Ring of Fire

Jobe Zander is a force to be reckoned with. Just ask him, he’ll tell you. But the guy has crazy mad skills, a great body, and is pretty sexy. Ask him, he’ll tell you.

The day of our match, I walked in on him reading fan email on his laptop in the locker room. I was wearing that leather outfit the Boss got for me, remember this?

Jobe being Jobe, he made some Halloween crack about my outfit that I couldn’t let pass.

You see, that’s the thing about bulges. They make great targets. So I slammed his laptop shut on his, tossed him around a bit and threw him into the ring. I also knew this gear I was wearing wouldn’t work–too many things to grab onto, and never give your opponent something they can use against you–so I changed while he writhed in agony in the ring.

I’ve always been able to get into and out of my clothes pretty fucking fast.

I liked these new gold trunks I had, so I thought I’d break them in on Jobe.

I was beating on him pretty good there for a while.

But you can’t ever get over-confident, especially with a skilled and experienced pro like Jobe.

Cuz them tables can get turned pretty fucking fast.

 

The Centerpiece

Arrogance has always been a mainstay for professional wrestling. Almost every promotion has had some wrestler whose incredible arrogance made the viewers hate him, regardless of talent, skill level, or body–and despite their skill, almost always lost. Heels are always arrogant but there was also that heel who somehow always managed to lose to a face (someone the audience loved; a good guy hero who usually feuded with the main star heels over titles and ethics and ‘cheating’; while they weren’t jobbers per se, they didn’t win matches very often but were there to build up the resume of the hero). When I watched Georgia Championship Wrestling in the 1980’s, there was one whose name I can’t remember, but he had a great body and long hair bleached blond. I want to say it was Chip something, but I know that was wrong. Let me consult the Google.

Ah, Chic Donovan. I was close

.

Jobe Zander is sort of that same type, at least when he first came to BGEast. Handsome and sexy–and that bulge! But the arrogance…oy.

And dat ass.

He also made his already hot body over, but that’s a subject for another time.

Jobe and I had some fun back-and-forth on the BGEast list-serve for a while…he proudly displayed his arrogance and so I couldn’t resist.

The end result? The Boss scheduled us to wrestle in the ring in the spring after my trip to Las Vegas.

The Boss originally had me in this gear:

While it was hot, it wasn’t exactly practical for fighting in the ring, especially with an arrogant ass with no respect for the rule like Jobe….

(to be continued)

Trunks, Part One: Bulges

In the world of wrestling, let’s face it–one of the appeals, at least to me, is tight fitting trunks that leave little to the imagination. When I was a kid, watching pro wrestling was my porn because it was one of the few times I could see male bodies with bare chests and bare legs. The bodies, of course, weren’t always the best; male body consciousness didn’t begin until much later and didn’t cross over into professional wrestling until even later than that.

One of my earliest crushes was Bruno Sammartino.

He was one of the hottest wrestlers of the period. Thickly muscled, hairy, and there was always a tantalizing bit of a bulge in his trunks. He was the ultimate daddy, frankly, even though I didn’t know what a daddy was at the time.

And then, of course, there was Kevin Von Erich. Those legs! That lean muscled body! He was not built like any other wrestler, and he remained an obsession for me for years. And in those yellow trunks, again, there was a bulge.

Most wrestlers of the period didn’t have bulges in their trunks. I think this had something to do with what they wore under their trunks; modesty in the 1960’s and 1970’s world of professional wrestling was still a thing. Their trunks were also high-waisted (see above) so you couldn’t see what are now called “cum gutters” and they also didn’t highlight asses. The cheeks were completely covered, and again, the waistline was so high they sometimes made the ass look flat (or maybe the ass was flat; you never know). Pro wrestling was “family entertainment” and not supposed to be masturbatory fantasy material for gay men.

BGEast, however, which has always billed itself as being for gay men, has had some amazing bulges throughout its history.

Cruze, of course, was one of my earlier favorites. He was also pretty hung; and wasn’t afraid to strip down completely for the cameras.

Jose was another one–a nasty heel, one of the nastiest to ever grace the mats and ring at BGEast, he was also hung like a horse and loved to show it off.

Josh Goodman and myself were no slouches, either.

And then there’s Jobe “The Centerpiece” Zander.

The next time I went in front of the cameras, it was Mr. Centerpiece himself I saw across the ring from me.

(to be continued)

Leaving Las Vegas

In one of those wonderful moments of serendipity, I had a speaking engagement in Las Vegas the same weekend BGEast was taping there. And guess who else was in town that weekend?

Yup, none other than Josh Goodman.

I actually taped two matches while I was in Las Vegas, but getting to wrestle Mr. Joshua was a dream come true for me.

