Voyeur

It is strange to watch a recording of oneself wrestling ; at least it is for me. I don’t watch myself often; I am much too critical of myself to endure this more than once in a great while. I look at myself on-screen and my eyes immediately go to every flaw; the slight pouch of flesh here, the-not-quite-as-defined-as-I-would-like muscles there, until the entire thing becomes an exercise in self-loathing neuroses. I wrestled for years before going in front of the cameras, so having a record of some of my matches, while lovely to have, is also…strange.

I tried writing about how surreal that is in a short story; I don’t remember which one, there are quite a few, but I don’t think I was able to really capture how disconcerting and weird it is to see yourself on your big screen TV in wrestling gear, fighting with another guy. I’ve taped some of my private matches, but as a general rule, I don’t watch them; they’re more of a memento of the match more than anything else.

It was quite strange watching the match with Mitch; what was even stranger about the match was I remembered so much of it wrong. I would have been willing to bet money that the match opened with him coming after me and tying me up in my T-shirt…but I wasn’t wearing one. And watching it…I also found myself wondering about missed opportunities; chances that I would have never passed up if I were wearing my mask. “Why didn’t I knee him in the side there? Why didn’t I choke him with my shorts after he smacked me with them? Why? Why? Why?”

I remember being a bit intimidated by his size; I remember thinking he was a good wrestler as we fought. I also remember that as the match wore on, it began to shift away from being about who could beat who and more about touch, and touching each other. It was kind of hard not to notice his muscularity, since he took every opportunity to flex his arms and back and chest and legs for me, as though daring me, willing me, to touch the hard muscle beneath the smooth, tanned skin.

And you know what? Who am I to say no to a feast of muscles put in my face?

And the wrestling became more erotic, more about touch and feel and pressing our bodies together and rubbing them against each other, all thoughts of winning and losing leaving our minds as the mattress, a former wrestling arena, became a playground for us…two wrestlers with new goals in mind.

And what a beautiful body I had to explore, right there at my fingertips.

And the camera faded to black…and what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

I do wish, though, we’d also done a match in the ring.

A Question of Lust

Once after a spectacularly fun, sweaty and erotic hour or so of wrestling with a wrestler buddy, as we lie naked together on his mats, drained and drenched in sweat, my head resting on his pecs, he said to me, with a bit of a laugh, “You know, wrestling is just another form of rough sex.”

And I realized it was true in many ways; wrestling videos certainly had long replaced pornographic ones for my viewing and masturbatory pleasure. My embrace of the erotic side of wrestling, and its place in my nature and desires, was deep and intrinsic. I often had to warn opponents, before hand, that I would get hard while we wrestled; the contact, the testosterone, the competition and struggle, would be a turn-on for me, but I also never expected anything sexual to come from the wrestling. It was a nice bonus, but wasn’t necessary.

So, there I was, on top of Mitch Colby in a hotel room in Vegas, listening to him breathe laboriously, struggling to get away, to get out from under the hold he was trapped inside, as I tweaked it ever so slightly in order to make it even more painful for him to continue resisting.

Wrestling Mitch, despite the fact it was a tough fight, was also turning me on. Maybe it was the fact the fight was so tough that it was a turn on? Was it an overpowering attraction I felt for him? This match was him at perhaps the physical peak of his body; this was arguably the hottest he ever looked.

He was bigger than me, he was stronger than me. Those shiny trunks hugged his pouch and ass beautifully. And even when I got control of the match and was able to dominate him for a while…he was able to take control back almost ridiculously easily.

And then he would flex  at me, posing, taunting me with his beautifully shaped and defined muscles.

And with his crotch in my face, his muscles flexing and his veins popping, winning the match became less of a concern…but I still wanted to get some punishment in.

But he ultimately proved to be too strong.

Are You Man Enough?

It was strange wrestling without the mask. I’d gotten so used to wearing it, and there was a strange sense of power connected with it; I like to think I’m a fairly nice guy in my day-to-day life, but once that mask went on I turned into someone else. I’d never seen myself as a heel, to be honest…but the Boss was smart enough to know that with a mask on, I’d bring out the nasty, sadistic son-of-a-bitch just below the surface.

I mean, you can see the difference:

 

Totally different in attitude, look, everything.

So there I was in a Las Vegas hotel room, no mask, getting my ass handed to me by Mitch Colby. He’d gotten two quick submissions out of me, and this match was definitely not going to the way I wanted it to, the way I’d pictured it, the way I’d thought about it.

