Wrestling Romance

Valentines Day typically leaves me cold.  Rampant, conspicuous displays of heterosexual romance get on my nerves. But I feel like reclaiming the day for myself this year. One of my fondest devices in homoerotic wrestling is the tender turn after a seriously nasty, bitter battle. When the winner claims his prize and both wrestlers are as enthusiastic about carnal delights as corporal punishment, I’m seriously sold.  Thumbing through the file cabinet in my head (augmented by the search function in my favorite homoerotic wrestling sites), I’m coming up with a sadly short list of my top tender moments in homoerotic wrestling. It’s a satisfying jaunt down memory lane, however. So for this month’s reader’s poll, let me just ask you: which romantic wrestling pair should be crowned Mr. and Mr. Valentines Day Wrestling Couple of 2012?

Art Imitating Life: Christian Taylor and Skip Vance

Skip Vance and Christian Taylor get the pole position in this race to the climax, because Skip has let it be known through his Facebook page that he and Christian are, in real life, long-time lovers. This sent me (and at least one reader I’ve heard from) scurrying back to their ferocious mat room battle in Sexy Showdown 6: Sexier to reconsider the nasty humiliation and pain that these two hot, hard, lean grapplers pour out onto each other before settling in for some naked, sweaty, tender tongue wrestling. These boys get more hot and bothered the meaner the action turns, making me picture infinite homoerotic wrestling scenarios in the Taylor/Vance household. These two sweat soaked boys with their crotches grinding and their lips hovering over each other could totally redeem Valentines Day for me. How about you?

Teasing Done: Rafael Valmor and Blaine Janus

I have no idea what Rafael Valmor and Blaine Janus’ relationship is off the mat, but on the mat in Undagear 18, it was mind-blowing. Other things blew for me as well, and in no small part it was due to the gorgeous tension that Rafael builds by adamantly refusing to let Blaine kiss him throughout their increasingly amorous mat battle. You can just about see Blaine’s balls turn blue inside his tight red trunks as he wrings another sweat-soaked submission out of the Latin lover and leans in to taste victory, only to be shoved away as the brown-eyed boy refuses to give it away for free. Butts get squeezed with rising passion. The submissions get uglier. And once Blaine is just finally wasted with sexy Rafael stretched out on top of him, the curly haired adonis slaps on that priceless kiss on nobody’s but his own terms. Now that’s a love story worthy of Shakespeare! And it’s also an entirely convincing option for Rafael and Blaine to be the 2012 Mr. and Mr. Valentines Day Wrestling Couple.

Sure Thing: Marc Rion and Mitch Colby

On a completely different end of the spectrum (at least when it comes to bodies), I’m also strongly drawn to the outrageously hot sexual tension that rages like a wildfire from the first second Mitch Colby  steps onto the mat with one-hit-wonder Marc Rion as the climax (and I mean climax!) of Mitch’s Wrestler Spotlight.  Holy shit, their bodies are both off the charts, and I don’t care how good of actors they are, there’s some genuine lust slapped down all over their naked bodies! They’re so hot for one another, in fact, that the wrestling is nearly tossed out the window, which would be a cardinal sin in my book. Happily, they manage to get some hot, dominating wrestling in on top of other cardinal sins, earning my profound pleasure and a competitive bid to be poster boys for my Valentines Day redux.

