Randy Page was a classic pillar of old school homoerotic wrestling. Randy was relentless. He was often matched up with muscleboys much bigger then he was, and he invariably picked them apart like a turkey dinner. Randy wrestled in the day when scripts were thin, and even if the outcome was pre-determined (often it wasn’t), these boys seriously threw each other around.
I loved the recurring story in Randy’s matches of bulked up gym bunnies who started their matches joking and laughing. They clearly thought that their skinny little opponent wasn’t a threat. Perhaps they thought that this was all for fun; just roll around in skimpy trunks and let some guy with money and a camera film you for his kicks. In BG’s Hollywood Muscleboy Wrestling 2, bodybuilder Vinnie Marino thinks this is all camp, hamming it up early on, even pretending to lick Randy’s thong-clad ass when he finds his head caught in Randy’s vicelike grip.
Then Randy would attack, relentlessly on the offensive, twisting and cranking. When the big boys started tiring out, Randy would charge in and slap them in the chest, shove them in the ropes, and/or verbally taunt them. Slowly, you’d see the recognition dawn on their faces that this little scrapper was going to hurt and humiliate them if they didn’t lower the hammer on him.
And then they’d try to lower the hammer, and nearly always, Randy would take their punishment, then reverse on them and beat the shit out of them. In the Hollywood Muscleboys 2 collection (all 7 bouts featuring Randy), more than one of the cocky studs who enter the ring quit their matches early. Chuck Ramsay, who has nothing but a gorgeous musclebod to offer in the ring, gets wrapped up and immobilized in back-to-back rapid fire falls. He nearly sprints from the ring in defeat and doesn’t show his face in the genre again (as far as I can tell).
I think NakedKombat may come closest these days to trying to capture some of the less-scripted action that Randy Page made so entertaining. But despite Randy never getting overtly sexed up in his matches, I still find his action hotter than most things I see out today. Even Randy would occasionally throw us a bone (so to speak) such as his impromptu wardrobe change in his closely fought match with Kori Thomas, giving us a lingering look at his athletic, bare ass. The pantheon of grappling studs who make me pant today are near and dear to my heart, but Randy will always remain my favorite wrestleboy-emeritus.
Sidelineland 