Bobby Carter – Sidelineland

The New Me

November 11, 2025November 11, 2025 wrestlebard2 Comments

This is the time of year when I start getting excited for the holidays. I mean, sure, Thanksgiving is tolerable, and I enjoy exchanging presents around Christmas. New Year’s Eve means less and less to me as I grow older, it seems, but MLK, Jr. Day later in January feels like it’s growing in pertinence and urgency this year. But for the past few years, what I think of as the climax of the holiday season is really the Presidents Day holiday, aka Wrestlefest NYC. A few months ago, I was more ambivalent, grousing about how expensive a weekend in Manhattan is and the hassles of travel. But at this point, the excitement and anticipation have taken over, as I think about a few hundred sexy men who all share the same passion for wrestling that I do suddenly concentrated within a few blocks of Penn Station. Meeting up with old friends, being shoulder to shoulder in a bar with wall-to-wall singlet-wearing hunks, watching a live homoerotic wrestling show, and, oh yeah, throwing down with opponents I’ve enjoyed wrestling before and squaring off against a few new wild cards… that quantity and quality of eager anticipation I used to feel as a kid for the approach of Christmas is now entirely transferred to Presidents Day (which, ironically, was probably my most forgettable holiday when I was a kid).

BG East’s recent release of Motel Madness 25: Revenge stokes that eager excitement for the sexy spontaneity of a Wrestlefest. There’s the public side of Wrestlefest that, honestly, I enjoy just about as much as the private wrestling side. Motel Madness 25 opens in the loud, crowded bar that’s hosted opening night live oil wrestling at WFNYC the past couple of years. You can hear the electricity in the air in the appreciative hoots and whistles when Mickey Knoxx and Bobby Carter are introduced. Watching a couple of EXTREMELY lucky fans/wrestlers get the honors of coating both of these gorgeous boys’ bodies in oil as the crowd roars with excitement punches that intensely hot button of public homoeroticism that has me turned on immediately. It reminds me of the BGE at Paradise matches that regularly pop up in the shuffle of wrestling content I get off to, when all eyes are on these barely clad muscle boys getting liberally lubricated with everyone simmering with envy for the hands that get the honors of applying the oil.

I probably should disclose again that I am completely biased about both Bobby Carter and Mickey Knoxx. To be completely honest, I love both of these guys. As I’ve mentioned before, I got to know them a bit online before meeting them in person, and they’re just solid, genuine, good people. I probably over-identify with Bobby’s encyclopedic knowledge and passion for homoerotic wrestling videos, although, as proud as I am of mine, Bobby’s familiarity with every gay wrestling video produced in the past 30 years puts me to shame. And Mickey’s combination of introvert/shyness and uninhibited debauchery absolutely charms the pants off of me. I’ve since enjoyed hanging out with both of them, and they both feel like friends I’ve known all my life. Honestly, when they started showing up in BG East releases, I sort of worried that feeling a personal connection with them off camera might be an obstacle to me lustfully objectifying them on camera.

I need not have worried. Fuck, they’re hot as hell! When they start wrestling in that way-too-small blow-up pool in the bar, it’s homoerotic poetry in motion. Bobby’s body blows my mind. He’s got the tapered-V torso of a competitive bodybuilder, with that tiny waist and magnificent muscled ass that belongs on a comic book superhero. I know for a fact that Bobby is way cerebral, but there’s something just raw and carnal about this gear he kicks into when he’s wrestling. And I’ve never NOT swooned at the sight of Mickey, especially when he wrestles, but, yeah, any fucking time. He’s got those supernatural fey king eyes that are almost as paralyzingly gorgeous as his perfect ass. Like Bobby, he’s also got that sensational ability to be nowhere else than in the match when he’s wrestling. Neither of them seem to have an ounce of self-consciousness about them. They’re just going at it like there’s nothing else in the world but a super hot opponent vying for control. The oil wrestling is perfectly balanced between eroticism and wrestling. It’s not like the tight confines of the pool lend themselves to serious competition, but fuck, they pull off some astonishingly beautiful wrestling despite the geography and oil. Like, how in the hell does Mickey hold that suspended bearhug with so much glistening lubrication? I’m genuinely gritting my teeth in concern for both of them when Bobby hoists Mickey into a stunning erotic sculpture of a torture rack, but holy hell, he locks Mickey down as if they weren’t confined to a 6’x4′ plastic rectangle and coated in oil.