Just can’t hide it: Jared Curzon and Gabriel Ross
Boy toy Gabriel Ross also sometimes dances just this side of forgetting the wrestling in my wrestling fare. But he and Jared Curzon strike such a heart-melting scene in their Motel Madness UK 5 tussle! Again, they’re raging hot for one another from go, and they’re so fucking adorable as to be nearly too sweet to swallow. Get a load of Jared’s luscious ass and monster cock, however, and you’ll reconsider any reluctance to swallow that you might have had. The back and forth between passionate embrace and bearhug makes my heart (and other parts of my anatomy) pound, and I would have no trouble seeing them as the redeeming Valentine’s Day for homoerotic wrestling fans.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Sean Patrick and Bud Orton
It’s hard to make a list of wrestling matches with over the top sexual tension turned tender without seeing Sean Patrick show up at least once. The infamous “Kisser” of classic BG East days, Sean slapped his lips on his opponents’ time after time, clearly turned on by the intimacy of domination wrestling. Pretty much anything on Sean’s wrestling resume could qualify, but I think this shot of him from Sexy Showdown 4 making out with always amorous Bud Orton while simultaneously locking him up tight in an ass-up, body contorting, completely humiliating spladle seems like it could be the iconic image of the erotic component of homoerotic wrestling. Oh yeah, sweat pours off of them like Niagra falls and the wrestling is fucking fierce! How do you feel about Sean and Bud being Mr. and Mr. Valentine around here?
Three’s Company: Shane McCall, Brooklyn Bodywrecker
and Liam Ryan
Another image that I’ve remarked on many times on this blog is the victory celebration with tag team partners Shane McCall and Brooklyn Bodywrecker sucking face in Tag Team Torture 2 while one half of the losing team, sexy little Liam Ryan, sucks on Shane’s cock through his trunks. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, this story has GOT to be repeated, because there’s just nothing sexier than tag team partners/lovers battling for domination and getting more and more aroused as they pick to pieces and utterly humiliate their losing opponents (who are also lovers)! And eroticism in the ring is at least 20 times hotter than it is anywhere else, as far as I’m concerned! Maybe it’s not fair, but this pic proves the delightful possibility that the hottest homoerotic wrestling couple could easily be a threesome (or more)!  Shane, BBW and Liam get my nod as connecting all the dots between tender loving and hard slamming homoerotic wrestling.

Masks and Melting: The Enforcer and Blueboy

Again in the ring, the stunning image from Masked Mayhem 4 of Blueboy making big, bad bruiser Enforcer melt in the corner as he nibbles on his lips and prominent chin turns… me… ON! Two gorgeous bodies, masked in mystery and coated in sweat are a formula for arousing wrestling. But with Blueboy toying with the big heel’s nipple and leaning in close, crotch to crotch and tasting the hunky heel’s mouth, I’m totally turned into a blubbering romantic fool. Maybe Mr. and Mr. Valentines Day Wrestling Couple 2012 are hot, horny masked men?
Hurt So Good: Cruze/Jose and Patrick/Sean

Like I said, it’s hard not to have at least one Sean Patrick match on a list like this, and so here’s a second (with another recurring nominee).  I think of this as another iconic image in homoerotic wrestling from Tag Team Torture 1, with Jose and Cruze heaping agony and humiliation onto Sean and Patrick Donovan in the closing moments of their incredibly sexy victory. Stripped naked, locked into mirror image camel clutches and forced to kiss in the middle of the ring, Patrick and Sean prove that the erotic heat doesn’t have to come from opposite sides of the confrontation. Perhaps this is the most iconic image of homoerotic wrestling passion, and the winning “couple” is, in this case, a foursome of hot, horny, hung hunks with bodies locked together in gorgeous symmetry and power and complete domination.

So who do you think should get the nod? You only get one vote. Of course, these are only the nominees that came to my mind. You may have another set of favorites to suggest. So vote in the right margin, and if you select “other,” then name your wrestling picks for who should be Mr. and Mr. Valentines Day Wrestling Couple 2012.

