out, snapping threateningly, before going back to more sit-ups for us to eye fuck his hot bod. When the dumbbell gets sent rolling into him again, he sits up and snarls, looking seriously like a delicate kid with newly minted muscles trying his best to sound tough. When Bruno then starts doing push ups, a couple of things happen. The most explicit thing that happens is Armin taps him on the back, and then pours a bottle of water on the back of Bruno’s head, and the mat scrap commences.
The other thing that’s happening when Bruno is doing push ups is we’re getting our first glimpse of the star of the show, namely, Bruno’s luscious, sweet-as-honey ass nowhere near being contained in those magical yellow microbriefs. Whoever does wardrobe over at Abs Art deserves a fucking Academy Award for those tiny yellow trunks. I mean, literally they are fucking magical. Because the grappling is sensationally intense, back and forth and looking like the boys are seriously working hard, and somehow, impossibly, those yellow trunks manage to stay on Bruno’s deliciously perky ass. Seriously, we’re never getting an actual view of his asshole, which I’d bet money is also ridiculously pretty. Yet, somehow, those Harry-Potter-Fucking microbriefs leave absolutely nothing to the imagination. I’m spending almost the entire 20 minutes holding my breath, wondering if Bruno’s extreme exertions are going to make his trunks slide all the way down his ass (they don’t), but also marveling at how completely naked he can look while technically still clothed. Fuck, Oscar-worthy costuming!
I really don’t know what to expect of the wrestling as the confrontation begins to play out. Armin’s bigger and the obvious aggressor. He’s openly picked this fight, and I’m entirely convinced it is, at least in part, due to his interest in seeing what happens to Bruno’s trunks. He’s mean and taunting, wanting to claim this all-to-pretty muscle boy. At one point, he’s got a side headlock on Bruno, and he literally gives the kid a noogie. Total big brother hazing vibes, and he’s got the incredibly hot bod and obvious hunger to dominate Bruno that makes me think he’s probably the odds on favorite. I’d be gushing about Armin’s meaty ass in that sexy, skimpy red speedo, if it weren’t for the honest-to-the-wrestling-gods magic of Bruno’s microbrief stealing the fucking show.
Thing is, though, that although all the classic elements (size, tats, beard, aggression) signal that Armin is here to heel the boy, Bruno is a seriously tough, fierce, and wily scrapper who gives back everything Armin dishes out with interest. I’m a full halfway through this match when it dawns on me: Bruno’s a fucking honey trap! The curly-haired cherub legitimately is too pretty, and maybe, just maybe, he keeps up those appearances in order to attract beautiful bearded bullies like Armin, thinking his sensationally fine ass would be easy pickings. Bruno is most definitely NOT easy pickings. He takes a ton of punishment, and he’s got to be doing far more than his share of the work muscling the bigger man around, but no shit, Bruno just keeps countering, climbing on top, and literally throttling Armin’s throat with his bare hands. What was I saying earlier about Armin being the “obvious aggressor?” Holy fuck, the primal rage/hunger on Bruno’s babiest face is intensely hot to watch!
It’s a back and forth 22 minutes, and I love the delicate balance of advantage trading hands in this captivating way that cranks up the anticipation. 15 minutes earlier, and I was going to put money on Armin wiping the floor with Bruno, but down the homestretch, I have absolutely no idea who’s going to eek out the victory. But I am totally convinced that it’s going to be decisive, and I am not disappointed (to say the least). There’s heat and ego and snarling contempt heaped on when the victory is won, and every single second of this confrontation, starting well before the grappling started, makes the victorious taunting and threats feel totally legit.
Holding my suspense for a solid 20 minutes, keeping me guessing and totally aroused the entire time, is something I don’t come across every day. Incredibly hot bodies, delightfully compelling characters, and lovely, intense, hard fought back-and-forth wrestling make this a winner for me. But it’s those fucking magical yellow microbriefs that keep me coming back to replay this one over and over again, never walking away unsatisfied.
After sampling Muscles77’s (AKA Marcelo Muscle) Watchfighters Channel recently, I’ve been sucked back in a couple time again because there’s just something INTENSELY attractive about him. When I say “attractive,” I mean that almost literally. Like I find myself leaning into the screen when I’m watching him like there’s some magnetic force pulling my eyes toward him. It has to be said, his choice in opponents is also a major factor in wanting to see more. Like, holy fuck, hello Rocky Big Guns!
In Alpha vs Alpha: Big Muscle Domination, Rocky is the most perfect incarnation of the term “muscleboy” I’ve ever seen. Let me start with the “boy” part of that designation. To say he has a babyface just doesn’t quite do him justice. From the neck up, he looks ridiculously young and boyish. There are moments in his match with Muscles77 that Rocky’s reactions, in his expressions when he’s getting overwhelmed (both in moments overwhelmed by his opponent, and seemingly overwhelmed by this explosively erotic chemistry between them), that he looks almost awkwardly young to me. And then the camera pans back, and… fuuuuuck, Rocky’s body is ALL mature muscle. That combination of boyishly innocent-looking face and massive, succulent, fantasyman muscles can stop me in my tracks any day.
Rocky Big Guns grappling with Muscle77 is just jaw-droppingly hot. It’s on the erotic side of the erotic/competitive spectrum, including a few glances of the rarely landed competitively-erotic vibe. Rocky just doesn’t look like he’s got the wrestling experience or skills Muscle’s got, but he’s got two things going for him that make him just about more than the veteran can handle. The first thing he’s got going for him is that fucking power-packed physique. When he gets those huge arms wrapped around Muscles’ throat with those GARGANTUAN biceps crushing the fuck out of him, there’s just not a lot even a muscle hunk like Muscles77 can do to stem that tide. The pec smothering makes me legitimately swon. He’s just an avalanche of muscle crashing down on the veteran again and again, and quite a bit of the time Muscles77 is just holding on for dear life. Rocky’s offense isn’t particularly pretty or poised. There’s not a lot of nuance or subtle technique to it. But if you’ve got upper arms bigger around than your opponent’s neck, you may not have to rely on subtlety.
The other thing Rocky Big Guns has got going for him is the fact that Muscles77 is fucking INTO him. There’s a brief opening muscle worship moment in which Muscles cannot keep his hands off of feeling Rocky’s flexing muscles. And then again, and again (and again) throughout the nearly 20 minute video, Muscles just can’t stop himself from copping a feel. He gets distracted by the boy’s imminently squeeze-able pecs. He claws at those granite boulders Rocky calls his shoulders. My intuition tells me that Muscles is a lot like me in terms of wrestling being his primary turn on, but I do not blame him a bit for getting awestruck at just the aesthetics of the sculpted physique scrambling around on the mattress with him and just melting into more muscle worship.