No one’s a loser, but Bobby owns Mickey’s gorgeous body to the delight of the bar crowd before all is said and done. Mickey doesn’t appear to hold a grudge as they make out in exhaustion, but looks may be deceiving. Because the second match of Motel Madness 25: Revenge picks up the story at WFNYC a year later. Mickey’s invited Bobby to his hotel room for a rematch, and his preternaturally fog-colored eyes look fiercely determined. The erotic tension is instantly thick in the air as they check out each other’s phenomenal physiques poured into tight singlets. Their scrap continues to teeter on that lust/competition edge, until right around the moment that Mickey suddenly grabs Bobby by the ankles and viciously stomps on the bodybuilder’s balls until Bobby submits. Bobby is clutching his assaulted testicles and gasping in shock when Mickey finally lets him go. “I don’t remember you being that mean,” Bobby observes. “It’s the new me,” Mickey snarls back like a boss.

The action continues to be mean and intense in a way that only makes it that much sexier to me (and, quite obviously, to Bobby and Mickey, as well). The scrap on the portable wrestling mats is rough, like that super sexy camel choke where Mickey grabs one of the stripped singlets and uses it to strangle his trapped opponent. It’s when the action spills onto the bed, though, that things get serious. Honestly, wrestling on a mattress typically slows things way down for me, but these two dial it up as soon as the sheets start flying. Bobby sits on Mickey’s face in a foldover pin and wedgies that Tauwell singlet so deep Mickey’s choking on it.

You can tell who’s the loser in the hotel room based on who’s screaming and begging and obediently saying the winner’s name on demand. But it’s all just poetry at that point. The pain and pleasure are just delicious notes in the lustful concoction Mickey and Bobby brew up in that Manhattan high rise hotel. The product is subtitled “revenge,” but this dish is served steaming hot and both gorgeous men are savoring every mouthful with an open genuineness that just can’t be faked.

Fuck, now I seriously can’t wait for Wrestlefest NYC!

Wrestlefest Live – 2025

February 26, 2025March 4, 2025 wrestlebard6 Comments

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!

Rookie Intensity

April 24, 2024 wrestlebard1 Comment

Motel Madness 21 features my friend, Bobby Carter, making his BG East debut, and I’m so here for it. I’ve spent hours talking BG East trivia with Bobby. I understand why I’ve been accused of having an encyclopedic knowledge of the BG East catalog, but honestly, Bobby knows it better than I do. He’s a true fanatic. So, there’s just something immensely satisfying seeing one us sliding out from behind this side of the screen and stepping in front of the camera to live the dream!

Neither Bobby nor his MM21 opponent, Gilles Limber, are newbies. They’re both extensively experienced meet-up wrestlers, and they both have some sensationally hot WatchFighters content that demonstrates why they showed up on the BGE recruitment radar. I reviewed Bobby’s Wrestlefest Live match last month, and I still can’t say enough about how fucking intense and sexy that battle was. Gilles shows up on camera on WatchFighters against big leaguers like Mason Brooks, Freddy Campbell, Forrest Taylor, and Ash DeLeon (though I’m also obsessed with watching the clips of him working out and crushing watermelons!). So, it should come as no surprise that Bobby and Gilles show up in that New York hotel room sexy as fuck, with legitimate grappling skills and sensational instincts for telling a homoerotic wrestling story.

I know nothing about Luxembourg, but I feel like I need to visit, just to see if Gilles’ tastiness is typical, or if he’s something extra special. Fuck, I love his look! “Limber” isn’t just a surname, and what he can do with that gorgeous, flexible, deceptively strong body is fucking fascinating. His “charming bad ass” vibe makes me laugh a little and turns me on A LOT. There’s something almost polite about the way he compliments Bobby’s wrestling shoes and announces that he’s going to take them from Bobby once he’s beaten him. I swear it’s not just the accent (though, fuck, that’s a sexy fucking accent). It’s his innocent, little boy face, and his chill, understated cockiness that sneaks up me before I realize Gilles has got an intense mean streak. It sneaks up on Bobby, too.

