As I mentioned in my last post, this year at Wrestlefest NYC I enjoyed (and was only slightly terrified of) getting to experience what it was like being behind the camera, recording some incredibly hot homoerotic wrestling content. I’ve been a consumer of homoerotic wrestling for so long that being literally behind the camera put me through some fascinating mental gymnastics that made me think about my relationship to homoerotic wrestling content in a new way. Not to get too existential here, but being the one pointing the camera has made me think about myself and my relationship to what turns me on about wrestling just a little differently.
If recording homoerotic wrestling content was an exercise in mental gymnastics, Wrestlefest Live this year was nothing short of a mindfuck for me. In a good way. Probably. Mostly. Wrestlefest maven Scooter approached me a couple of months ago to feel out if I might be up for being ring announcer. My almost immediate answer was yes, and then a couple of hours later, I was suddenly questioning what the fuck I’d just gotten myself into. I mean, I’ve watched enough wrestling to be familiar with the role of a ring announcer. But, then again, have I ever actually, really paid attention to what a ring announcer does? Honestly, when a ring announcer is doing his thing, I’m mostly just cranking up my horny heat in anticipation of the match to come, right? Fuck, I should’ve paid more attention! I snapped a dozen pics of last year’s ring announcer at Wrestlefest Live 2025, so you’d think I was paying attention then. But no, I was just crushing on the hot ring announcer.
My only other time doing anything remotely like this was co-hosting the Gay Wrestling History panel event at Wrestlefest two years. That time, I had the legendary Bob Wood to lean on as co-host, though, and it was mostly moderating a lot of talking and reminiscing, rather than hyping up a hungry crowd. For Live this year, I had an outline of the matches from the event organizer, KC Ryder. I had the list of who’s wrestling in which matches. I had a few announcements to make at the beginning, a few people to thank at the end. It sounds straightforward, right?
Holy fuck, it was barely contained chaos! I was chatting with BG East’s Kid Vicious afterward who assured me that putting on a show like this is always this wild and improvised with a thousand last second details to wrangle into one event narrative. And that’s definitely what this was like. An hour before the event started, I was in the dressing room with all of the wrestlers trying to take down details of exactly how they’d like to be introduced, finding out if there were any important beats to plan for. Holy fuck, just try to imagine me, one of the most notorious homoerotic wrestling-infatuated people you’ve ever read, trying to stay on task surrounded by about 25 smoking hot wrestlers in various states of undress. I’m still not sure if that’s my idea of heaven or hell. There was one classic moment where I was trying to write down information on how Beau Jordan and Ben Monaco preferred me to introduce them before their match. I’m assuming I was probably staring, glassy-eyed, at Beau’s bare, luscious pecs, because he abruptly grabbed my pen, took my paper, and wrote it down himself. I mean, he wasn’t being a dick about it. At all. It had more the feel of “Oh, you poor, completely overwhelmed walking hard-on, let me help you out.”
Actually, the spirit of pitching in and helping out was everywhere. Of course, this room was packed with massive muscles and even bigger egos that were going to climb into the ring later that evening and tear into one another in a bid to come out victorious, but there was a whole fucking lot of cooperation and collaboration required by everyone to just get to that stage in the first place. Like, when I was getting down the details to introduce Kayden Keller’s handicap match against both TK Wu and Freddy Campbell… I could be misremembering, but I think it was Kayden’s suggestion to announce the team of TK and Freddy by both their combined weight and combined height, which was almost certainly my funniest line in the ring that night. Everyone was pitching in ideas to put a little polish on this very underground event in order to make it shine. There was just a ton of earnest respect for professional wrestling in that dressing room. Everyone was there, fit as fuck, and even with some occasional pre-show nerves in evidence, absolutely everyone focused like a laser on putting on a phenomenal event to entertain an appreciative audience.
Being ring announcer made this completely different from my experience of attending Wrestlefest Live the previous two years. For one thing, I didn’t get to enjoy the wrestling itself nearly as much. As soon as one match started, I was checking my notes about what happens next in the show. Not that I didn’t get to watch some. I’ve absolutely got to download these matches the minute they hit Watchfighters, because what I did get to watch, it was hot and intense and all-in entertaining. But I dialed in absolutely every ounce of my attention just for that minute or so before each match when I was in the ring, trying read my scrawled handwriting to get the intros right, trying not to look like as nervous as I felt, trying to remember when to wait for each wrestler’s ring entrance. And just when I would think I’ve got a grip on this thing, someone improvises or plans change. Kirk Donahue (that sexy bastard) rips the microphone out of my hand before I can introduce his opponent. Sir Dark grabs me by the face and plants a kiss on my mouth as he and Rick Roma are pumping up the crowd before their tag team match. KC Ryder pulls me to the side to give me a surprise announcement to make just before intermission. Sir Dark grabs me by the face an plants a kiss on my mouth. Did I mention that one already? Fuck!
