Matt Larsen – Sidelineland

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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