Then he dragged my workout shorts off me and slapped me with them a couple of times, laughing.

Laughing. At me.

Nobody laughs at Cage Thunder.

Time for a little turnabout is fair play.

Submit, bitch.

Viva Las Vegas

It finally happened when I was in Las Vegas. I couldn’t believe it. After he emailed and set up the match–what were the odds, really, that we would both be in Las Vegas at the same time? I mean, really–I wasn’t entirely convinced it was actually going to happen. So many near misses, so many missed chances, and now, in Las Vegas, no mask?

 

I got the room set up, and then it was time to wait. And wait. And wait.

I fucking hate waiting.

And then came the knock on the door. I got up, opened the door, and there he was. My heat was pounding. He was wearing shorts, sunglasses (at night, of course), and a black wife beater. He gave me that smirk from that day at the photo shoot, and sneered at me as he took the sunglasses off, “are you ready for me?”

I was. We bumped chests, and then he sent me flying with a shove, backwards onto the mattress I’d set up as our wrestling arena, and as I got back to my feet, he took off his shorts and started taking off his shirt.

He’d gotten under my skin yet again, and I went after him before he had the shirt off.

Yup. I played right into his hands. He was ready for me, expecting it, and was able to use my anger and frustration against me.

Before I knew what was happening, I’d already submitted twice. And I was still wearing my fucking workout shorts.

Mother fuck.

And as you can see from the pictures, he was clearly enjoying making me eat some of the shit I’d been talking on social media…

And you know how good he looks in pictures and on video?

He actually looks better in person.

 

to be continued….

Photographs

As my obsession with wrestling Mitch Colby grew, as the heat on social media and on the blogs for this match continued to build, something else happened that was insult to injury; gasoline on a slowly moldering fire.

A photographer–and a good one, at that–had reached out to me about doing a Cage photo shoot with him the next time I was in Florida. As I was also writing, in my spare time, a book about gay wrestling which I would eventually publish under Cage’s name, I thought, what a great idea. I modeled some when I was younger, and I got myself into shape.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that not only was I going to be doing the shoot, but I was going to be joined by Mitch Colby.

You can’t fit it into your schedule to wrestle me, but you can do a photo shoot with me?

Insult added to injury; the shoot was at the ring BGEast was using at the time to tape matches.

In all honesty, the photo shoot was a lot of fun. He was a good guy, we got along well, and even had a few laughs. And there was some chemistry.

So, why the delay in scheduling? Why was it not happening? I was mystified, confused. But then again, looking back on the whole thing, I now think he was just trying to get inside my head.

That’s an important trick in wrestling; if you can get inside your opponent’s head, it’s half the battle. He was driving me crazy, and I was getting incredibly frustrated.

And when the shoot was done, he smirked at me and said, “okay, we’ll do this. But not in a ring and you don’t wear a mask.”

Fucking finally.

Got a Hold on Me

There is nothing we want so much as that what we cannot have, what is denied to us. The grass is always greener, that promotion we didn’t get would have made everything perfect,  the one that got away…it’s a theme in literature and film and music that never wears out, never becomes tired, because it’s something we can all relate to; every human being has wanted something they couldn’t get. Moby Dick, for example, is about Captain Ahab’s obsession with the great white whale; The Great Gatsby, Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy Buchanan, on and on and on, one after another another, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

My great white whale was turning out to be Mitch Colby. The more I wanted the match, the more it moved just out of my grasp.

And insult to injury, it seemed like every fucking new catalogue had yet another Mitch Colby match in it.

The guys on the message boards worshiped him like he was Apollo come to earth. The bloggers waxed euphoric about his physical perfection, his skills, how he filled his trunks.

Meantime, I seethed.

He wrestled everyone, big or small, pro or mats, inside or outside.

Everyone but me.

So I started calling him Mitch the Bitch, and it kind of caught on with the other guys.

It happens.

(to be continued)

Start Me Up

So I wanted to wrestle Mitch Colby. Badly. I wanted to see how we’d match up, how it would go, who would come out on top.

That’s what wrestling is, and always has been: a competition between two men, the only weapon their bodies, to see whose strength, skill, agility, and ability is the better. As with any contest, some luck also comes into play; an accidental slip, a momentary loss of focus, or even temporary distraction for even just a split second can be the difference between victory and loss.