I *still* say Muscles77 has a barely caged badass heel just beneath the surface, even though he gets buried under all of that avalanche of muscle in this match. Around 7 minutes in, he’s got an incredibly hot rear naked choke on the baby-faced muscleboy that puts Rocky out. And seeing all that succulent muscle go limp and defenseless in Muscles’ control is intensely sexy. Muscles takes the trophy of stripping the barely-there singlet off of Rocky, giving blessedly more unimpeded angles for me to eye fuck the muscle boy, especially that rocking hot muscle butt of his. Muscles77 is a muscle hunk who could SO easily be that ripped, cold-hearted, hot-blooded badass who eats muscle jobbers for breakfast.
But it is not this day! The action is pretty hot and intensely back and forth until about the last 5 minutes when Rocky just starts rolling. Scooping Muscles up off his feet in that bearhug is breathtaking, and I’m not only talking about Muscles’ rock hard glutes. But it’s when Rocky gets an armbar on Muscles that the veteran muscleman is done for. I mean, it’s erotic sculpture just for all that muscle locked together, Muscles77’s huge right arm fully extended and trapped shut between Rocky’s huge, smooth quads. But the veteran’s got nothing to defend himself with at that point. It’s that insanely hot edge that feels like competitively-erotic wrestling gold. Rocky reaches down with his free hand and yanks Muscles’ trunks down and strips the veteran naked. The muscleboy cranks on that wrist and elbow, wringing groans of helpless agony out of Muscles until the veteran can’t stop himself. Muscles starts stroking his cock, self-evidently wildly turned on by being owned by Rocky Big Guns.
I’d assumed Rocky Big Guns got his name due to his mountainous biceps… until I saw him peel his super brief dayglo orange briefs off and pull out the massive cannon he smuggles in his pouch. Fuck. Fuck! The most genuine moment in these entire 20 minutes happens when Muscles77, gorgeous as a Greek god, laid out on his back, with his washboard abs, is stroking himself with one hand and worshiping Rocky’s stunning physique with the other until Muscles loses a hot load across his lower abs.
Fuck, I feel like I’ve marveled so much about my introduction to Rocky Big Guns that I may have underplayed my total ongoing infatuation with Muscles. To reiterate what I’ve said above and in the past, Muscles77 does it for me! He’s ridiculously handsome, with perfectly sculpted, rock hard muscles that sort of leave me breathless with wonder that someone who looks this good is willing to let the rest of us glimpse him in all his glory, doing his thing, getting turned on and, in turn, turning me way, way on. Fuck, I need to see him seriously let loose and use those perfect muscles to bring some lucky fucker to heel!
I feel like I see Austin Cooper everywhere. So, seeing him star in the BG East Comeback series (have I mentioned how THRILLED I am this is a series now?) was a head-tilt moment for me. Not that he wasn’t missed, but his presence is just so fucking huge in wrestling-for-gay-eyes that it feels like he’s just always been there and always will be. Which, of course, isn’t the case. I remember catching sight of him for the first time at Rock Hard Wrestling 14 years ago. Then, when about a year later he and his buddy Jake Jenkins double-debuted at BGE against one another in Ripped Rookies 1, Austin just seemed to become an immediate fixture. He’s wrestled across pretty much every platform I’ve tracked in the intervening years. His footprint on the industry is just fucking huge. He’s gotta be one of the most recorded homoerotic wrestlers ever, right? Maybe that’s just me being obsessed about him.
He’s clearly stepped away for a couple of beats, at least, though, because this is not the same old Coop showing up in the BG East Gazebo for The Comeback 4. BG East says he’s 175 pounds, just 10 pounds heavier than what he was listed when his was a ripped rookie back in that day. He looks bigger than that to me, by a lot. He’s a total muscle beast now. Like, even when he used to heel viciously, he was indisputably pretty. Now, pretty just doesn’t cut it. He looks like those significantly thicker muscles have got their own gravitational pull. He’s so fucking big, in the right way. Like, he’s got a muscle belly now, abs when flexing, and solid-as-fuck muscle gut when he’s not. I throw around the metaphor “tree trunk thighs” too often, I realize, but no shit… like Douglas Firs. I feel a little sorry for hunky little Sean Chen when this new iteration of Coop steps into the Gazebo. Sean’s a beefy kid himself, with juicy hot pecs, but fuck… Coop just looks like an avalanche about to crash down on him.
The story is pretty hilarious-turned brutal. Sean’s supposedly a total newbie. Coop sounds suspiciously un-Coop-like when he offers to go easy on the new kid, teach him a few things, ease him into the scene like only someone with the unprecedented credentials of Austin Cooper can do. And, no shit, it has a friendly vibe to it at the start. Sean’s fucking solid enough to sort of hold his ground, but Coop’s got the speed, agility, and move set of a seasoned veteran. Coop brings the kid along, clearly letting Sean try out some holds, plays catch and release with this new kid, just a little warm up of Coop’s new muscle beast bod, I suppose. Clearly, if push comes to shove, Coop is going to roll all over adorable Sean, but it’s just a friendly training session, right?
Then “accidents” start happening. Coop is charging in to snag Sean into those gargantuan arms of his when the kid sort of stumbles out of the way at the last second, sending Coop face-first into the gazebo post. Coop’s a bit suspicious that the newbie did it on purpose, but gives him a pass. A couple of minutes later when Coop clearly is letting Sean see what he can do with the veteran in a rear naked choke, Sean accidentally slams a heel into Coop’s balls. Coop’s more suspicious now, gives him a very reluctant pass this time as Sean’s falling over himself to apologize. Then from a standing position, Coop swoops in with that decisive speed of his and sweeps one of Sean’s legs out from underneath the kid. Sean’s other leg flails as he’s going down, and that foot slams solidly into Coop’s balls. Again. Hard. The veteran’s jaw is just dangling there, as he chokes on the shocked pain. And plucky little Sean just shrugs and says to no one, “Fuck it. Whatever! I’ll just use these accidents to my advantage!”
And with that, this shit gets real, fast. Hunky Sean has the audacity to schoolboy Coop (Austin Cooper!), balls resting on Austin’s bearded chin. The kid literally does push-ups with his crotch grinding into the veteran’s face. And fuck, Sean’s enjoying himself! There could totally be a little baby heel lurking inside those big beefy pecs on the kid.
I hope it was worth it, because an even bigger Austin Cooper opens up a can of whoop ass on the rookie that’s classic-Coop, dialed up to 11. Any doubts I had that Coop mellowed on sabbatical are quickly put to rest. “Five accidents!?” Coop spits. He isn’t buying the rookie’s pleading contrition anymore. He absolutely manhandles hunky little Sean. The plummeting OTK, flung down across Coop’s thigh looks like it will absolutely require chiropractic intervention, if not surgery. He doesn’t give the “accidental rookie” a break, throwing him down and instantly lifting the kid’s beefy legs by the ankles. A savage knee to the balls makes Sean bounce and writhe in horror. “That was an accident,” Coop snarls insincerely, “just so you know.”