So I actually got to wrestle two muscle gods in Las Vegas…but I digress. We’re talking about Josh Goodman here. I’ll tell you about the other one some other time, if you’re lucky and you play your cards right.

With all due respect, I didn’t look too bad at the time myself.

And I gave him some competition in the bulge department, too.

But still, it’s not hard to think you don’t look so great when you’re standing next to Mr. Joshua. I mean…his body is pretty fucking outstanding. In fact, when I first saw him in his trunks, I thought yeah maybe I should stop eating carbs.

Sigh.

I have to say, though, this match is one of my favorites. Josh is a lot of fun to wrestle; and he definitely put me through the ringer physically. I mean…

I mean, fucking ouch.

But I am a firm believer in turn about being fair play, you know? If you dish it out, you’d best be able to take it.

And you know, when you’re wrestling someone with a body like that, ripped and big and strong, there are just so many viable targets.

You do it to me, I do it to you.

And maybe I did target that bulge a bit. It was just sitting there, waiting for it, you know?

What a great match! The other two matches on Motel Madness 13 are pretty great, too. Check it out.

 

The Body Beautiful

Josh (that’s MR. JOSHUA to you!) Goodman has had one of the longest running careers in BGEast History.

Being fucking gorgeous doesn’t hurt.

Well, the blonde tips weren’t the best hair choice, but look at that body.  I mean, LOOK at that body.

He also looks good from behind.

I’m not really sure which of his matches was the first I watched, or when I became a fan, but I know I really enjoyed his match with Brick Burnett, Undagear 10. It was a great match, two hot guys, and they wound up stripped down to thongs, as I recall. I watched that one until the tape wore out.

I was also a big fan of his match with The Brooklyn Bodywrecker on the Josh Goodman Spotlight DVD.

And of course, there’s the bulge.

You can’t  help but notice it; I once jokingly referred to it as “the third wrestler.” He’s won the fan vote for Best Bulge a number of times. It is impressive, and without fail, he’ll reach into his trunks and adjust it several times in every match. Josh is arrogant, handsome and chiseled, and even when he is getting his ass kicked, he goes down arrogant. He’s at home in every venue–ring, matron, gazebo, wrestleshack, backyard–and always is in perfect physical condition. He’s got crazy mad skills, and keeps up the arrogant patter in that thick Boston accent nonstop.

He was on my list of BGEast wrestlers I wanted to fight, and it actually happened.

Next: Motel Madness 13

Big Boy Beatdown

I ain’t gonna lie–I love guys that are bigger than me. I don’t know what that’s about (and to be fair–I also find guys my size or smaller hot, too), but I’ve always been drawn to big guys. I guess I’ve always had a fantasy about someone taking control of me, dominating me, and fucking me senseless.

Drew Russell is one sexy dude, and he was a lot bigger than me. 6’4 and about 220 pounds to my 5’11 185 pounds. But having already wrestled him in the tag match, I knew our one-on-one rematch would be a beat down. Big time. I also got to wear this outfit:

I was in pretty good shape at the time, too.

Poor Drew didn’t stand a chance.

The thing about wrestling someone with that much size on you is…well, you have to be aggressive. You have to take the fight to them, and never give them a chance to let them use their size against you. Because if you let them, you’re done…and once they’ve got you down, you might not ever come back.

So, I may have took him by surprise a little bit. But hey, if you’re not prepared for everything, that’s on you.

Seriously, expect anything and everything.

And once I had the upper hand on him…with a couple of exceptions, I never let it go.

I also took those stupid blue squares off him–he looked better in the pink bikini anyway–and choked him with him.

It was hot. Someone had done that to me in a private match–taken my trunks off, rubbed them all over my face, and then choked me with them, and it was so amazingly hot, and dominating. Having your own ball sweat rubbed on your face is a lot more humiliating than having you foe rub his crotch on your face. Choking him with his own trunks turned me on, to be honest…his body was already turning me on…and while the match wasn’t supposed to have any erotic elements in it..I couldn’t help exploring his body a bit with my hands when I got the chance. I sucked a bit on his nipples a couple of times.

He didn’t mind.

His pecs were a great target.

He did get me into a head scissors at one point, clamping those thick thighs around my head and making me smell the man-musk of his sweaty crotch. It was fine…I like being head scissored; it’s a big turn on for me.

Turn about, though, is fair play.

He also got me into a brutal bear hug later–but I like being bear hugged. Again, know your opponent if you want to beat him, and don’t apply holds he enjoys being in.

Drew was a hot guy. He got put through the ringer–besides me and the tag match, he also  got in the ring with Cole Cassidy. Maybe that’s why he didn’t do more matches for BGEast.

