My last night in Toronto for Wrestlefest, I had the unexpected pleasure of meeting Ollie Watts. I didn’t get to enjoy much time with the stunningly handsome, slyly charming hunk, but I did get some fanboy pics and permission to post about it here. In our discussion back and forth, in which I insisted that Ollie is, most definitely, a wrestling star, he mentioned in passing that his favorite match, his “best work,” was one of his most recent ones, wrestling Nero the Beast for UKWrestlingHub.com. I love the idea of reviewing a match that a wrestler thinks of as his best work!
Ollie Watts ready to kick ass for UKWrestlingHub
I’ve seen clips of UKWH matches for quite a while, with it’s unmistakably idiosyncratic black ring and day glow green wrestling ropes. I follow, and have interacted with, several UKWH wrestlers on social media. Everything I’ve seen, and every interaction I’ve had, has had a fun, playful vibe, dancing back and forth across the line of pro wrestling kayfabe and snarky gay attitude. But Nero the Beast vs. Ollie Watts was my first UKWH download.
Foreign invader Nero the Beast
I haven’t followed the entire through-story (though, fuck, I LOVE a through-story), but apparently Nero the Beast (aka Bruno LaBestia aka Bruno the Beast) arrived in Birmingham and started tearing through the UKWH roster like only an ugly American can (metaphorically speaking… Nero’s honestly handsome as fuck). This included “stealing” (Ollie’s words) the UKWH championship belt, and declaring himself champion. As the 15-minute match opens, Nero is pretty much making out with the championship belt. He’s congratulating himself and talking about the belt like it’s his girlfriend. “I’m here with my sweet honey, just admiring her pretty little stars,” he says, giving the belt a flirtatious boop.
“All of this can end if you just give me the belt. I’m really a very nice person.”
So entranced is Nero, that he doesn’t pay due diligence when Ollie gets close enough to pound a knee into the champ’s balls. “Just like Americans,” Ollie muses on cultural stereotypes, “to come and take things that aren’t theirs.” Ollie is sensational when he’s pitching. His trash talk is coldly polished and razor sharp. After suplexing Nero and rolling on top of him in a schoolboy, he slaps down a delightfully backhanded compliment. “This is what you’re good at. Being the pretty face that gets the shit kicked out of him.” He chains together sensationally dominating holds. Wrenching The Beast into a sick camel clutch, he nearly rips Nero’s handsome face off, using every single finger to fishhook the American’s smart mouth. Putting on his best (really bad) American accent, he mocks the muscle packed petite powerhouse. ““O, look at me,” he deadpans. “I’m the champion. I’m 5’5. I’m just a leprechaun that ate steroids.” He’s sadistic and relentless in that diabolical way that makes you think Nero should be saying “please” and “thank you” to him when Ollie’s gas pedaling his balls.
“All you’re doing is delaying the inevitable.”
Nero is personality-forward in a way I don’t think I’ve really seen before. He’s all in as The Beast, snarling and sniffing and licking lovely Ollie like a dog with a bone. When he interrupts Ollie’s devastating offense and pushes the reset button, he wrangles in those slightly unhinged eccentricities to recenter on defending his belt. “Calm, peaceful thoughts,” he mutters to himself, apparently silencing some voices in his head. “We’re going to talk this out like gentlemen,” he says, casually walking across the ring and grabbing Ollie by the throat. All of that restrained, gentlemanly shit talk from Ollie comes back to haunt him. Nero chokes him out in the day glow green ropes. He wedgies Ollie’s yellow trunks way high up his ass as he tosses him around like a practice dummy. “Aren’t you pretty?” Nero muses (and the answer to the rhetorical question is absolutely, yes, Ollie is pretty). He musses the Brit’s hair as he uses Ollie’s own arms to choke himself. “I’m going to keep you as a pet,” Nero declares, almost affectionately. “What’s a good name? Sparky? Rex? I’m going to have to break you in first, though.”
“You had your little fun, your clever little British quips.”
