I’m Still Standing

Every match is a lesson.

As I said before, one of the biggest lessons I learned from getting in the ring with Cole Cassidy, heel extraordinaire, was to always leave something in reserve. Don’t use all your energy and all your best moves because one that’s gone you are fucking done.

So, yeah, I got to put Cole through some of my best holds and moves.

But he had something in reserve–and all it took was a low blow (or two) to flip the switch on a match which I thought I had won and in the bag.

Filed under being a nice guy and fighting fair in the ring is fucking stupid.

And let’s face it, when your balls hurt, there’s not much else you can fucking do–another valuable lesson from the master.

Yeah, this isn’t going to end well.

Told ya. And this was just the fucking start, bitches.

Final, and most important lesson: the match ain’t over unless your opponent is out cold.

The first step on my path to becoming a heel myself was finished.

Ole King Cole

When I first started doing pro wrestling, I was told, “look at every match as a learning experience.  The only way to get better is to learn.”

So, what did I learn from wrestling Cole Cassidy?

I learned that he knew a variety of ways to bend my body into insanely twisted shapes, for one.

I also learned that an expert heel always has a reserve left in the tank–no matter what you’ve done to them, no matter how much pain you’ve put them in, no matter if you’ve wrung some submissions out of them–you pretty much have to knock them out to claim the win, because they’ll always, like Jason or Michael Meyers, rise from the dead even more energized than before.

They feed off being punished.

And despite what you might read on the website’s write-up of this match, I wasn’t a complete practicing dummy for Mr. Cassidy. I got some licks in.

TO BE CONTINUED

Mr. Big Stuff

Making Austin Cooper, with his thick, defined muscles and twinkling eyes and terrific smile, look small is not an easy thing to do.

And yet…Cybertron accomplishes this feat with aplomb.

I mean….

One of the most interesting things I’ve discovered over the years is how difficult it is to gauge size with wrestlers, and that is really a credit to the wrestlers themselves first, and to the videography staff at BGEast. Guys who seem to be huge on camera will turn out to be much smaller than I imagined…which is a testament to charisma and star power, really; appearing larger than life when they go in front of the cameras. I’ve always had this sense that Austin is tall and big–because, in still photos, action shots, and on camera, he fills the frame so you can’t take your eyes off him. Based on the first impression I had of him–the match with Jake Jenkins I talked about in an earlier post–I figured Jake was probably around 5’9 and weighed about 180, with Austin a few inches taller at six foot and probably, give or take, 200 pounds. But according to the website, Austin is a mere 5’9, which probably puts Jake a little shorter.

It’s weird to think I’m taller than Austin.

Anyway, this Hunkbash 20 battle between these two beautifully constructed specimens lived up to all my expectations.

For an all out squash (or hunkbash, if  you will) to be entertaining, you need two things: a heel who is good at what he does, and a jobber who is gorgeous and suffers beautifully. It is very easy for these types of matches to become a yawn fest very quickly. There are only so many holds and moves and variations, after all; an unskilled heel will inevitably just start repeating the same moves and holds over and over; a jobber who can’t sell or thinks he’s pretty enough to just lay there and take it without putting any effort into it will spoil a match pretty fucking fast.

But this is not one of those matches; Cooper can pretty much do anything in front of the cameras–I’ve seen him heel with the same flair with which he jobs, and he is as adept in the ring as he is on the mats or in the gazebo or pretty much anywhere he’s put.

And the superb physique doesn’t hurt, nor does the expressive face.

And matching him up with a brutal ringmaster like Cybertron was just simply genius. Cybertron’s hulking size (“you ARE the Brute Squad!”) is, as I’ve said, is impressive enough, and again, big strong hulking heels can depend on their size and a few holds and moves to dominate smaller opponents while putting the viewer to sleep.

Not Cybertron.

He relishes beating the shit out of Austin–that’s very clear very early–and he is incredibly skilled. The holds and moves he uses on Austin are all familiar to the pro wrestling aficionado; but he alters them slightly to make them new and even more painful–a tweak here, a twist there–and this creativity only serves to make this match a classic.

The creative use of the ropes in this match is awe-inspiring.

And they both sweat buckets.

Highly recommended. I’ll be revisiting this match a lot.

On the Dark Side

I love pro wrestling, obviously.

Most of my time at BGEast was spent as a heel–and I was a damned good one, thank you very fucking much–but I’ve also enjoyed jobbing. I like seeing how much I can take–and I can take a fucking lot.

I can’t remember if it was on Ringside at Skull Island or Bard who reviewed one of my matches and described me as freakishly flexible, but it’s true: I am freakishly flexible, always have been. Maybe not as much as when I was younger (as a teen and in my early twenties I probably could have worked as a contortionist), but still more than most.

Legs, too.

As I first started moving from the promission style to being more of a straight-up pro-style wrestler, my flexibility made heels salivate…imagine wrestling someone who not only can bend but relishes it.

So, I jobbed a lot. Sometimes I heeled–some guys are just determined jobboys, which is fine; I love them all–but mostly, guys wanted to try moves and holds on me that they couldn’t use on most wrestlers….and I was happy to oblige.

Yeah, I used to get stretched and lifted and battered and tied into knots pretty regularly. Going in front of the cameras at BGEast was what turned me into a heel.

I also relished that. I mean, is there anything hotter than a beaten down muscle stud who is completely at your mercy, helpless to do anything other than moan and beg for respite? A respite which only you can decide whether or not he will actually get?

I think not.

Control. Domination.

It’s fucking fun.

On the other hand, being controlled and dominated is also fun.

Yeah, I need to get back in the ring.

Wild Heart

Hello, Mike Columbo.

Isn’t he an eyeful of masculine pulchritude?

Mike Columbo was one of my first crushes amongst BGEast wrestlers, and looking at him, it’s not hard to see why. Those thick thighs! The arms, shoulders, perfect pecs, and abs!

And then there was the ass.

Spectacular, right? You would be hard-pressed to find an ass quite so perfectly formed and shapely. Probably one of the most magnificent of all the gluteal areas ever in action for the company, he was also handsome. His face was usually serious, especially in the ring or on the mats or wherever he pitted himself against his latest foe, but sometimes there was a ghost of a smile on his face.

And that would bring out dimples.

Sometimes he was a brutal heel, others he was overmatched and beaten down, suffering in exquisite, delicious agony.

I always wondered how long I could hold out against his head scissors, with those magnificent thighs and that shapely muscle-ass flexing and putting on pressure.

His match with Buster Bergeron was a classic.

In fact, I think I’ll watch it again.