Tonight. Midnight. Submit your votes for the Best of BG East in 2016. I realize that I’m atypical when it comes to how many BG East matches I watch over the year, so this little voter’s guide is intended to help fill in any blanks some of you may have for lack of exposure to some of the nominees. If 2016 teaches us nothing else, it proves that nothing requires us to be educated and informed voters. However, if you prefer to vote based on something other than your cock’s reaction to one still photo, but you don’t have time to see the whole ballot of matches, feel free to consider my opinions for what they’re worth (which is relatively little, but a little more than voting with no basis whatsoever).
Let’s power through the remaining categories to finish off your ballot.
Best Mat Battle

It’s a little surprising to consider this match “from the vaults” for a 2016 award. Both Jonah and especially Cameron were so young in this match. It’s hard not to superimpose what we know about how Cameron grew up, muscled up, and launched his own production company since this match was taped. I loved this match immensely. It’s rough and raw. The boys clearly hate the fuck out of each other. Lovely, lickable twinks who may look like babies but wrestle like nasty back alley brawlers.

It’s a close call for me, but my vote goes to Kid K and Mason. Both of these beautiful boys are perennial favorites of mine, so I had very high hopes for this match going in. They didn’t disappoint, and in fact the intensity is even hotter, the bodies even more beautiful, and the mat wrestling drama even more compelling than I’d expected. It also helps that these hunks so enjoy each other’s bodies. It’s cocky and playful and reads like the hottest foreplay in history.

Similarly, I’ve never seen a match that includes JJ or Attila that fails to get me off. It’s a match up of an amateur mat champ and a ripped, acrobatic brawler. These are both thoroughbred athletes with massive egos, so the action is brutal and vicious. Not nearly as much erotic heat as Gazebo 18, but magnificent mat wrestling nonetheless.

The narrative behind Coop and Ryder’s mat tussle is great. Coop’s competitive amateur wrestling days seem so far behind him, since he’s been showing up as Dr. Cooper and dissecting opponents like a heart surgeon (aka, mercilessly) in the ring. So Jake seems to be unaware that Coop kicks ass on the mats as well. Ryder lies and cheats his way into putting the doctor into serious jeopardy, but in a lush mash up of babyface Austin and his Dr. Cooper heel alter ego, this mat battle turns nasty pro.

I’ve written a small novel about what this match does for me, so I’ll try not to repeat myself. What grabs me by the balls most is how both of these dazzlingly pretty boys show us something completely new. They’re gorgeous. The wrestling is completely ego driven. They’re gorgeous. The dialogue is sensationally sexy. They’re gorgeous. And the all in, vicous submissions are way more intense and work than I expect to see from supremely pretty boys like this. Oh, yeah, and they’re gorgeous.

Speaking intensity born of dislike, Drake and Ethan rip into each other with a passion that can’t quite be described with words. They’re mean to each other. They’re vicious and brutal. It turns sensationally sexy as the gear gets stripped, but not so much because they turn each other on, but because you get the impression that the final victory lap (after the pony ride) could very well be a domineering, taunting, sneering, contemptuous fuck. Buckets of sweat. A couple pints of tears. Lush bodies. This is a very close second choice for me.
Hottest Liplock
We almost certainly all know what we like about liplocks. I like sweat, palpable passion, a tablespoon of aggression, and authentic lust. Here are your options.

I’m in an ethical dilemma when it comes to giving you a look at the first nominee for Hottest Liplock. BG East has an embargo on me sharing any of their pics that contain full frontal, and yet the only shots of this liplock include both wrestlers with their full-mast cocks in hand. So I’m hoping that I’ll be forgiven for cropping out the bottom of this shot, to stay within the strictly PG requirements I’ve agreed to, despite having to drop the BG East copyright at the bottom of the photo. If this photo suddenly disappears and is replaced by a puppy, you’ll know that I have been asked, and as always I’ve agreed, to a request from the copyright holder to remove the image. All that fine print aside, this is a hot liplock, right?

Sensationally sexy liplock between Christian and Calvin. The authenticity is well-established long ahead of time, as they both telegraph all along that they are turning each other on. If you still doubt it, their rock hard cocks straining the pouches of their trunks should prove the point.

My vote goes to Drake’s kiss-‘n’-pin of gorgeous newbie Nino “Babyboy” Leone. It ticks off all of my boxes, including sweat, passion, simmering aggression, and what is quite obviously open lust. This is one of the most brutal matches this year, which makes the incredibly tender ending that much more dizzying. Squarely in the homoerotic sweet spot.

When it comes to quantity, Charlie and Blaine very well may have locked lips the most in their ginger-off in the backyard. I believe Blaine gets the award for popping Charlie’s (kissing) cherry first in his homoerotic wrestling career, but Charlie is quite clearly abundantly skilled in sucking face and using it as a defensive maneuver on the mats. For kissing as chess match move, I give this liplock a close second place on my ballot.