The breaking in part is intense, turning more and more erotic by the second as Ollie can’t defend himself. “Maybe I need to give you a bath. How would you like that,” Nero asks, possessively stroking and pawing at the dazed beauty. He claws Ollie’s balls and smothers him with his armpit in a super sexy dragon sleeper. Ollie’s designs may have been to recapture the UKWH championship for the UK, but as the match is careening to a decisive end, there’s a whole lot more at stake. Ollie’s facing down the threat/promise of being forced to wear a pink collar and be leashed by his new Daddy Nero.
“I’ll get a nice little sparkly pink collar for you.”
It’s a hot 15 minutes, and the download includes a couple of tasty previews of other UKWH matches. I’m old enough to remember when ordering wrestling across national borders was a bit of a pain in the ass, but the site and the purchase were easy and fast. I have to say that the ring is way small, and it clearly limits the athleticism and improvisation that these two seasoned wrestlers have (I know I’m not the first point that out). I’ve seen clips from other UKWH matches in a larger ring that looks a little more conventional, and I bet the playful and clever vibe, managing to not take itself too seriously AND somehow sell heated competition, plays even better with more square footage for the wrestlers to work with. It’s definitely not overly produced, and with a couple of seriously clever, confident salesmen like these two, it’s not underproduced either. Fifteen continuous minutes of a story about a hot rivalry, laced with cultural insensitivity and cross-border stereotypes that make me laugh and think (just a little). Gentleman vs. gentleman brute… with suspense laced throughout about which is which.
Who’s got whom?
I can see why Ollie’s proud of this. He looks hot as hell and he does an incredible job dishing it out and taking it. He’s rightfully chastised by Nero for digging his wedgied trunks out of his ass (“Oh, don’t fix that! That was the best part!”). But other than that, I have no complaints at all about handsome, clever Ollie’s self-curated best effort at defending UK pride. And, on behalf of all of the Americans who have surely earned such a low estimation from you, I sincerely apologize!
So, what about the rest of you hot wrestlers who’ve put yourself out there to entertain and titillate us? What’s your favorite match from your catalog?
And now, I’m on my way home from Wrestlefest Canada, sitting in the airport at Toronto waiting for my flight, and reflecting back on a busy, provocative, exciting week. I had originally thought about posting updates during the week, but holy hell, there was just too much going on to stop and reflect! I’m a little hyper self-conscious and self-analytical (as if you couldn’t tell). So, being so engaged in everything happening this week that I couldn’t spend much time in my own head was refreshing. Okay, not going to lie, it was a little nerve racking, too, but just needing to be present, in the moment, and ride the wave of excitement in meeting new people and wrestling and swapping wrestling stories (among other things) felt liberating.
I’ve been trying to decide how to try to write about my experiences at Wrestlefest Canada. I think I’ll best be able to wrap my head around it in pieces, though the experience of it was a lot happening all at once. So, for this first debriefing session with you, I’ll pick up where I left off in my last post on the way to Toronto, and think about the community that I was part of this week. I met SO MANY fucking people! I’m an introverted-borderline-shy guy under most circumstances, and things like going to a bar social with everyone there in wrestling gear was… a stretch. Honestly, I was hedging my bets up until the very last second as to whether I’d feel brave enough to take off my street clothes and hang out in the singlet I wore underneath. The venue was the Black Eagle bar in Toronto, who had advertised locally that they were hosting the WrestleFest mixer. They set aside a corner of the rooftop patio for our gathering, but we weren’t the only patrons there. I walked through a crowd of non-WF civilians to get to the sexy herd of singlets I could see in the back, feeling the appraising gazes of clearly curious bar patrons. I had just a moment of thinking, Oh hell, no, I’m not stripping down to my singlet in front of all of these non-wrestlers. But then I saw the welcoming faces of new friends I’d already made over the previous couple of days, almost everyone in gear, looking sexy as hell. And the community lent me the courage to live my wrestling kink out loud. Well, okay… I took off my shirt and showed off my low cut singlet top. I kept my shorts on; mostly because singlets don’t have pockets for valuables. But walking back and forth through the crowd to the bar, catching locals checking out my chest in my Tauwell singlet, I felt delightfully conspicuous and an integral part of a sexy, bold, fierce community.