There’s no way I can try to do justice to the hot wrestling, so I’ll save a full set of reviews for when I can watch the matches once they’re released. But I can share some blurry, impressionistic flashes of what I experienced when I was tearing my eyes away from my notes to watch the show. Like, in the opening four-way match (Ty Alexander vs Pup Leopard vs Sid Shaw vs Spenser Locke), the choreography of four fierce men tearing into each other and in the din and chaos, crafting these unmistakable characters for absolutely everyone to read. I mean, Ty Alexander was Ty, right? Self-obsessed almost to the point of comical if it weren’t for him delivering some of the biggest hits on opponents of the evening. Spenser Locke was the overly earnest football jock punch-drunk on adrenaline and getting his bell rung. Pup Leopard somehow was immediately the babyface hero holding the entire audience in the palm of his paw. And Sadistic Sid Shaw was that fucking mountain of intensity and muscle that always looks like he’s about to bulldoze everyone and bury them under 10 inches of asphalt.
I probably saw more of the second match than any of the others, because it was legitimately a rip-n-strip match that went all the way and, most importantly for my tastes, kept going! I announced the rules, of course (thanks to Beau patiently writing them down for me), so I knew someone was going to be naked and defeated before this one was over with. But intellectually knowing that’s coming is just a whole different experience than watching the gear come off and these two gorgeous beefcakes suddenly wearing nothing but boots and the magnificent muscles the homoerotic wrestling gods blessed them with. Like, even I didn’t really know if this was just a tease. Hell, Ben came out interrupting me when I introduced him, in street clothes, saying he’d thought better of the match stipulations and was backing out. But what I loved even more than that these guys literally just put it all right out there for everyone to see, was that they kept wrestling! The brutal pro wrestling punishment continued, indulgently naked and unselfconscious. The fact that the ref, who was last year’s ring announcer who I crushed on, also lost his shirt and got into the action only made me love this match even more.
There was some super fun tinkering with tropes in the tag team match between Sir Dark/Rick Roma and Rocko Mortis/Dash Halley. Have I mentioned Sir Dark planted a kiss on me at the beginning of that match? Honestly, quite a bit after that was a haze for me, but I absolutely loved the storytelling. “From Italy (Sir Dark) and Little Italy (Rick Roma) and weighing in at exactly the right amount of marinara sauce….” The surprise babyface heroes in this match were fucking on fire. Give me a bold type and underline babyface who pounds his crotch into his opponent’s dazed face, and I’m completely sold! Rocko and Dash as goth baseball playing zombies made for a pitch perfect contrast with their crowd-pleasing opponents, and the tension in that divide between Team Vendetta and The Gothletes was sensationally ripe for homoerotic pro wrestling melodrama done right.
The match just before intermission was sponsored by Cole Cassidy and his Weekend Wrestling operation, pitting Wild Man Dick Clayton against the legendary erotic scamp, the Handsome Strangler. Fuck, trying not to eye fuck those two guys in the dressing room was nothing short of torture. So, I happily eye fucked the fuck out of them along with everyone in the audience when they climbed into the ring for their match. But it was the special guest referee for this match that took my breath away: Elite Eliot. I have obsessed over Eliot for years. His live match against Zip Zarella for BG East’s first Wrestling with Pride has gotten me off more times that I could possibly count. I think the wrestling was hot and beautifully executed, but no shit, I couldn’t say definitively for exactly three reasons. One: Wild Man Dick Clayton’s ass in that loin cloth. Two: Handsome Strangler’s mouthwatering pecs. And, three: Elite Eliot hog-tied in the middle of the ring, left for fans (and a ring announcer) to take selfies with at intermission.
After the intermission there came my funniest line of the night introducing TK Wu and Freddy Campbell squaring off against Kayden Keller. That vibe of the terminator taking out two out-matched pretty boys landed beautifully. There was a lot of painting outside the lines throughout most of the matches, but the adrenaline rush of watching mighty Kayden go on a rampage and tombstone fucking everyone, including the ref (MPJ) had this sensational off-the-rails feel to it. In fact, I wasn’t really sure how to handle my ring announcer duties at the end of this one, with the ring littered with knocked out wrestlers several minutes after the bell had been rung.