Backseat Driving

Yesterday I was full of myself sufficiently to presume to offer advice to the hardworking, creative minds at Rock Hard Wrestling. I’m such a backseat driver. Worse, I’m the first to admit that I’ve never in my life produced a homoerotic wrestling video, so I’m sure I can’t imagine the challenges of working with athletes, sets, lights, cameras, gear… Producers of homoerotic wrestling are always free to slap me upside the head and chew me out for second guessing them all the time.
Dane Tarsen v Leo Lessard – BG East’s Britbouts 2
One thing I recommended to RHW yesterday was that even without explicitly sexing it up, they’d probably speak even more provocatively to the gay wrestling kink crowd with some of the bread ‘n’ butter devices that signal a wrestling match is at the very least implicitly homoerotic, and not just latently. For example, some nipple torture seems to me to be a tried and true move that directly links dominating pain and homoerotic pleasure.
Chip Slater v Jeff Jordan – BG East’s Wrestlefest 2
Take Chip Slater and Jeff Jordan from BG East’s Wrestlefest 2 (I love that entire collection!). Chip is a notorious sadist who, I believe, never failed to crank on his opponent’s balls with awesome viciousness. Perhaps it was when Jeff had the temerity to grind Chip’s nose against his pec in a face-rearranging side headlock that Chip couldn’t help but notice the beautiful target of Jeff’s nipples. Sure enough, climbing on top and twisting until the hunk screamed, Chip latched onto Jeff’s nipple like a clothespin.
Shane McCall, who was in the audience for Wrestlefest 2, must have been taking notes. When Shane had a go at Jeff a while later for X-Fights 23, he seemed to be taking a long, hard look at Jeff’s sweaty pecs and shiny nips as Shane reveled in the sight of his domination in the mirror in front of him. Did Shane have a flashback to Chip’s assault on those very same big nipples?
Shane McCall v Jeff Jordan – BG East’s X-Fights 23

Whether or not it was an echo of Chip, Shane inevitably slapped Jeff to his back, immobilized the hunk’s right arm behind his neck and trapping Jeff’s left arm underneath Shane’s body. With Jeff’s big, round pecs completely vulnerable and open, Shane grabbed hold and cranked on the dial with gusto.

The pain contorting Jeff’s face juxtaposed with the wide eyed, enraptured joy on Shane’s face as he watches the fruits of his labors is absolutely smokin’ hot.

Dick the Prick v Patrick Donovan – BG East’s Ringwars 4

When Patrick Donovan faced Dick the Prick in Ringwars 4, you had to expect Patrick’s broad, sexy pecs and gorgeous nipples to be in the sights of the Prick. Pretty much everyone had a go at squeezing every ounce of suffering from Patrick around that point in his career. Tall, handsome, lanky but with aesthetically compelling muscle tone, Patrick was on the menu over and over again.

Which made it all the sweeter when Patrick laced those mile long legs around the Prick’s abdomen and trapped Dick’a arms over his head, in order to have an unobstructed angle to pinch the punk’s right nipple. You can just see the look of fierce concentration forming as Patrick begins to go to town. There were a lot more blunt forms of abuse that Patrick could have employed at that very point, but his choice to twist the Prick’s nips so methodically signals to me that this is far from being simply about beating his opponent. This is about the delivery of pain for both physical and sexual domination.

Bud Orton v Mark Nelson – BG East’s Wrestleshack 4

There was nothing but sexual domination that ever seemed to be on Bud Orton’s mind. Bud seemed to have a look about him as if he was perpetually moments away from an orgasm. Sweat soaked and aroused in Wrestleshack 4, he looks absolutely ravenous as his gaze fixes on Mark Nelson’s pecs.

Trapping Mark’s wrists behind his back, sure enough, Bud proceeds to torture his opponent’s nipple with his teeth. Of course, anything done with a wrestler’s mouth is going to be that much more homoerotic than if it were done with any other part of the body. RHW may want to pay it straighter than that, but the theory stays the same: some focused attention on nipples signals this is homoeroticism and not just latent sexuality disguised as macho aggression.

Rusty Stevens v Mitch Colby – BG East’s The Breaking Point

Examples are everywhere, of course. One of my favorite examples to illustrate pretty much anything is Rusty Stevens‘ clash of the titans with Mitch Colby in The Breaking Point. Rusty puts on a cocky, “I’m impervious” face to start any competition, but the display of his gorgeous body above seems to center his left nipple like a target.