I’ll save more debrief about the wrestling itself for my next post, but suffice it to say that I enjoyed the intense experience of strangers-transformed-into-intimate-friends over and over again over the course of having matches. A couple of the smoking hot Canadians who were first to welcome me to the mats the day I arrived were at the bar on Friday. Just two days earlier, I’d met them in person for the first time. Then we wrestled. And two days later, I’m excitedly rushing up to hug them in greeting like old friends. Hell, just meeting guys who I had not wrestled, but who I’d met around the gay village over the several days, felt like a homecoming. It was warm (not just because it was Toronto in late July), and I felt seen and welcomed in a way I don’t know that I’ve ever really experienced before. Is this starting to sound like hyperbole? It’s all still way fresh as I write this, but I don’t believe it’s an exaggeration.
As Seen On TV…. at the Black Eagle last Friday!!!
It was more than just the feel of a pop-up community. There were regular points of reference to the larger homoerotic wrestling community we’re securely embedded within. For instance, the WF organizers arranged with the Black Eagle to play wrestling videos in the background at the bar on Friday. Seeing Scott Williams‘ fine, fine body rolling around on the screen in one of his classic BG East matches was an incredible nod to the ways that these 80-100+ WF participants were part of something much bigger, and, at the same time, with so much pre-existing shared intimacy. On the spot, I texted Scott with a photo of him on the screen, with the message “Playing RIGHT NOW at the Black Eagle bar in Toronto’s gay village, Williams vs Warren, in honor of Wrestlefest!” In relentlessly authentic Scott style, he replied, “GODDAMNNN!! I love it!!!!” Yeah, there was no doubt about it. I was in the right place, with the right people.
Stunningly hot and fashionable Ben Monaco at the Black Eagle WF mixer
BG East boys weren’t just playing on the screen at WF, either. On another night at an impromptu “social,” in walked Ben Monaco. Ben. Fucking. Monaco. Every bit as handsome and sexy as hell, but thicker and more heavily muscled, in all the right ways, than I’ve ever seen him before. I interviewed Ben twice in 2012, because once just wasn’t enough. The first time was almost the blink of an eye after his debut BG East release in the inaugural Mat Rookies, after I caught wind that Ben was already a reader of this blog. The second interview (during which I learned that Ben and I share affection for Scott Williams, and we chatted quite a bit about the power of the gay wrestling community to bring people together) occurred after his Gazebo Grapplers 14 match against trust fund baby Damien Rush, and we’ve exchanged occasional messages back and forth in between then and now. But we’d never met in person. So, when we were introducing ourselves, needless to say I didn’t actually need him to tell me who he was. In trying to be heard over the pounding bass of the bar music, he thought I called myself Bart (happened A LOT this week), and he gave me a friendly hug of greeting. When I shouted out the clarification that “I’m Bard!,” he made a mental correction, and then suddenly his face lit up, and he wrapped those fucking gargantuan arms around me and bearhugged the air out of my lungs (seriously). Fuck, that was nice. And that was precisely the vibe. Like, you’re in, and you get a hug, just because you’re drawn to erotic wrestling. Oh, and we’ve talked online before and admired each other’s writing and you’ve fanboyed all over my published wrestling videos? THAT deserves the fucking bearhug that I KNOW you’re going to appreciate.
Sexy, charismatic, and wicked clever Ollie Watts partook of WF Canada, too!
Ben wasn’t my only star sighting. I had the amazing pleasure of also meeting Masked Menace, who is devastatingly handsome sans mask, and sports that fabulously hotly muscled body I’ve crushed on repeatedly in his wrestling videos. I had the intense pleasure of meeting Sunny DeLeon, who’s been heating up the BG East mats recently. Sunny is one of those guys who’s so stunningly hot that I immediately retreat so deep into my insecurities that I can barely talk. It was further INSANE that the circumstance under which we were meeting was a group wrestling event… but I’m keeping that powder dry for my next post (fuck, I’ve got so many words!!!). And then my last night at WF, by complete happenstance, I also had the pleasure of running into Ollie Watts, the phenomenal wrestler for BG East and UK Wrestling Hub, who was somehow even hotter in person, and adorably humble. I told him how excited I was to get to enjoy this star-sighting, and he demurely disavowed the status of “wrestling star.” Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t get to make that call, and I’m thrilled to confirm Ollie is a total star, sexy, charismatic, and wicked clever. To be honest, one of main anxieties about attending WF had been not having already met, in person, anyone who would be there. Somehow, the BG East guys left me star struck and made me feel right at home. I hadn’t met any of them before, but they’ve been featured on screens in my home for a long, hot, steamy time!