Great to make hunky Sean’s acquaintance in his BG East debut, and hope to see more of him and those meaty pecs. We may all owe Sean a debt of gratitude, because if there was any chance Austin Cooper might have mellowed with age, that he might be a gentler, giant-er muscle beast upon his return to wrestle in front of the camera, Sean’s clumsy (or calculated?) accidents most definitely relighted the fire in Coop. It’s Austin Cooper every bit as talented, with every last hold and maneuver, all that lightning fast speed and his boiling, contemptuous rage ready to spill over, just bigger, badder, and even more unstoppable than before!
The guys at ABS ART have been catching my eye for some time. Their Instagram account and their Watchfighters channel are both eye catching, to say the least. They appear to specialize in super ripped, handsome, young, smooth white guys, all sporting the requisite titular visible abdominal muscles. Their brand seems to lean toward bondage and gut punching. They describe themselves as creators of “muscle content” or “muscle fetish videos,” and fuck, these boys are beautiful. I’ve been reluctant about taking the plunge and sampling their wares, though, because my thing is wrestling. I’ve spent plenty of my life using my imagination to picture hot guys in wrestling scenarios to get me going, but if I’m plopping down cash, in this day and age, I’d prefer it to be for actual homoerotic wrestling content, and not just hot guys for me to imagine wrestling.
They have a subchannel on WF labeled “Fight,” including a lot of gut punching, but I found a quite a few that appear to be more on my side of the pool, spotlighting wrestling. I finally took the plunge and sampled “Mario vs new guy Dominik submission fight grappling,” and, damn, hot stuff!
The video is a little over 15 minutes, but it’s legitimately about 10 minutes of wrestling followed by about 5 minutes of the victor bashing the losers abs. I honestly could not take my eyes off of Mario. The thong showing off his sculpted ass in all its glory is a big factor, not going to lie. But everything about him is a honey trap for this busy bee. He’s got a devastatingly handsome face, and a super ripped, olive skinned body, with darkly hairy legs that drive me nuts. Mario’s total package (including his package) is so tailor made to turn me on, I swear it was only on my second pass through the video I noticed how fucking sensationally gorgeous Dominik is, too. But, damn, Mario’s got my number!
Dominik, on the other hand, has Mario’s number. As in, Dominik spends about 97% of their grappling session in absolute control of Mario’s rocking body. There’s no real context given in the product, so I’m providing the backstory when I say Dominik comes with legit amateur wrestling cred, and Mario is showing up mostly just with those jaw-droppingly gorgeous muscles. Dominik plays a lot of catch and release, easily out hustling Mario to snap the pretty boy in rear naked chokes. He’s just relentless on top, wearing my infatuation out again and again. He executes a hip toss like a boss. He’s got Mario’s arm barred and in jeopardy at will. And he could clearly cradle pin the dark and sexy beauty a lot more than he actually does.
I like the vibe, though, because Mario’s no push over. He fights back to the bitter end. It’s somewhere between scripted and an all-out shoot, but the scrambles and grunts and groans and slapping flesh come across as authentic and spontaneous. Dominik works up what looks like a legitimate sweat, throwing his gorgeous opponent around like that for a solid 10 minutes. I buy it when Dominik wears Mario down to a nub and the bearded beauty can’t fight back any longer. Big D treating us to a victory flex over top of Mario is a sudden shot of adrenaline for me, the first time I feel like I see some of Dominik’s personality just a bit. The trophy-taking gut punching afterward isn’t what I’m getting off to, but the idea of having a little fun and taking possession of a conquered Mario is hot, whatever it is Dominik wants to do with him. I can think of other things, but to each his own.
It’s not a long match. The setting looks like a pretty spartan basement. But the video and audio quality are pretty amazing, with good camerawork that makes me think the cameraman likes Mario’s ass almost as much as I do. I wish we got to see a little more personality, and maybe let us check these super hot boy’s bodies out just a little before the controlled chaos of this squash buries them in each other’s clutches. It doesn’t feel like a main course of homoerotic wrestling, but more like tapas, super satisfying for what it is, but leaving me wanting more.
Especially more of Mario. Fuck, I can’t take my eyes off that guy.
I’m not even exaggerating when I tell you there was a day when I did back handsprings. It’s been a while, though. Dio Characi, on the other hand, opens up the action in Babyface Bash 3 with two back handsprings, corner-to-corner, into an elbow strike to Manny Mendez’ gut. Fuck, a 6-foot jock doing back handsprings is impressive. I’ve been watching Dio’s video progress on Instagram as he’s been training in tumbling for a while now, and his hot body doing round-off back handsprings and back tucks makes me gasp and gets me hard every time. Seeing him pull out the tumbling in the ring and translate it into pro wrestling offense is brilliant, as far as I’m concerned. The earnest, eagerly proud look on his face after he lands a couple passes and pounds big Manny into a choking bow-and-arrow is nothing short of sensational. “I may not be big,” Dio says with a cocky smirk, “but I’m very athletic!”
Manny, on the the other hand, is fucking huge! There’s something raw about him, like he probably feeds his gargantuan muscles by ripping lean meat like Dio to shreds and devouring the pieces. They’re both cocky as hell to start with, but Manny’s muscle beast brutality is a whole lot more than a few hot back handsprings can last long against. This is a babyface bash, after all, so I don’t feel like I’m spoiling too much to say Dio gets bashed hard and long. The impacts are so hard they make my screen shake. Lovely Dio is stubborn, though. Manny’s insulting appraisal of his physique clearly gets under the Brazilian bombshell’s skin, and he refuses to give big Manny the satisfaction of submitting to the big man’s battering ram offense. That is, until Manny has manhandled him into a Boston crab, bouncing those 230 pounds of granite muscle viciously up and down on Dio’s folded spine. Dio screams like a bitch then, panic in his voice as he’s begging for mercy. “Fuck, you broke me,” Dio whimpers accusingly, earning him nothing but a cocky victorious flex from the big man posing over top of him.
Manny is all muscle, and he uses Dio’s mouthwatering body like modeling clay. There’s a moment where he scoops this Brazilian It-Boy up in his arms and folds him in half, suspended in the air. It’s a fucking trip, to see this homoerotic wrestling sculpture showcasing Manny’s strength and Dio’s flexible body turned into origami. There are just so many hot holds and moments of babyface bashing. The tree of woe, with Dio’s cherubic face buried deep between Manny’s huge, hairy quads is gorgeous. Manny absolutely cranking on the boy’s spine bent backward around his huge neck in a sick torture rack, again, just screams the story of these two stunning wrestler’s relative assets.