And, indeed, Mitch takes aim and scores with a love/hate maneuver of simultaneous nipple twisting and kissing.

Kid Leopard v Rusty Behr – BG East’s Punishment 1

On and on, nipple torture has a long and storied role in the homoeroticism of homoerotic wrestling. So RHW (or any other wrestling company, for that matter) is welcome to tell me to go fuck myself for backseat driving. I’d totally understand. And yet, still, I must persist. Give me a little stronger dose of the homoerotic in my wrestling if you aim to really satisfy.

Deserving It

There’s a fascinating aspect to pro wrestling and, of more interest to me, the homoerotic wrestling genre, that focuses on the rules of engagement. Behavior that would be condemned outside the ring as anti-social, underhanded, or despicable can be transformed in a wrestling fantasy into it’s own brand of moral rightness. New rules apply inside the wrestling ring. As a result, we may (often) find ourselves rooting for the heel, cheering for the low blow, delighting in a battler taking sadistic advantage of a vulnerable and defeated opponent.
When Jeff Phoenix gets stood up by his tag partner, the golden boy with a crazy hot body cockily predicts that he can defeat both Jose and Cruze singlehandedly. Of course, Jose and Cruze are notorious cheaters. They’re bullies, sadists with credentials as long as their fight records, invariably happy to cut corners, pull trunks, torture opponents in the ropes, and revel in a completely unfair 2-on-1 mugging. And, frankly, from the moment handsome hardbody Jeff steps into the ring, I can’t wait to see him suffer.  He “deserves it” inside the ring in a way that doesn’t necessarily translate outside the ring. He’s too hot, too handsome, way too confident, and the only right thing to be done is for him to get beaten to a pulp, humiliated repeatedly, broken into a quivering mess in the middle of the ring, and left to pick up the pieces of his dignity. Outside the ring, a 2-on-1 cheating, humiliating beating of a hard working muscle man might seem “wrong,” but inside the ring, it’s ooooh-so-right.

If ever someone deserved it, Troy Baker did. I happily own his debut match for BG East, in which he teamed up with his brother. Troy’s character took a little while to develop, but even in that first match, we can see the seeds of his destruction. He’s beautiful. He’s stunningly built. He’s a little slow in piecing together some wrestling moves, but he’s supremely confident that his sheer strength and bright, white smile will earn him victory. In match after match, his self-love of his own beautiful body becomes his undoing, and there’s just nothing “righter” than watching him think that he’s got it in the bag, only to find himself suffering and destroyed at the hands of an “inferior” opponent.

Inside the ring, that’s the formula that demands brutal, humiliating destruction of the classic golden boy. Inside the ring, justice simply requires that a less stunningly developed, less beautiful, perhaps less “deserving” of victory heel beat the living shit out of Troy again, and again, and again. Outside the ring, good looks, blond hair, a hard, tight body, and a healthy dose of entitlement and confidence will generally be very well rewarded. Inside the ring, they require crushing defeat and prolonged humiliation.

I think the morality tales of straight-up pro probably work the same way, but I think homoerotically directed wrestling has an even more salient subtext. Someone like muscle-beautiful Zack Johnathan/Vazquez getting completely taken to school by “skinny” kid Brody Hancock, for example, lets me work out all sorts of long standing “issues” I have as a gay man. Outside the ring, the most beautiful, straight-laced, used-to-getting-their-way straight boys tend to prosper and receive more than a heaping helping of social approval. But inside the ring, at least for this gayboy, there’s something deeply satisfying about seeing the classic jock pummeled. It speaks to me powerfully to see the classic cards of strength, youth, and power stacked against an overmatched opponent, who with sheer audacity and ferocity, does whatever it takes to pull the rug out from under the muscled juggernaut. The morality tale, for me at least, has more than a hint of the skinny (or fat), disregarded and underestimated sissy who spits in the face of the bullying jock and exacts humiliating revenge for getting thrown into the lockers.