The cover models for Wonderfully Made might look suspiciously familiar to some in the wrestling community
I got to meet and exchange war stories with fellow homoerotic wrestling fiction author (writing as) David Evans. His reflections on his writing process, the role of the pandemic in calling out the literary imagination, and the push and pull of having an audience holding him accountable to carrying a narrative through to climax, echoed a ton of my own experiences. We’ve had different journeys to get where we are, different pathways leading us to invest our creativity in constructing words about the wrestling kink. But we share so much of the same drive to describe and document with words the visceral experiences of being drawn to and turned on by the intimacy of wrestling. I told him he should blog. He insisted that he’ll leave the blogging to me, and then graciously comped me copies of two more of his books I didn’t yet own (you should check them out).
Guys I’ve grown virtually close to over the past couple of months, both on the WrestleFest server and the Shack server, I was suddenly in the same room with, shaking hands, exchanging hugs, and sometimes even grappling with. Scooter, who I interviewed about Wrestlefest NYC back in early April (and who gets most of the credit for inspiring me to come to Wrestlefest Canada), feels even more to me like someone I’ve known for years and years after hanging together a lot this week. But so many other virtual connections were also made real and embodied, and it sort of blows my mind that none of them were disappointing in the least. Careful readers may be happy to know I DID take Aust10 up on the offer to tug on his beard when we met at the Black Eagle (that’s not a euphemism… I literally tugged on his beard). With all of the hype and expectation and worry (I worry needlessly a lot, you may have noticed) about what it would be like to meet these guys in person, every new face-to-face introduction simply felt like connecting the dots between the cool guys I’ve gotten to know from a distance and the hotties standing in front of me in person in Toronto.
In the interest of keeping things real, I also want to acknowledge that community can be hard. Hell, community IS hard. It takes work, and it’s built just as much on repair from missed connections, misunderstandings, and differences, as it is on feel good moments of simpatico. While Wrestlefest was overwhelmingly a positive experience for me, there were points of friction. I think that’s part of the definition of genuine community, frankly. Not everyone who wanted a particular match got it. I know this based on public conversations on the server, but also because a few guys reached out to me to set something up spontaneously, who I had to decline (for various reasons, but mostly because I was worn the fuck OUT by all of the excitement I had already planned). The sources of heat that divide us in the rest of the world in terms of age, race and ethnicity are fault lines inevitably lying underneath this wrestling community. Community is always in the process of being constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed. Although I really have only good things to say about my experience of the community at Wrestlefest Canada, I know for a fact there were somewhere around 80 to 100+ other sets of experiences of the same event, probably reflecting a mix of excitement and disappointment, validation and frustration. My account here isn’t meant to imply it was the same for everyone, and all of our different experiences are indisputably equally true at the same time. That’s the delight and diabolical conundrum of community.
Finally, on the theme of community, I want to offer my enthusiastic gratitude and praise to the local organizers of Wrestlefest Canada. I am NOT an event planner. I don’t have those skills. But I recognize and appreciate them when I see them in others. The Meetfighters event infrastructure creates a primary portal for pulling together an international gathering like this. Wrestlers from all over Canada and the U.S. were joined by guys from France, Thailand, the U.K., and Germany (those are just the ones I knew about), so something this complex can’t just happen with good will and high hopes. I know that my cousin Scooter offered a lot of consultation, and he shared lessons-learned from his work with helping promote Wrestlefest NYC this past February. But the team of Canadians who hosted and moderated the Wrestlefest server, constructed the AMAZING Wrestlefest website, made local arrangements with hotels and event spaces, helped us out-of-towners navigate transportation options in Toronto, and were just all so remarkably generous with their time and patience and organizational skills… they successfully pulled off an amazing experience.
Sidelineland 