I get the impression that I am as big a fan of Chris Xaos as most of the rest of you are of Mike Martin. So between the two of us (you, me), we should be crazy for their scorching hot mat match this year. The liplock is more teasing than passionate, for my tastes. That said, I’d change my vote for a chance to stick my tongue down Chris Xaos’ throat (well, if he’s naked).

There’s nothing teasing about Christian and Jeremy’s passion at the end of their hot and rough mat match. This is a full on make out session, and it’s lathered in sweat, and it’s got a half a cup of aggression still playing out, and I fully believe these boys are into each other. Christian is the reigning kissing master at BG East, which may work against him this time around for the potential vote splitting with his liplock on Calvin.
Best Wrestler Spotlight
It seems like a testimony to a wrestler’s marketability to get an entire DVD release devoted to one person. So the three nominees this year for Best Wrestler Spotlight represent some major fan favorites.

Biff follows up with his victory as Debut of the Year last year with multiple nominations across the ballot, including for his Wrestler Spotlight. He’s compelling and gorgeous. I actually think the strength of this collection is in the quality of his opponents, though. You get the impression everyone wants a shot at this ridiculously hot beefcake. This is a very close second place for me.

Has anyone ever starred in 3 Wrestler Spotlight DVDs before? Although this collection tends toward showing off Coop’s work as a gorgeously bashable babyface, his mat match with Jake Ryder gives some awesome flashes of Dr. Cooper hanging out his shingle. The quality of his opponents is less consistent than the other two Wrestling Spotlights, but Coop has emerged as such a fantastic, complex, competitive, multifaceted character, that I’m persuaded (just) to cast my vote for him.

Chace’s spotlight is sort of a retrospective of his career, featuring him as the go-go boy, the beefsteak, and the fitness model that he has been at different phases of his wrestling. His end of the bargain is less consistent than the other two Wrestling Spotlight stars, which is to be expected considering these matches come from such drastically different parts of his career. Still, although there’s nothing to complain about, I enjoyed Coop’s cubed spotlight the best.
Best 2016 Overall Match
Now the free for all starts. I know well that fans are fierce about their favorites, and when comparing apples to oranges, there’s no pretense of objectivity or even a measurable standard to point to. Seven times out of 10, I’m biased toward ring matches. I tend to favor big personalities and hot bodies in equal measure. I like to be surprised. I like to be made to laugh. And it is essential that I get hard. With all those biases in mind, I’ll tell you how I see the field for Best of 2016.

First on the ballot is my pick for the Best Overall Match at BG East in 2016. It’s an instant classic. It’s sexy as hell. Two incredible debuts. Drama, drama, drama. Very high quality pro wrestling. Intramural rivalries. And dick pic selfies. It’s everything I could want in a match (except for a copy of those dick pics).

A very close second place for me is this masterpiece on the mats between Drake and Skrapper. If I’d had the option, I very well might have picked this over Mason and Kid Karisma for the Best Mat Battle, but alas, the nominating committee didn’t see fit to give me the chance. The wrestling is outstanding. The erotic tension is thick and juicy. And the boys are real and beautiful. The only edge TTT19 has on this for me is the full throttle pro ring vibe.

So put Drake in the ring with Kayden Keller, and you might think I’d be unable to resist. I resist, though. It swings hard for a slasher vibe, but doesn’t quite connect. TTT19 and Drake’s work in Matmen 26 hit the bullseye better. And then there’s Drake’s gear to consider (smh).

Watching cocky indy pro Kirk Donahue get trampled by a “mere” underground phenom like Dr. Cooper is guaranteed to tickle my funny bone and get me hard. This is a magnificent beatdown and totally worthy of a shot at the title, but it just didn’t get my vote.

That’s right, haters, Drake Marcos anchors a full half of the Best Match nominees this year! I recently referred to 2016 as the year of the rookie, but it may have to be rebranded as the year of Drake. The heat is scorching in his match with Ethan. And I do love seeing bully-Ethan face off against someone who gives it right back to him. But the raw rage and bitterness don’t quite put this match over Drake’s match with Skrapper for me, and neither quite persuade me to tip them over Tag Team Torture 19.

See all my comments above about why I voted for this as Best Mat Battle, and then remind yourself that this does not take place in a wrestling ring. It’s immensely satisfying, funny, fierce and brutal, and it gets extra points in my book for Mason’s perfect (perfect) choice in undergarments. But I’m still throwing my one, lone vote to the fierce foursome in TTT19.
The real winner is you and me, of course. Such a rich, entertaining, arousing body of work from BG East in 2016 is why BG East is the first place I go for that particular mix of homoerotic wrestling that keeps me satisfied. Congratulations to all of the nominees (except for Kirk). You are, every last one of you, gorgeous to watch mix it up in the ring, on the mats, and everywhere else that the Boss’ imagination takes us. Thanks for all of the distractions in 2016 that kept me from the abyss of absolute despair over current events