I think what’s so engaging for me about homoerotic wrestling is this notion of new rules that overturn the standard morality of polite society. Well, okay, there’s that, plus the gorgeous, hot hunks squeezing and dominating each other in (or out) of completely revealing gear that leads to or at least inspires me to imagine them fucking for days. But no, really, the chance to rewrite the rules, to turn conventional morality and wisdom on its head, makes so much of wrestling homo to me, even when no one literally gets fucked, just fucked up.

Prometheus Bound

What is the relationship between a homoerotic wrestling kink and bondage? Is the wrestling kinkster a subset of S&M bondage kink? Are they kissing (punching) cousins? Is it all the same, just packaged differently?
Like Prometheus bound or St. Sebastian, the image of a muscled hunk suffering in restraints is essentially homo-provocative, I think. Power captured, virility claimed, challenger conquered… the bound hardbody certainly tells a story that rings true (and rings my bell) to what gets me so hot and bothered about wrestling. The virile, arrogant young hot shot with all the confidence in the world in his powerful muscles and determination to be victorious is highly eroticized for me at the point that he is restrained, made vulnerable, and suffering in the humiliating realization that he has been bested.
The bound hunk shows up regularly in homoerotic wrestling. Is Paul Perris, with his arms bound at his sides in a rope and suffering the sadistic whims of Bart Tyler, essentially the same provocation that makes me hard at seeing Paul Perris body scissored, writhing and immobilized in pain? The wrestling hold is, after all, simply another means of binding a hot hunk in sweet vulnerability.
Still, I’m not so sure it’s all the same thing, at least not to me. Some days I’m hot for a hunk tied up like a rack of lamb, but somedays I’m not. My tastes for bondage with ropes, chains, shoelaces (etc., etc., etc.) are inconsistent. Justin Pierce finding himself literally tied in knots with the boxing tape that was moments ago wrapped protectively around his wrist is not always the scene that I keep rewinding over and over again to see until I’m driven irresistibly to climax. Sometimes it is, but not all the time.
But Brad Rochelle sobbing in pain cracked backward across any opponent’s knee is always, always, always instantly gratifying to me. The humiliation of Brad taped into the corner of the ring, hanging in unconscious humiliation between beatings is a sweet sight, but seeing the Enforcer tie him up with nothing more than Brad’s own arms twisted around his own neck like a Christmas bow is, without fail, guaranteed to make me salivate.
Affectively, then, the hunk bound and the hunk wrestle-bashed is not necessarily the same (again, at least for me). The elements are almost identical: the battler suffering, paralyzed, captured, and claimed. But the means of achieving his vulnerability seems to make a difference. Mr. Perpetual Erection, Dino Serra, is always in need of a severe spanking. Admittedly, suspended from the ceiling certainly displays his most impressive muscle more vividly than almost any other means of his destruction. Frequently, watching him be bound, stripped, and have his cock and balls worked over with sadistic glee is entirely filling: check please! But it isn’t as invariable as watching Dino’s erection get slapped around as he’s squeezed between the thighs of his grinning opponent.

Of course, sometimes the bondage with other than human restraints and the wrestling domination is indistinguishable. When
Brooklyn Bodwrecker and Shane McCall tape Brian Powers into the corner, and then proceed to drive Brian’s partner, Liam Ryan, inverted and crushed against him… well, where does the bondage begin and the wrestling humiliation end? For that matter, where does BBW begin and Shane McCall end? The scenario of immobilizing capture and sadistic humiliation is complex, creative, and frankly an impressive feat of physics and human ingenuity.