What makes my crotch twitch hardest, though, is Dio’s suffering. Holy hell, our boy goes unhinged by the diabolical corporal punishment he’s subjected to for almost 27 minutes. I’ve always enjoyed watching pain play across Dio’s ridiculously adorable face, but he (and Manny) tap into something more desperate than I’ve seen before. When he’s getting ripped in half (no shit) in this standing spadle variation (I honestly have no idea what to call it other than “sexy as fuck”), Dio is visibly riding waves of obvious panic. I’ve seen this hold just a few times before, but never on someone with legs as long as Dio’s, and possibly never quite conveying so convincingly the terror of a “very athletic” muscle boy getting ripped limb from limb.
Honestly, I want to marvel here at every panicked moment from lovely Dio, but I’m trying to restrain myself here. But the most pristine moment of adrenaline-racing anguish and terror is when the back of Dio’s head is resting on Manny’s big balls, his long legs trapped under Manny’s tree trunks as he’s being folded in half. Again, I don’t know what to call this crotch pillow spladle variation (it’s a standard in Jesse Zane’s arsenal), but Dio’s entire 6-foot length gets rolled up so tightly that I’m pretty sure he’s in striking distance to being able to suck his own cock. Again, it’s awesome homoerotic sculpture, with Dio’s gorgeous ass stretched wide and pointed at the ceiling, and his legs pinned to the mat way over his head. And I buy this as totally devastating humiliation and torture already, but then Dio fights through the pain to force his eyes open. And then he’s staring, his face inches away from his quivering bulge, his magnificent body manhandled into a position the human body just wasn’t built for. And Dio’s eyes widen in terrified shock at the sight of what’s being done to him. It isn’t subtle, but the brutality is over the top, so there’s no subtlety called for. “I-give-I-give-I-give,” Dio screams in open horror.
Babyface Bash 3 delivers on all levels for me. Manny is a mean fucking muscle beast, and Dio is the award winning babyface with that award winning bulge and award winning body that grabs me by the balls every time I see him. But it’s the personalities that really elevate this match for me. Manny is the raging muscle daddy in charge, and Dio is the fan-favorite body beautiful babyface who sells every second of having to stare into the face of terror… and stare in horror at his own gorgeous body getting ripped apart and purchased wholesale.
Hey, it’s been a while! The work that pays my bills has been inconveniently interfering with the labor of love that is me posting my take on fresh hot wrestling. And, not going to lie, the world has just been a lot to take lately. Now that the solicitations to save the world by donating to a political campaign are starting to taper off, and I’m pulling out all of the maladaptive coping strategies to deal with unwelcome world news that I go to when feeling under siege, I’ve got a little window of time and mental bandwidth to indulge myself in wrestling.
I bumped into a BGE wrestling celeb on Instagram a while ago. Marcelo Muscle was turning up the heat at BGE something like 20 years ago. Smolderingly handsome, gorgeous and lean, fit body, sultry sexy accent. Marcelo beating the FUCK out of the rock hard abs of Joshua Goodman (that’s Mr. Joshua to you!) as he cranked on headscissors in the wrestle shack was fucking magic. So, bumping into him these 20 years later on IG and seeing he has a WatchFighters channel was a little too good to pass up. He’s got quite a few videos on his channel, and holy fuck, he looks even better than he did back in the day!
I feel the need to reiterate: Marcelo looks fucking HOT. Age looks different on different people, of course, but FUCK he’s been using those years to put on gorgeous muscle mass. And fuck, he’s handsome. His opponent in the match Muscles77 vs. The Bull is a pretty stunning contrast with Marcelo’s dazzling beauty. First of all, The Bull wears a mask. It’s an ill fitting mask that he spends a lot of time having to adjust. The backstory I fill in is that The Bull is too intimidated by the aesthetic perfection of Muscles77 to show his face on camera with him (<– just to clarify, I’m making that up). Honestly, though, what I can see of the The Bull, he’s fucking HUGE. There’s nothing “pretty” about him in the way that I have to say Muscles77 is jaw-droppingly pretty. The Bull has more a rock hard and huge longshoreman’s working body to Marcelo’s touched-by-divinity bodybuilder physique. And, honestly, that’s hot chemistry from the get-go for me.
I like that they appear to enjoy each other’s bods, too. This isn’t an overtly erotic wrestling match, but the opening mutual muscle worship makes everything that comes afterward a least 5 degrees hotter. I’m sucked into the story because, yeah, I’d enjoy getting my hands on both of those sets of smoking hot muscles, too.
The wrestling is intense, more intense than I expect from a match playing out on a mattress on the floor. The Bull is nothing short of an avalanche crashing down on Muscles77 over and over again. He’s just too fucking huge for Marcelo to maneuver out from underneath most of the time. There’s a hot nasty bully element to it, as the masked behemoth keeps manhandling the devastatingly handsome bodybuilder. He has this way of pinning Muscles77 down and just planting a hand or a forearm on the side of Muscles77’s face and just crushing his skull. Fuck, I sort of suspect that’s not a legit offensive move in combat sports, but, no shit, I totally buy it when Muscles77 squirms and flexes and struggles futilely, only to submit to nothing but 250 pounds of concentrated muscle threatening to crush that pretty face.
That said, I have this lingering feeling throughout the entire 11 minutes of this match that Muscles77 could, just possibly, be on the brink of opening up a serious can of whoop ass on The Bull. For one thing, Muscles77 takes a fucking ton of punishment before he submits. It has this intensely spontaneous shoot feel to it, though I’m pretty sure it’s not entirely unscripted. But, legitimately, Muscles77 is just a tough, hardbodied hunk who can weather a lot of brute force punishment. And every so often there are these flashes of offense from him that feel like Muscles77 is split seconds away from pulling out some legitimate BJJ brutality that might cut through The Bull’s crashing avalanche like a hot knife through butter. The last few minutes of the match give a glimpse of something other than the “squash match” the video is billed as. Muscles77 wrings a couple of submissions out of The Bull, and it feels like there could be more where that came from. But The Bull sleepers him out and indulges in some hot victorious trophy flexing in the end.
Taking a few steps back, I have just a few additional takeaways. For one, how have I not had Uruguay on my bucket list of homoerotic global destinations? Fuck, if this is what’s going down in Uruguay, I need to buy me ticket for South America! Second, this match is a sweet low-budget and high quality product. Great HD camera work with a cameraman who’s GOT to be in on the secret that hardbodied hunk wrestling is hot as hell. I’d like to buy The Bull a more functional wrestling mask for his next go round, and I’d like to buy Marcelo Muscle aka Muscles77 a drink or two (or four) if it means I can cop a feel of those huge pecs… and peaked biceps… and HOT hairy legs…
I started episode 3 of Sidelineland Sounds sampling the exquisite suffering of Drake Marcos at the hands of Shane McCall in BG East’s Demolition 27. In the podcast, I mentioned that I have this running back and forth with Drake that I think he’s way overdue for a heel turn, and I know for a fact he can be a mean, punishing fucker. Well, I heard from a wrestler named Rocko Mortis soon afterward, telling me if I’ve been waiting to see Drake heel, I need to check out Rocko’s recently released match with Drake on Watchfighters.