Ah, well.

The above match is on Jobberpalooza 10, if you want to see how it all played out.

Flexibility

I am, as I said, freakishly flexible.

I am not, of course, nearly as flexible as I was. When I wrestled for BGEast, I was still pretty flexible, but nothing like when I was younger.

I started stretching in high school, when I went out for football. I was always surprised at how much more flexible I was than the other boys. I could do back bends, the splits, and never pulled a muscle…never really needed to stretch much as anything other than a warm-up. I took a Gymnastics class in my Kansas high school, and that’s when I really developed my flexibility. I remember the teacher–who’d gone to college on a gymnastics scholarship–told me that had I started when I was young, I might have had a shot at the Olympics. And while I wasn’t a savant about gymnastics–a stunt had to make sense in my head before i could do it, but once the skill clicked, it was easy for me. I could do aerial cartwheels, back handsprings, back flips, back walk-overs…oddly enough, I never could really do anything forward. My back got so flexible, in fact, that I could do a back bend, then walk my hands in and grasp my ankles. I was a cheerleader in college, and I could jump really high–I could do toe touches easily, and I could also do a C jump; the idea is to leap into the air, throw your hands back and curl your legs into a C. I could touch my feet to my head doing that. I could do an arabesque; standing on one foot and bringing my left leg up behind until I could grasp the ankle with both hands and pull it up over my head (in figure skating, it’s called a spiral; if they also spin in that position, it’s called a Bielmann).

But because I was so naturally flexible, and worked at it for several years, I never really needed to stretch much the older I got. I am still more flexible than probably at least 90% of men my age; and I am so flexible that I often can’t get as good a stretch as I need by myself; pro wrestling was a godsend in that regard.

Because, of course, many holds and moves really are just your opponent stretching you. As you can see in the above picture, if put in an over-the-knee backbreaker, if I am positioned correctly, my back will hinge and arch and I can put my forehead on the mat while my feet are also flat on the floor.

It also feels really good.

Obviously, I am not as flexible as I was; the older I’ve gotten the muscles have tightened up some and since I have never gotten into a routine of stretching, I haven’t been able to maintain it. That’s one of the things I miss about not having regular matches; they used to keep me stretched.

Heels loved to wrestle me because I could bend and stretch so much more than most wrestlers. I remember stretching before matches and watching the heel’s eyes get enormous, practically salivating as they realized the kinds of things they could do to me without worry of injuring me.

As a heel, one of my major disappointments has always been the lack of flexibility in most guys I’ve wrestled. When someone’s back just doesn’t bend and is incredibly stiff, you have to be a lot more careful when applying a Camel clutch or a backbreaker. I was often amazed at how rigid so many guys with otherwise amazing bodies were.

Flexibility is also a key component to fitness, and it’s one that most men ignore, to their own detriment. The three measures of fitness as strength, cardiovascular, and flexibility. The more you work on your flexibility, the more stretch your muscles can take, the long the muscle fibers are and the more easily blood and oxygen can flow through them…which means they will grow AND become stronger much more quickly than if they aren’t supple. Again, this is a genetic fluke, a gift from my DNA–if I weren’t naturally flexible, which had led to an interest in Gymnastics, I would be no different than anyone else. But that flexibility helped me with my muscle development, helped my body work my efficiently to burn fat and get lean, and helped, frankly, build my thighs so that I had a nice, round, tight hard ass.

I was always told my ass was my best feature.

I’ve always felt it was my flexibility, but I was always happy to take compliments on my ass.

What do you think?

Tagging

Growing up, tag teams matches were always fun to watch. I loved the idea of double-teaming a helpless opponent, the way some teams seemed to work together seamlessly, and it was always a fantasy of mine to do a tag match. I never had the chance to do so privately; finding a single opponent is hard enough without trying to coordinate a match involving three other people. Hell, even coordinating a tag match for the cameras isn’t easy; I did at least one planned tag match that devolved because someone didn’t show up–pity the poor opponent who took on me and my partner alone.

But that’s a tale for another time.

I flew down to Fort Lauderdale for a taping at the BGEast Southern compound the day after Thanksgiving. I wasn’t sure it was wise getting in front of the cameras after spending the previous day stuffing myself on my mother’s cooking, but you don’t say no when the Boss summons you. I was also a bit excited because this would be my first taping wearing the mask.

In other words, becoming the heel I was meant to be.

In all honesty, I never saw myself as a heel; but the Boss saw me in a picture wearing a mask as a joke and reinvented me on the spot. It was this picture, I believe:

The whole outfit was meant to be just funny, really; another wrestler had given me the trunks and when I showed them to one of my buddies, he pulled out the mask and gloves and we took a set of pictures. I sent one to the Boss as a joke…and thus the masked heel was born.