Their hotel room battle is 52% competitive and 48% erotic, but the numbers are deceptive, because it’s clear that both Gilles and Bobby are stoked hotter and hotter by the hard fought competitive holds and battle for dominance. Bobby looks like an X-Men character, with his chiseled, tiny waist, and huge sculpted muscles. There’s a sense of gravitational pull about just how solid he is, irresistibly attracting Gilles’ groping hands to feel Bobby’s grade-A beef. Gilles’ m.o. is to aggressively lock Bobby in place and then have his way with stroking and possessing Bobby’s lush muscles. Honestly, Bobby’s quads are significantly bigger (and 100% rock hard muscle) than Gilles’, but it’s Gilles’ scissors that keep setting the pace in this match. He’s wringing Bobby out hard in a way that makes the muscle man’s body go rigid and the breath freeze in his lungs, and the look of knowing pride on Gilles’ innocent baby face is just so fucking sexy. He has clearly shocked, punished, and possessed plenty of opponents before now with the deceptively brutal power in his aesthetically graceful and lean legs.

My crotch twitches with a mind of its own whenever Bobby stomps on the gas pedal. You can see the frustration simmer and then boil as his politely mean opponent punishes him long and hard, until he’s had just about enough of that. Suddenly, all of those gorgeous, superhero muscles on Bobby are for more than just turning on me and Gilles. It’s raw, gorgeous power that busts Bobby out of Gilles’ clutches repeatedly, and it’s stunning every time. It’s like watching my gym crush pumping out feats of strength that I can’t take my eyes off of, but in this case, he’s pumping out feats of strength that end up with Gilles’ defenseless inside Bobby’s rear naked choke. For a few moments, Gilles looks a little more like a bitterly bullied little boy than that politely cocky badass.

There’s a decent-sized patch of wrestling mats on the hotel room floor where about 60% of the intense back and forth action plays out, but the volume on the erotic side of this battle turns way, way up when Bobby suddenly hoists the flailing little Luxembourger over one huge, boulder shoulder and tosses Gilles onto the bed. It’s not playful, mind you. It’s not like the competitive intensity dials down even a fraction. But it’s just hungrier as they scramble for domination on the bed. They lose their singlets, and fuck… those are two phenomenally beautiful asses on display. I would’ve thought that Bobby’s size and strength advantage would keep him on top of Gilles in the topography of a hotel bed, but Gilles just gets meaner and more aggressive and Bobby keeps getting his rocking bod upended again and again.

There’s this intensely sexy moment when Gilles clamps those magical thighs of his around Bobby’s head and an arm at the edge of the bed in standing scissors. Gilles’ ass framed in that jock strap makes me swoon, flexing and squeezing on Bobby’s trapped skull. And then, holy hell, he will NOT be denied when he suddenly picks Bobby up in his arms, hanging the muscle man upside down with Bobby’s head crushed. Fuck, I thought it was Bobby’s feats of strength that were pacing these reversals of fortune, but… damn! And then Gilles starts stroking on Bobby’s cock possessively, playing the muscle man like a musical instrument.

There’s a point at which I think the boys have melted into their obvious mutual lust, and it’s sexy as hell to watch them sucking face and worshiping each other’s gorgeous muscles. But the full throttle erotic wave never quite comes untethered from the competitive battle for domination. The last submission reads like the loser just no longer able to resist the relentless erotic domination. Like, they’re equally matched in hunger, but the victory here goes to the wrestler who’s able to keep his head in the game, surfing that wave of erotic pleasure, but staying on his feet to lock on that last reverse bearhug and make his opponent give it all up.

I can’t wait to see more of both of these BG East rookies, and I LOVE the beauty, power, and personality that they bring to keep spicing up the BG East roster!

WrestleFest – Watching

March 1, 2024 wrestlebard14 Comments

I’ve described myself before as having a bit of a voyeur kink. I like watching. Specifically, I like watching hot wrestling. It hasn’t been that long since I took the plunge into meet-up wrestling, while on the other hand, I’ve been getting off on watching homoerotic wrestling for about 25 years, and some of the first igniting of my erotic interests were watching pro wrestling on television when I was growing up. An honest question I had for myself when I was anticipating my first meet-up wrestling matches was whether it would be the same turn-on as watching wrestling. For most of my life, my wrestling fantasies have projected me into hot match scenarios that I watch. So, I wasn’t just watching Tommy Zenk pumping on a side headlock, I was imagining that it was my face being crushed against Tommy’s flexing pec, trapped by his muscles and under his control. I wasn’t just watching Jeff Phoenix twisting Brad Rochelle’s spine in an over-the-knee backbreaker, I was imagining myself, with Brad’s scorching hot body at my mercy, laid out before me, suffering at my will and whim. I was certain that the experience of wrestling wouldn’t be the same as the experience of watching it, but I wondered how close the experience of wrestling would be to where my imagination takes me when I’m watching. The quick answer is that I experience them very differently. Both are an intense turn-on, but with very different stimuli and reactions.