In The Jobber’s Jobber, Rocko shows up to take on Drake as a stepping stone to Rocko making a name for himself in underground wrestling. “The famous Drake Marcos,” he says with a contemptuous sneer, bumping foreheads with Drake in the middle of the ring and daring the veteran to blink. I had the pleasure of crossing paths with Drake a couple of times at Wrestlefest NYC last February, but this is my first chance seeing him in action since I last saw him wrestling for BGE and W4H several years ago. He’s as handsome as ever, maybe even more so, in the way that some guys just look more and more like a boss the older they get. He’s bigger than I’ve seen him wrestle before, and in a fun script-flip from his early wrestling career, he most definitely owns the size advantage over rookie Rocko. What really grabs me in the opening stare down, though, is the smile on Drake’s face. It’s bright, bordering on delighted, as he stares at his challenger. I’ve seen that full on look of unabashed excitement on Drake’s face before, and it’s the look of someone who’s already picturing how he’s going to fuck up and humiliate an opponent. Sure, sure, Drake’s wrestling record doesn’t have a lot of examples of him actually pulling that off, but it’s clear from the start that Drake’s pretty sure he’s got Rocko’s number.
Rocko is called a “newbie brawler” in the match description on Watchfighters, and it’s apt. He’s all blunt force and shock-and-awe, with a little edge of nearly-unhinged about him. Within seconds of them scrambling at the start, Rocko takes Drake’s back and has the veteran in a full nelson, and suddenly this is feeling so, so familiar (speaking as someone who’s watched Drake’s entire BGE catalog). “Seems like you’re a little rusty after all those years,” Rocko gloats, wringing the big man out. “Yeah, yeah, it’s been a minute,” Drake admits in this flash of authenticity and immediacy that reminds me of a few more reasons I’ve always enjoyed his wrestling. It doesn’t cost him a penny to admit that it’s been a while since he was battling it out in the ring like this, and that flash of honesty is worth twenty other wrestlers who spend their matches trying to convince themselves and their opponents that they’re invincible and unassailable. Drake can lose. He’s lost plenty in the past. So it’s not like he’s giving away ground to let Rocko’s taunt bounce off of him.
But holy fuck, Rocko’s eating his words when “rusty” Drake busts out of the nelson and slams the brawler to his back with authority. Nobody’s lightweight any longer, Drake nails the rookie to the mat in a schoolboy pin and slaps Rocko in the face hard. “Who the fuck do you think you are!?,” Drake demands with sudden passionate rage that grabs everyone’s attention. “I’m sick and tired of people underestimating me and thinking I’m just a stepping stone!” Like I said in Sidelineland Sounds episode 3, Drakes got a ton of technique and skills, and he starts to fucking roll all over the impudent rookie. He wrings Rocko out like laundry in those bodyscissors of his that may, or may not, have cracked one of my ribs many years ago. He manhandles the squirming rookie into a nasty Boston crab, cranking on Rocko’s spine and letting gravity and his new heavyweight status drive the rookie to the edge of panic. At one point, Drake breaks the 4th wall and stares into the camera with that hungry look of sheer delight I mentioned earlier and gloats, “You see? This is how you tame a fucking jobber!”
It’s a back and forth battle, but seriously Rocko’s pushing a boulder uphill against a bigger and badder Drake Marcos with nothing to lose. I’ve been on record many times, in text and now in audio, admiring Drake’s famous suffering sell, but holy fuck, Rocko tells the story in this match! He’s legit getting buried under an avalanche of pent up jobber frustration Drake’s been letting accumulate for years, apparently, and Rocko goes through every stage of grief in rapid succession. “No! NO!,” he screams as if he can deny he’s getting thrashed relentlessly. “Get off me! Get off me!,” he demands in an attempt to bargain with Drake, with this adorable note of command in his voice, like just by sheer force of will he can convince his opponent to obey him. He rages and roars like the Incredible Hulk about to rip off the tattered remains of his clothes and go ape shit on his bully. And as Drake is wearing him down to a raw nub, Rocko starts pleading and begging, “Oh, no, please! Please, no!” Damn, he’s all in so hard I almost start to feel sorry for him. Until he gets a reversal…
Holy fuck, Rocko on the pitching mound, working offense and laying down some hot, hard punishment on Drake is almost as compelling as his suffering sell. He laughs like a Batman villain, with this spontaneity that borders on maniacal. “Is this a pin?,” he snarls down when he’s got Drake flat on his back and unable to dislodge the rookie. It’s a rhetorical question, meant to point out the obvious fact that Drake is in danger of picking up his jobber career where he left off, and newbie Rocko is chomping at the bit to use this rookie victory to climb to the next rung on the ladder of being the sadistic, unhinged brawler bully he aspires to be. Rocko’s got a vicious mean streak that I suspect is attached to nerve endings in his crotch, because he sure seems to be getting off on making Drake hurt.
So, like I mentioned, Rocko gave me a heads up that we’ll see Drake’s heel turn in this match, and it’s sweetly satisfying after I’ve been anticipating it all of these years. He wears the would-be bully brawler out and leaves Rocko in that final stage of grief, bitterly accepting that the most infamous jobber in homoerotic wrestling just pulverized him. “Let’s leave everyone on fucking notice that Drake Marcos is fucking back!” It’ll come as no surprise to regular readers that I strongly endorse Drake’s repetitious use of “fucking” to drive home the point that there’s a whole new Drake Marcos climbing into the ring in 2024. “Clean yourself up bitch,” he snarls at Rocko as he walks away, writing his own script and being is own badass wrestling heel self.
The Jobber’s Jobber is intense and fun and chaotic and spontaneous. There are no washboard abs, so if you need that, this may not be for you. But if you like hard, mean, ego-fueled brawling with heavy doses of shattered dreams and brutal punishment to the point of weeping panic, this is most definitely for you.
“Holy shit, look at the size of this guy!” Jonny Firestorm appears genuinely impressed, when he and his long-time BFF Brad Rochelle stride into the ring room to find Monstah Mike flexing. “That’s a lot of man,” Brad agrees, equally as awed as Jonny is by what they see at the start of Three-Way Thrash 6: Bodybuilder Beatdown. What they see is awesome by any measure. Mike is a fucking specimen! The official numbers put him at 5’10 and 230 pounds, but the numbers can’t capture the pull of gravity this sculpted bodybuilder possesses. He’s come on like a house on fire since setting foot at BG East just last year and immediately winning Best Butt of 2023. Dude is dripping with big boss attitude and more than enough gargantuan muscle to back it up. Last year I called him “fucking amazingly pretty,” and despite seeing him chew up and spit out opponents one after another ever since, I stick by it. Yeah, yeah, he’s a fucking muscle monster(ah). He’s got serial killer facial hair and dazzlingly dangerous power. I buy it, without a doubt. Mike’s a fucking force of nature, not to be fucked with lightly, if at all, and badass to the core. But what makes all of that even more astonishing, is that he’s fucking gorgeous.