I wasn’t sure who was on the roster for me to tape with that weekend, but I met my buddy Maxx Thunder at the airport.

I was pretty thrilled to find out I was going to meet–and wrestle–Alexi that weekend.

When I met him I was surprised. He was a lot bigger than I’d thought. For some reason, I thought he was maybe my height and weight, if not smaller. I was WRONG, by a long shot. He was 6’4 and was in a bulking phase, so was weighing in around 220. I am 5’11, and at the time was maybe 185 on a heavy day.

And his tag partner, Drew Russell, was about the same size.

I was the runt in the ring.

This match was a lot of fun, and I had been right about Alexi–he had mad ring skills, was tough, and JFC, was he ever strong. Maxx and I were having a great time beating them down when Alexi pulled the rug out from under me–literally–slamming to the mat back-first…and then kept working over my back.

Hey, I’m freakishly flexible, but even I have limits.

And for someone who got his ass kicked a lot, he sure liked to taunt and humiliate me.

I eventually submitted to the bastard. In the next go round, I had to go back and meet him in the ring again, and once again…it looked like I was a goner until my buddy Maxx, like a true partner, came to my rescue.

And all was right with the world again.

I’ve always regretted not having a one-on-one fight with Sexy Alexi.

 

Russia Boy

Ah, Sexy Alexi.

Nice, right? Not a damned thing wrong there, not a single flaw. An almost boyishly innocent face, chiseled torso, thick arms, nice legs…the bulge isn’t a disappointment, either.

Sexy Alexi first appeared at BGEast during The Contract series, I believe–at least that’s when he first came to my attention–and my second thought was I want to get in the ring with him (the first was Jesus fucking Christ what a stud). 

My third thought was, damn, Brad Rochelle looks amazing in those skimpy trunks.

And then there’s that ass, right?

The premise of The Contract series was that Brad–long one of the company’s biggest stars and whipping boys (he without fail seemed to always get his ass kicked; he and his gorgeous body always suffered so beautifully)–agreed to come back to BGEast only under certain conditions and circumstances, which he wanted spelled out in a contract. The Boss, being the Boss, initially agreed, only to turn the biggest heels in the company loose on Brad, now trapped in the compound. (This series may have also been The Enforcer’s debut.) But when the Boss went off to Florida…Brad took over and took control and released his own inner heel. Poor Alexi showed up for an audition…and it wasn’t long before Alexi had taken Brad’s place as sexiest sufferer in the company. I always enjoyed watching him suffer…and it wasn’t like he wasn’t a great wrestler, either. He just never seemed to be able to hold it together to win. His match with Jonny Firestorm in the yard was a particular favorite of mine.

God, he’s gorgeous.

So, when I started getting in front of the cameras he was on my wish-list….

(to be continued)

 

Head Lock

One of the first matches from BGEast that I ever owned was Ultra Fight 2: Brad Rochelle v. Scott Williams. I will admit that most of my initial tapes from BGEast were passed on to me from someone else who’d bought them and didn’t want to watch them anymore; this was one of the first I paid for. Another on-line friend in the early days of AOL had told me that if I liked scissors, this was a match I had to see. Money was scarce for me back in those days, but I treated myself to the tape when I got paid for writing a piece for a local magazine.

Brad Rochelle was one of the biggest stars BGEast ever had; that body! That face! The flexibility! The suffering! He suffered a lot, too…he was always, it seemed, getting beaten up by someone with an equally impressive body. No one suffered quite the way Brad did…and no one filled out a speedo quite the way he did, either. In this match, as you can see, he wore purple squares.

Scott Williams only taped four matches for BGEast; this one, one with Bryan Walsh, one with Bud Orton, and one with Doug Ward. It’s a pity. He was one of the few who didn’t get rid of all his body hair, which showed off his long, lean, chiseled muscular body perfectly. He also had a great attitude, and a deep, masculine voice. He also was a skilled wrestler, and this match–in the matroom at the BGEast North compound, was a sweaty, non-stop back-and-forth battle with lots of shit talking and some amazing action.

Doesn’t that look like fun?

BGEast also used to sell photo sets from their matches; in the days before the Arena and the Internet got really going. I bought this photoset–probably still have it somewhere.

I never got a chance to wrestle Brad during his long tenure with BGEast; but so many of his matches are classics, and the series The Contract, which was his last hurrah, is worth owning in its entirety.

I have wrestled Scott a few times privately…he was the first person I ever met from BGEast, and we always had a great time. Well, at least I did.