WrestleFest NYC last week presented me several opportunities to explore some of the nuances between what turns me on about watching wrestling and what turns me on wrestling. The first of these opportunities popped up unexpectedly during my first match of the fest. It was my first time meeting this particular hot, hunky opponent. As a veteran of several past fests, my opponent came prepared. He had a small suite with enough room to lay out wrestling mats he brought with him (mat wrestling is SUCH a different beast than making-do with a hotel mattress!). He was stocked with flats of bottled water and an impressive bar. And he had connected is laptop to the hotel TV, where he was playing classic, old school BG matches from back in the day (you know the ones, the blue mats, small room, mirrored wall). My host and I enjoyed talking wrestling a while before we actually wrestled (a way I work through my nerves with a first-time opponent), and I kept finding myself distracted by watching the screen where these beautiful, sweat-soaked twinks were stripping each other naked and grappling fiercely to settle who’s going to end up on top. Fuck. I kept getting sucked into the scene on the TV, turned on by how I imagine their hot bodies feel slapping and thumping and grinding into each other. When my opponent and I finally hit the mats, I was pretty primed by the on screen inspiration. But locking up and suddenly scrapping against his Brazilian jiu-jistu training and potently concentrated muscles, I tapped into something completely different. The scramble and flex and chess match of holds yanked me entirely out of my head and into my body. The hot video playing in the background disappeared, and there was just me and my opponent and the raw, fierce battle of strength and will and skill. And it was hot in an incomparable way to the hotness of watching the BG match moments earlier. The turn-on was related, but definitely not the same.

On Saturday evening, I had another fascinating opportunity to think and experience deeply what turns me on about watching wrestling in contrast to what turns me on about wrestling. That night, my friend Scooter produced WrestleFest Live, which was this cool scene for homoerotic wrestling in the round. I’ve been saying for years I want someone to save me a front row seat to watch some live hot homoerotic wrestling, and holy hell, that’s exactly what this was! I watched the first half of the card, featuring 3 intense matches starring incredibly sexy and talented wrestlers with extensive studio and self-produced wrestling resumes. I was one of about 20 audience members, with another 15 or so wrestlers and volunteers there with us in the New York loft a few blocks from the Empire State Building. Tickets were $30, and I sat next to my friend TxWresl, who I’d just wrestled earlier that day. Sitting right in front of me was my Gay Wrestling History panel co-moderator Bob Wood, and I made a new friend of the audience member sitting on the other side of me, as we all chatted before the matches began. Although I’ve been saying I want exactly this type of experience, I honestly didn’t know what to expect or how I’d react to being so up close to smoking hot wrestling while sitting alongside a few dozen other onlookers. Well, I’m happy to report it was intense and oddly intimate and sexy as fuck! Each of the three matches I watched (Sunny DeLeon vs. Jaxon Valliant, Gabe Steel vs. Tanner Ripley, and Bobby Carter vs. Seon Cruz) was a sensationally fought battle. The wrestlers seriously went for it. They had high impact blows, long held holds, and gorgeous, sweaty bodies working hard for domination. There were a few moments when I was a little worried Bob, sitting in the front row in front of me, was going to have a wrestler dumped in his lap, though I’m not exactly sure if Bob would have minded. It wasn’t like watching homoerotic wrestling in private on my screen. Rocky Sparks, the videographer, was spinning and scrambling across the mat in front of us, capturing the matches on camera to be uploaded to WatchFighters. The wrestlers worked up a sweat that was that much more immediate because not only could I see their muscles glistening, I could smell it and clearly hear the wet slap of their bodies in a more intense way than when watching a video.

Muscle hunk Bobby Carter rips Seon Cruz apart!

The corporate experience was really what took me by surprise, though. There were grunts and groans and shouts of encouragement and taunts from audience members as the intense action played out. My voice was just one of the chorus, admiring the beauty and power and compelling homoerotic drama playing out right in front of us. None of us whipped it out like we probably would have if we were watching the drama in private, but I for one was aroused and it was a curiously intense experience for that to be the case surrounded by other homoerotic wrestling fans and the objects of my lustful attention close enough for me to literally touch. I’ll review the matches in detail soon, but for now, I just want to reflect on my subject experience, which included walking away, chatting with TxWresl and JJ Allen and others coincidentally in the elevator with us about what we’d just seen and experienced. And the debrief, having watched together, was totally added value.