Yet despite my eagerness for this match to happen, it didn’t. Delays, excuses, scheduling issues; it was always something. And you begin to wonder, what the fuck is the problem here? Am I not GOOD enough for Mr. Musclehead?

Well, fuck you too.

So, I started calling him out on the BGEast message boards.

And the name Mitch kind of lends itself to Bitch, doesn’t it?

Adonis Rising

His star rose quickly once his first match debuted.

It’s easy to see why. Not only was the body extraordinary, evidence of hours of hard work and careful diet planning, but the face was handsome as well. Dark blond hair and bright blue eyes, an enormous smile and dimples you could sink a finger into up to the first knuckle…yes, the fans responded with cash and erections and worshipful blog posts and messages on the BGEast fan lists.

Oh, yes, his star shone brightly. And he was a good wrestler, too. He was just as at home on the mats or the gazebo or the pool or the yard or the ring–something that not every wrestler had the ability to do. He was also ridiculously photogenic.

Every time I watched one of his matches, I thought, we need to do this.

We faced some of the same wrestlers, and yet…

I wanted a ring match more than anything….he wanted a mat match.

And so began the tug of war, the war of words, and the feud.

The Sin of Narcissus

In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope; which I suppose would have made him a demi-god? Narcissus was beautiful; known far and wide for it, so beautiful that people often fell madly in love with him just by seeing him. Narcissus, however, never loved anyone back and in fact, held his admirers in contempt. Nemesis, seeing this pride and disdain in him, lured him to a reflecting pool; Narcissus caught sight of his own reflection and fell in love with his own image…to the point he refused to leave and eventually wasted away.

It’s easy to imagine Narcissus looking like Mitch Colby.

This debut, against Alexi Adamov at arguably his most sexy, was most auspicious. As much as I lusted after Alexi, as much as I wanted him to face me in the ring, I kept having my eyes drawn back to the ripped, older muscle hunk packed into a tiny neon orange and yellow bikini that didn’t disguise the big bulge in the front and showed off the hard muscle ass in the back.

And the sweat. My God, he was drenched in it, making every definition in his glistening muscles that much more obvious.

Alexi was also a big time sweat-monster. So it wasn’t long before both of them were soaking wet, slaking it off themselves as they fought nastily on the mats in the gazebo. Alexi, despite rarely winning a match, is intimidated by no one, doesn’t ever back down, and has crazy mad skills.

Alexi is not, as I have said before, a small guy. Neither is Mitch. There’s some trash talking as they check each other out, see who’s bigger…and of course, Alexi points out that Mitch is older: “What are you man, in your forties?”

As someone who had just starting wrestling for BGEast at forty-five…that made me want to see the blue-eyed blond put a major hurt on Sexy Alexi…as well as put one on him myself.

Mitch and Sexy Alexi were pretty evenly matched, despite the size and age advantage going to Alexi. It’s a great battle, back and forth, lots of action and lots of brutality…and lots of beautiful bodies being put through the ringer.

Look at those muscles, glistening with sweat.

And never mistake Alexi for a jobber whose an easy beatdown. He fights dirty, too.

And when I finished watching…I wanted to fight them both.

Muscle

I think it was in the late fall of 2006 that Mitch Colby made his BGEast debut. This was back in that time after Hurricane Katrina, when I’d jumped into underground pro-wrestling with both feet and was traveling a lot; having matches everywhere I went and had already done my first work with BGEast. I’d also started writing up matches for the on-line catalogues; rough drafts that were polished and revised for the better by the Boss before they went live. As someone who’d already by that time become a huge fan of Sexy Alexi, you can imagine my thrill to get the preview of Wrestler Spotlight: Alexi Adamov in the mail to write copy for; and when I got to the third match…I was stunned to see his opponent, Mitch Colby.

 

Wow, right? That tiny little day-glo orange bikini with the yellow trim would come to be known as his trademark gear.

Alexi wasn’t exactly looking like a slouch, himself.

Alexi has always looked great. He was already putting on some of the size I’d see looking at me from across the ring a few months after this was filmed. And I’d seen Colby’s transformation already; he was on a couple of wrestling websites already. He’d been huskier, but had trimmed down and gotten ripped.

And they were meeting in the gazebo on a hot, humid afternoon.

Which meant sweat.

And a lot of it.