So, it’s not like Jonny and Brad are overselling him in the least. And it’s a fun bit of physical drama when Jonny, having newly reclaimed his title as Top Heel this past year, literally bounces off the bodybuilder when he tries to blindside the enforcer with chops to those humongous pecs. Jonny’s flying drop kicks, showing the veteran heel can still soar, similarly don’t move Mike an inch. If anything, it looks like trying to drop kick a brick wall might have legitimately injured Jonny’s ankle. Again, it’s melodrama, but I don’t think it’s an oversell for a second when Mike catches Jonny’s swinging fists in midair, before turning it into a test of strength that lasts a split second before Jonny is on his knees and yelping in fear for having his hands snapped off at the wrists. “This is my ship, now,” Mike claims, and Jonny’s in no position to argue, considering he’s suspended way off his feet in Mike’s two handed straight-armed overhead choke. Top Heel title holder or not, Jonny was walking into a massacre from the start of this match!
Good thing for Jonny, he brought back up. Mike’s no dummy, either, giving Brad a cold once-over when Jonny’s classic babyface BFF takes a seat on the couch to watch, wearing wrestling boots, trunks, a black leather jacket, and sunglasses. “Him? Oh, he’s just the time keeper, the bell ringer,” Jonny assures. “He’s never done this before. don’t worry about him.” Monstah Mike does not look worried in the least, even though you and I know that Brad has most definitely done “this” (ALL of this) before. Brad provides a little light comic relief with his spontaneous commentary as he watches Jonny run headlong, again and again, into that gorgeous brick wall. “Oh, my goodness,” Brad mutters like somebody’s grandma when Mike whips Jonny from corner to corner and then spears the Top Heel in the gut and send Jonny through the ropes and bouncing off the ring apron.
There’s something a little Harold and Kumar about Jonny and Brad. Or maybe it’s Bill and Ted? Whatever it is, the BFF chemistry between them cracks me up and turns me on so… fucking… hard (yeah, for the record, I’d pay to watch Harold and Kumar tag team against Bill and Ted any day!). Again, it could easily be oversold, the one liners, the clever quips and the working for laughs. But the self-congratulatory wisecracks paired with the beautiful violence of their diabolical double-teaming is perfectly balanced, as far as I’m concerned.
Monstah Mike is nearly muscle beast enough to knock them both on their asses, and STILL I say his dominating power is not oversold. But it’s when Jonny and Brad really start hitting their stride and beating the living fuck out of the amazingly pretty bodybuilder that this compelling drama turns into my favorite type of porn. Just like they did when Brad made his huge (HUGE) comeback last November, double-teaming achingly pretty muscle twink Kal Connor in The Comeback 3, the BFFs synchronized offense is a thing of beauty. Their double-team corner work is one of the highlights for me, when Brad, on the apron, has Mike trapped in a chin lock and nipple clamp, while Jonny, inside the ring, is clawing the fuck out Mike’s balls and biting his other nipple. Honestly, I’d have my money on Mike if he was taking on almost any other pair of BG East wrestlers on the roster, but against these diabolical heel/babyface wonder twins, he’s just a high protein lunch special.
It’s the Brad and Jonny show (and I’ll buy front row tickets for that every fucking time), but credit where it’s due: Mike tells the story. Mike morphs from snarling narcissist badass muscle monster into a sniveling, screaming, weeping mass of humiliation in a sensationally paced descent into ego-shattering despair. I sampled Mike’s screams and pleas in the first episode of Sidelineland Sounds because his deep, meaty bass boss voice crumbling into panicked begging and agony is epic suffering. He’s still got the gravitational pull of a neutron star, as the wonder twins manhandle and pummel him, but it collapses into the mysterious magnificence of a black hole, as his lush and meaty muscles writhe and strain and twitch and quiver with four vicious claws ripping him apart. With range like this, I can totally believe that Monstah Mike is, indeed, capable of being the franchise player he brags that he’s ready to be.
I’m officially infatuated with Jonny and Brad’s partnership. The boys genuinely look like they’re having fun ripping apart their prey. Their mutual appreciation mixed with good-natured sibling teasing is such a delightful vibe paired with their deep arsenal of low down double-team torture. And Mike’s cocky boasting that he’s the new sheriff of BGE is making me a believer more and more. Hot drama that’s over the top in just the right proportions to make me swoon in a way that heel on heel (on heel) action doesn’t always get from me!
Hey again, homoerotic wrestling fans! This is Bard, the author of the blog Sidelineland, and most recently, I’ve also been working on this limited release podcast, Sidelineland Sounds, where I serve as host, producer, audio engineer, tech support, marketing director, and head of research. And, of course, by head of research, I mean I’m the guy devotedly watching hours and hours of homoerotic wrestling videos in order to sample some choice clips to illustrate what turns me on about the sounds of hot wrestling action. In episode 2, I took a meandering stroll through the topic of trash talk, where I focused on the taunts and insults of wrestlers when they’re confident, riding high, playing the intimidation game. In that episode, we listened to the verbal attacks of sexy wrestlers on offense. Today, I’m switching the focus to the other side of the equation, turning up the volume on what I find hot about the sounds of suffering.
To start with, I wanted to just share a quick story. when I had the honor of co-hosting the Gay Wrestling Panel at Wrestlefest New York this past February, in the question and answer period, an audience member asked for advice for an aspiring new jobber. There was some awesome advice generously offered, including Kid Leopard himself telling all would-be jobbers that their job #1 is selling their heels. Now, my understanding is that “selling” in pro wrestling is the way the wrestlers, especially the wrestler on the receiving end of a hold or maneuver telegraphs to the audience the damage done. So, if one wrestler drives a punch into his opponent’s gut (a blatantly illegal move, by the way, shame on you wrestlers when you do that), his opponent folds over his fist and “oofs” out the air from his lungs. The one on the receiving end demonstrably suffers, thus selling the offense of his attacker.
That’s multi-award winning Jobber of the Year, Drake Marcos, suffering hard as the Legend Shane McCall beats the living shit out of his left leg. You can hear the explosive cries of pain with each of Shane’s stomps, and you can hear the winded, whimpering, panicked pleading that Drake packs in in between each blow. I used to have this recurring debate with Drake about how he really needs to execute a heel turn, but both he and I always ended up agreeing that he just suffers so fucking magnificently, it’s just no wonder that everyone wants to see him job again and again. Having wrestled Drake, I still say he’s going to burn some shit to the ground if he ever really lets his heel demon come out and play, but there’s just no arguing that exquisite suffering like his elevates a wrestling match so far beyond just an athletic competition. With top notch sell, the ring becomes the scene of this heart pounding psychodrama that taps into the sadistic pleasure of the man dishing it out, counter balanced by the desperate agony and terror of the one on the receiving end.