Scott gets caught early in SeattleFight’s rear naked choke

WrestleFest NYC 2024 presented me with one final opportunity to reflect deeply on where the Venn diagram of me getting off on watching wrestling and me getting off on wrestling overlaps. I honestly didn’t actually know that two of my past opponents that I’ve written extensively about had a genuine grudge brewing between them. Scott Williams, the long-time object of my homoerotic wrestling infatuation, and SeattleFight, with whom I experienced such an immediate and intense spark in Toronto last summer, had some sore feelings toward one another predating my meeting either of them in person. Apparently, my fawning descriptions of wrestling each of them only added fuel to the fire of their rivalry after I had the intense pleasure of wrestling both of them, repeatedly, since last summer. It was SeattleFight’s idea that they should settle their scores at WrestleFest NYC, and both he and Scott invited me to witness, first hand, what would happen when my wrestling crushes collide. It happened late on my last night in NYC. Scott and SeattleFight squared off on mats in the living room of SeattleFight’s suite. His roommate and I perched expectantly on the couch, inches away from these two smoking hot grapplers stripped down to briefs. And, holy fuck, right there close enough for me to touch, they went at it hot and fierce. It was like my own private WrestleFest Live session, but even more intimate and intense and immediate. It had that same corporate experience of watching, with SeattleFight’s roommate and I reacting together, grunting at the same time to a particularly hard thump of pecs getting punched, moaning in that mixture of empathic pain and erotic pleasure at a particularly hard-earned and humiliating submission. Probably because I’ve been so turned on by my experiences of wrestling both of these gorgeous hunks, I was instantly and persistently turned on, without actually having to “imagine” the feel of their bodies. I wasn’t literally on the mat, but I hardly needed to “project” myself into the intense battle playing out at my feet, because I’d been locked in my own battle with each of these sexy-as-fuck gladiators several times before, including earlier that weekend. It was as close as I’ve come in being turned on by watching wrestling being identical to that experience of being turned on by engaging in wrestling itself.

Scott takes some payback with a headlock and armbar on SeattleFight

Whatever the thin line that separates what turns me on about watching wrestling and what turns me on about engaging in wrestling suddenly and decisively disappeared. Having worked out their pent up frustrations on one another, one of these hot, sweaty hunks came out the undisputed victor in this stunningly fierce battle. Perched on top of a schoolboy pin, taunting and preening and demonstrating that the loser could do nothing else to defend himself, the winner turned his attention on me and invited me to join him. Fuckfuckfuck. I’m not sure if I’ve ever ripped off my street clothes that fast before, because it seemed like a fraction of a second later I was also straddling the demolished muscle hunk. Just like that, I crossed the line from watching to participating. And what aroused me about watching Scott and SeattleFight’s grudge match morphed into what was turning me on about literally becoming part of the action. I wasn’t just imagining or remembering the feel of their bodies and the power in their muscles, I was feeling it. The erotic pleasure that plays out in my head, when I’m watching, stepped seamlessly over the line into the pleasure that plays out in my body when I’m part of action itself. They are intimately related pleasures, essentially different from one another in my experience, but deeply connected to that same thing inside of me that has, for my entire life, been powerfully reactive to wrestling.

I continue to love this journey I’ve recently been on exploring who I am as a wrestler, but I also remain a passionate fan of watching homoerotic wrestling. Much of the history of this blog has been about my curious examination of what it is that turns me on about wrestling. But even at this point, quite a way along in my lifetime relationship with homoerotic wrestling, it’s a delight to discover new things about myself and new aspects of what turns me on, and how it turns me on. I occasionally bump into conversations about the lines that separate homoerotic wrestlers and homoerotic wrestling fans, and I get the impression that some folks are deeply invested in reifying the lines that divide the two. I’ve caught more than a hint of low key contempt from some wrestlers, for example, for “consumers” of wrestling, like one is real and the other is a weak approximation for the feint of heart. At least for me, I can report that they both reside within me, different expressions of one passionate connection I have to wrestling. And I love how much I continue to be turned on by watching homoerotic wresting, and I love how much I’m turned on by wrestling.