The penultimate match of the show was such a fucking crowd pleaser. The promotional material for the BG East sponsored match had been teasing Kirk Donahue taking on a “mystery opponent’ for months. The posters just showed a silhouette of hot muscle hunk next to Kirk’s smirking double bicep. I heard so much talk about this in the weeks leading up to the event! I heard more than a few fans grousing about the gimmick being overdone. Why the mystery? And of course, every one of those conversations was an answer to that very question. I had fans swear to me that they had the inside scoop on who the mystery opponent was, and, for the record, everyone who shared their theory about who he was was incorrect. So, I had the distinct honor of getting to be the one to put the mystery to rest when I introduced the triumphant return to the ring of none other than Z-Man! A lot of us have followed on social media news of Z-Man having been seriously injured in an accident a while back. He’s got some seriously impressive scars that hint at the hell he’s been through. But holy fuck, that man is never in anything but pristine and perfected condition! He is so fucking gorgeous and in such phenomenal shape. I don’t actually know what the extent of his injuries were, but I was cheering him on along with absolutely everyone in the place as he went toe-to-toe with dastardly Kirk Donahue. Fuck, the drama was breathtaking. You could hear the collective gasps and tense holding of everyone’s breath as Z-Man and Kirk battled back and forth. And when Z-Man absolutely clawed his way to victory on nothing but his drop dead gorgeous looks, stubbornness, and the flood of good will pouring down on him from this roaring and appreciative audience, the rafters were shaking with excitement.
The final match of the evening was a 7-man elimination match for the Wrestlefest Live championship belt, and it nearly broke me. I mean, it was designed to be barely contained chaos, so what was delivered was exactly as ordered. But my responsibilities as ring announcer for this particular match only actually made sense to me about 10 minutes before the match started. I had seven staggered ring introductions to make, starting with the stunning Chase Addams squaring off against perennial favorite Ethan Axel Andrews. Straightforward enough. I think I nailed that part. But then, it got way more complex. Not to pull back the curtain too much on the production side of things, let me just say that it was solely up to me to start the countdown every couple of minutes (or so) before announcing the next entrant. I know I fucked up Leon Cyrus’ entrance, damn it. I forgot to actually announce his sensational moniker, “the Swiss Menace.” I think I got the rest of the intros right. I’m pretty sure I announced at least one elimination in error, but despite the ref arguing with me, somehow I had the final word. Fuck, if I’d known earlier the power I held! I absolutely loved how this match played out, with some of my very favorite people in homoerotic wrestling (Lobo Gris, Tarz Lando, Mickey Knoxx, and Bobby Carter) commanding the spotlight to the extremely climactic end. Also, a quick shout out to referee Chris Collins for seeming almost as overwhelmed as I felt, while looking sexy as fuck… and for single-handedly being responsible for illegally eliminating one of the final three competitors. Fuck, I love pro wrestling melodrama!
Again, this post is all about me. Please stay tuned for a more full-throated send up of the sensational matches that went down at Wrestlefest Live 2026 once they’re available for us all to enjoy on video. But just one last observation from my extremely subjective perspective: as phenomenal as the wrestlers were, and as much work was put into putting on this incredibly fun show behind the scenes, a key ingredient that was absolutely essential to making it work was the fantastic audience. I don’t just mean this as a cliché. Genuinely, it takes an audience of earnest wrestling fans like this to land this plane as spectacularly as this one landed. These wrestlers literally bared it all, they put their bodies and egos and dignity on the line, and there wasn’t a cynical snark the entire three hours. They poured a ton of love and respect onto absolutely everyone, and the sum total of the event was so much more than any one incredible match, more than any particularly impressive move, more than all of the hot bodies combined, even. It wasn’t just fun wrestling. It was an event, and everyone showed up for it, and that made it fucking fantastic.
I think that’s a bit of what I’m taking away from this experience… none of us are “just” seat warmers in this homoerotic wrestling community. We’re all participants. We’re all co-creating the edges and the heart of what it means to be passionate about homoerotic wrestling, as wrestlers, as content creators, holding the cameras, producing events, buying hot products, cheering for our favorites, and, yes, even ring announcing. Homoerotic wrestling isn’t something just happening on the other side of our screens, or only inside the ring with us merely spectators on the sidelines. We are, all of us, creating this community, this economy, and this fraternity out of our shared passion and investment of ourselves in all our varied ways. Keep up the amazing work, my friends!
Sidelineland 