I think your sense of what good sell is comes clearest when it’s missing. When a wrestler is locked in what should be a crippling hold, but he’s not even breaking a sweat. Or, worse, when a wrestler takes some huge hammer blow that the wrestling conventions dictate should be devastating, but he bounces up and is on offense as if nothing happened. Fuck, what a buzz kill for me. I think in pro wrestling there’s this unspoken contract between the wrestlers and the audience. We, the audience, agree to suspend our disbelief when it comes to the extreme edges of violence we’re witnessing, and in turn, the wrestlers agree to go all in and tell us a story that entertains and, for a homoerotic wrestling audience, turns us on. So when the wrestlers fall short on their end of the bargain, I feel like I want my money back, you know?
One of my first homoerotic wrestling video purchases was Can-Am’s Canadian Musclehunk Oil Wrestling 3. There are a lot of hot bodies on that product, but there’s one particular moment that sticks with me in the match between Beau Hopkins and Jimmy Royce. It’s a back and forth battle, and honestly, I can’t decide which of them is hotter glistening with oil and going at it in that clumsy, awkward way that oil wrestling demands. They both look like they’ve got some legit amateur wrestling skills, and they’re both aggressive and a bit mean. But Beau keeps scrambling on top, and he repeatedly catches Jimmy in a double hammerlock. Jimmy genuinely looks like he’s got a trick left shoulder, and more than once, Beau has to really crank on it to rotate it around in his shoulder socket and secure it in that hammerlock. And, like the vicious little bastard he is, Beau keeps doing it. In round 3, he’s got Jimmy face down in the oil, and Beau is sitting on the back of Jimmy’s head, yanking on Jimmy’s hugely muscled arms until they’re wrenched way up high between his shoulder blades. And then he bounces on the arms, just fucking up Jimmy’s shoulders as Jimmy grunts in time to each vicious yank and bounce. And suddenly, there’s this panic in Jimmy’s voice…
Fuck, that panicked up-pitch in his voice, with notes of despair and pleading… I could sip on that bouquet all day long. There’s character, as well as plot, in how a wrestler suffers, too. Like, at the beginning of BG East’s Jobberpaloozer 12, we watch barefoot Jake Jenkins, with those sewn-on tight metallic teal trunks warming up before his scheduled match with Jonny Firestorm. Jake’s running warm-up drills from his days of competitive amateur wrestling, showing off his speed and moves, stretching his back and neck in a super high bridge. He looks legit as fuck, right? The gorgeously muscled, limber, agile athlete all set to do battle. When Jonny arrives, Jake smirks at him and calls him an “out of shape monkey.” Jonny’s sucker punch to Jake’s washboard abs shuts down that line of argument real quick, and 6 minutes later, Jake’s twisted in the ropes, his right arm locked under Jonny’s armpit overhead, and screaming as his armpit hair is ripped out by the vicious “monkey.”
The quality and quantity of suffering document more than just Jonny’s brutality. They track the catastrophic fall of the cocky, hot bodied preppy who looked so earnest and legit just a few minutes ago.
I did an interview with Dante Lesen not long after he debuted in BG East’s Rookie Wreckers 3. Dante was the titular rookie that got wrecked by Masked Menace. Visually, it’s a striking match to watch for a lot of reasons. At 6’3, Dante towers over 5’5 Menace, but the even more striking mismatch is in experience. Menace has wrestled thousands of opponents, and that’s probably not even an exaggeration, while Dante is the first to admit that he walked onto the mat with nothing but enthusiasm on his resume. So Menace has his way with the long tall hottie. But in my interview, I actually mentioned to Dante that one of the things that grabbed me was his suffering.
Dante sounds like a newbie getting ripped apart, limb from mile long limb, by the heartless veteran heel. There’s this edge of despair, as he chokes on the pain. Like the last 13 minutes of him screaming in agony earns him nothing but more crushing abuse, but he can’t stop himself but to continue screaming. He also has this stop and start to his crying out, like he’s trying to swallow it, trying not to show his panicked pain, but his body just won’t obey him, and his anguished screams just keep getting milked out of him anyway. The sweet suffering is totally testament to Masked Menace’s limitless heel skills, right? But it also builds this gorgeous character of a tall, fit, baby faced pretty boy with military training who just gets overwhelmed and driven right over the edge his first time giving this homoerotic wrestling thing a try.
Suffering as character building, so to speak, is also this crucial meta theme for an iconic homoerotic wrestler like Brad Rochelle. So, yeah, I recognize I’m now 3 for 3 when it comes to episodes where I sample Brad, but honestly, listen to this and you tell me this isn’t extra level hot.
[Audio Clip – sound credit: BG East’s Demolition 3 starring Dom the Dominator and Brad Rochelle]
That’s Brad getting bounced around in Dom the Dominator’s torture rack in BG East’s Demolition 3. Fuck, Brad suffered so fucking well. He was the rock hard, stunningly handsome, fratboy jock, and he got demolished so gorgeously that they made an entire series just built on his character arc, trapped in the nefarious small print of Kid Leopard’s contract. Honestly, I think you have to have gotten off to Brad getting demolished in order to truly appreciate the stunning 180 degrees of post Combeback Brad, who’s been burning shit down as Jonny Firestorm’s back-up dancer, charging in and double-teaming Jonny’s opponent’s when Jonny can’t quite seem to get the job done all on his own. Yeah, honestly, anyone who has yet to get off on Brad squashed back around the turn of the century, put down your dicks and get that homework done first before you savor Brad snarling and sneering and intoxicated by the delicious allure of the dark side in 2024.
[Audio Clip – sound credit: BG East’s The Comeback 3 starring Kal Connor, Jonny Firestorm, and Brad Rochelle]
Yeah, that’s Brad laughing maniacally as he works with Jonny to double-team Kal Connor, announcing that Kal’s youth and good looks are an affront to the veterans age and experience, and thus he deserves to get his face stomped. It’s more than 25 years in the making, and it brings it all full circle, as Brad wrings out of gorgeous Kal the same terror and agony that got crushed out of him those many years ago.
Van Skylar is another hot jock hunk who demonstrates how sweet suffering can be sensational character arc. When Van hit BG East, he was gorgeous as hell, looking like he climbed directly out of a go-go boy cage and into the ring. And like Brad, as a rookie, Van worked the long sell. Like in Jobberpaloozer 14, he refuses to admit to Brute Baynard that he doesn’t belong in the same ring with the huge pro heel. So, Van’s suffering starts off low key. He’s contained, almost making me worried he’s going to undersell, but no, it’s just him biting his lip and refusing to give Brute the satisfaction of hearing him hurting, everytime Brute demands to know, “Do you still think you belong in my ring!?”. So it’s that much more magnificent to watch that wall come crumbling down, and by two-thirds of the way through the match, he’s begging and weeping, which gets him nothing but more punishment, but now his filter is off. He’s just suffering hard, with that edge of what-the-fuck-was-I-thinking despair in his pleading voice.