Perhaps it doesn’t really matter. If we just follow the lead of our cocks, I suppose like any form of art, we’ll know what tweaks our kink when we see it. Still, it all makes me wonder what is the essence of the wrestling kink that gives me (and so many of you) so much pleasure. Not all bondage does it for me, by any means. Even the bondage that does it for me a lot of the time doesn’t always do it for me. But wrestling hardbodies telling the story of cocky competition to decide who’s on top and who’s destined to suffer the humiliating defeat at the hands of the better man… these are always what gets my blood pumping in all the right directions.

…In Love and War

There are plenty of products out there showing gorgeous men in skimpy trunks grappling, dominating and submitting. Sometimes, though, I want a little more of the “homoerotic” in my homoerotic wrestling. Of course the dick slap across the face, or the post-match blow job or fuck gets to the point. But a little more subtle, and often much more erotic, is the wrestling kiss. When they pull out the liplock, suddenly I’m not trying to guess if these guys are actually gay or just toying with us. When one man’s tongue is shoved down another man’s throat, I don’t really care anymore.
I’m not referring to the post-victory seal of ownership, though that’s nice as well. But the aggressive or defensive kiss in the middle of a match is a really delicious plot twist. In the middle of Patrick Donovan’s domination of Brandon Aldrich in Mat Brats 1, Brandon employs a defensive liplock that derails the veteran Patrick. Pecboy Patrick returns the favor with a cranking headlock on Brandon, who’s flat on his back with Patrick’s tongue down his throat. Patrick breaks the liplock, explaining that any further reward for Brandon will require him to earn it through abject suffering.

Patrick’s no stranger to kissing as ring-plot. His partner in
Tag Team Torture 1 was the notorious kisser, Sean Patrick (in my mind I always wrote the backstory that these performers were lovers). In humiliation after humiliation suffered at the hands of heels Jose and Cruze, Patrick and Sean find themselves in naked, face-to-face, mirror-image camel clutches, with their lips shoved together in the middle of the ring (I confess I love this so much I wrote it into my fiction, with Adrian Pasdar and Milo Ventimiglia in a helpless liplock in the clutches of Sendhil Ramamurthy and Christopher Meloni). The choreography here is sweet. This isn’t the only time this device is used in BG East, but it’s certainly one of the sweetest. Cruz and Jose also torture the skinny studs in a remarkable naked, stacked, double camel clutch and boston crab that’s got to be seen to be believed.
Though Sean Patrick earned the moniker “The Kisser,” it must be said that Kid Vicious has got to be the master (of many things but in particular) of the aggressive match kiss. KV’s knack for using his wiry body to systematically pick to pieces his hot stud opponent’s is “mind”blowing all in itself. But his sadistic joy in wrapping his prey up in paralyzing positions and slapping a forced liplock on gets my motor running.

An astonishing tag moment near the top of my homoerotic wrestling favorites is the fantastic beatdown that the Brooklyn Bodywrecker and Shane McCall put on Liam Ryan and Brian Powers in Tag Team Torture 2. I think all tag team matches should include the overt storyline of teams of lovers fighting one another. After BBW made Shane is boy in Dark Knights 5, they show up clearly having sorted out their daddy/cub relationship. Liam and Brian similarly let us know that they had each other’s backs well before arriving in the ring. There’s a brief moment of fun when skinny boy Liam puts some ecstatic hurt on leatherboy BBW, but inevitably the heels slam the shit out of the Liam and Brian. Ultimately, Brian’s taped into one corner, and after having Liam’s face shoved in his partner’s crotch from every angle, the heels torture the skinny Irishman in the center of the ring. Near the final moment of victory, BBW gives his cub a treat by pinning Liam’s face against Shane’s crotch while the two heels enjoy some convincing making out. On paper, this may all sound like it runs thin, but I buy this from start to finish.

Sometimes my kink is just seeing guys beating the crap out of one another. Sometimes I’m really looking for some humiliation. But serve me up some genuine liplocks as aggression (or defense) in the wrestling ring, and I’m sold.