[Audio Clip – sound credit: BG East’s Jobberpaloozer 14 starring Brute Baynard and Van Skylar]
Of course, all of this sort of begs the question of why… why does the sound of convincing suffering make me swoon? What’s the circuitry that accounts for how me hearing a hot jock whimpering and wailing gets instantly translated into me being incredibly turned on? I hold “why” questions like this lightly at this point in my life. When it comes to reflecting on sexual tastes, particularly sexual tastes outside of the mainstream, why questions can easily collapse into feeling pressure to justify my sexual tastes, which I think is a waste of time that only serves to prop up mistaken ideas of what’s “normal.” But this question of why I’m so turned on by hot suffering wrestlers is an interesting intellectual question for me. It’s not like I’m turned on by suffering in almost any other context. I’m not getting off on people’s pain and misery under any other circumstances. But I think part of what makes it so hot for me in the context of wrestling is the implicit contract between the wrestlers. They’ve both signed up for this. The only difference between the one suffering and the one gloating is who’s managed to come out on top. Back at the start of the match, they were both cocky, optimistic, looking forward to proving themselves as the better man, and both picturing themselves as the victor savoring the suffering and humiliation of their opponent. It’s not like criminal assault gets me hard, but that battle of wills and skills and egos that turns into one wrestler being crushed and possessed… that does. And clearly, it turns on others, as well. Sometimes, clearly, even the wrestlers want it. There’s this magical moment in BG East’s the Great Outdoors, when Kid Karisma and Carter Alexander are locked in a back and forth battle of insanely hot physiques. They’re both plucky and cocky, and despite being a novice, Carter is giving as good as he gets for a while, boasting that he will not, cannot ever submit. And then the Kid Karisma train starts rolling down the tracks, and Carter is seriously regretting those words. He’s taking a mountain of humiliating punishment, and the more he refuses to submit, the more nasty KK gets. Kid Karisma is threatening to knock the big boy out in a rear naked choke, and he’s latched on and Carter’s going nowhere, and he starts pulling on Carter’s hair…
[Audio Clip – sound credit: BG East’s The Great Outdoors 2 starring Carter Alexander and Kid Karisma]
Yeah, fuck, you heard right. Carter says he likes it when Kid Karisma pulls on his hair. He begs him to pull on his hair again and again, even as he’s grunting and choking and struggling to stay awake with KK’s gargantuan arm clamped across his throat. Okay, so sure, I don’t know if Carter intended it more as a bro-down trashtalk defense, but I read it as this incredibly erotic moment of sincerity. When push comes to shove, Carter demands that Kid Karisma hurt him more because he likes it. Holy fuck. Keep watching that match for more little erotic gems, like Carter sitting on KK’s face in a fold over pin and punching the fuck out of the redhead’s award winning muscle ass and Carter absolutely crowing about how much fun he’s having pounding that ass.
[Audio Clip – sound credit: BG East’s The Great Outdoors 2 starring Carter Alexander and Kid Karisma]
So, whether wrestlers want to get hurt, or they’re just willing to risk getting hurt in order to put the hurt on an opponent, the suffering that results is like a shot of adrenaline coursing through my body as I watch and listen. Of course, there is such a thing as too much sell. There’s a brand of wrestler who so clearly gets off on being dominated and beaten up that he’s telegraphing it from the start. So, early on in the match, he’s screaming bloody murder from any incidental bump in a blatant oversell that sort of deflates the premise for me. Again, my policy is not to call out what wrestlers or matches that I think are getting it wrong, but… I’ll just say, my best wrestling-obsessed buddy and I have a short list of the wrestlers who make us roll our eyes because they so clearly oversell and want to get beat up just a bit too much. It’s definitely not a more is more scenario, when it comes to how a wrestler’s suffering is an erotic turn on for me. What’s hot is just the right amount of suffering, in proportion to the hold that the wrestler is in, and where they are in the match, and just what the stakes are that he’s facing if he loses. And what’s “just right” can depend on the wrestler himself who’s owning it, getting vulnerable in a way that’s genuine to him, and letting the rest of us watch him get laid bare.
[Audio Clip – sound credit: BG East’s Gut Bash 9 starring Eli Black and Morgan Cruise]
That’s Eli Black pummeled way past the point of no return by Morgan Cruise in BG East’s Gut Bash 9. I always love the suspense of watching Eli wrestle, because he’s a dangerous competitor no matter how things play out. When he’s on top and heeling, he’s relentlessly sadistic, which makes it that much more intense watching him in a match like this where he’s absolutely trounced and stomped into a quivering mess of weeping humiliation.
Why does that turn me on? Fuck, I don’t even really know. I just know it does, and honestly, that’s enough for me.
So, what about you? How does suffering figure in what turns you on about homoerotic wrestling? Let me know, and let me know whose screams and cries and whimpers trigger the circuitry in you to make you swoon. You can share your take by commenting on the blog, like adorable Donny, who commented on the post for episode 2. It feels hugely validating to hear Donny say that reading the blog and listening to Sidelineland Sounds makes him feel seen and understood as he explores his guilty pleasure of enjoying homoerotic wrestling. I got a few messages over on Instagram, including Cecil who disclosed that he’s in the camp that finds trash talk “yawn emoji,” but it’s all good, because Cecil and I agree completely that watching Jake Jenkins wrestle is always a pleasure. Also on Instagram, Dave chimed in to chide me for not mentioning Scott Williams as the biggest trash talker of all, though, in my defense, I did sample Scott’s trash talk as paradigmatic of the genre back in episode 1. Also commenting on the topic of trash talk from episode 2, Joey V made a compelling case for the trash talking skills of Chace LaChance and Rock Hard Wrestling’s Alex Waters, so thanks Joey for those recommendations! So drop me a line one way or another and let me know your thoughts about the sounds of suffering by commenting on the blog, on Instagram, or by email at wrestlebard@gmail.com. No one has yet to share an audio comment, so I’m still waiting for someone to break that ice and verbally join in the conversation as well.
I’ll call that a wrap on Sidelineland Sounds episode 3. For the next episode, I plan on tuning the mic to listen to the nonverbal sounds that make my pulse pound hotter in a wrestling match, like the collision of muscles, the thump of punches and slap of chest chops, and all of the ambient noises like ropes squeaking and bodies pounding into a ring that make me involuntarily salivate like Pavlov’s dog. Until then, keep enjoying what you enjoy about homoerotic wrestling and let me know what and who is turning you in homoerotic wrestling on these days, and if you’re interested in one man’s take on the same topic, keep your eyes on Sidelineland… because you you know, I’m going to keep telling you what’s turning me on about it.
Sidelineland 