Match 130: The Deliverer vs James the Never Give Up Kid (Review)

I don't mind blood, but I'm happier with sweat and tears.  As long as the wrestlers grunt and groan, I am perfectly okay without the roar of a crowd.  As far as I'm concerned you can keep the pyrotechnics, the entrance music, and the superhero costuming--but that's just me.  I like muscle (okay, I love muscle), but two regular guys with attitude and a lot of heart do it for me too. 

UCW's done a lot with its minimalist approach to fight vids.  A single claustrophobic set, covered in plastic, and two guys willing to throw caution to the wind to put some hurt on each other.  It's pretty much all I require to get my juices flowing.

Up to now, UCW has specialized in slender wrestlers, young college guys with a love for a variety of martial arts, but who are game for old-fashioned rasslin and gut-punching too, so long as it pays for skyrocketing tuition fees and overpriced textbooks.  There's talk of UCW moving on to ring wrestling--there's even a PayPal kitty for donations to that end--and that's a day I look forward to, keeping faith that change is basically a good thing and that BodySlam, UCW's boss and mastermind, has the sense not to muck up the good thing he already has.  I even look forward to the day UCW hires some cruiserweights (my weight class, in other words), but that will take some time, I'm sure.

Now The Deliverer steps to the line.  He's not huge, but he's big by UCW standards.  At 172 pounds, he is, along with El Chulo, the heaviest fighter on the roster.  The next in line is another newby, Crazy Kevin, at 170.  In this match, The Deliverer's got almost 30 pounds on his opponent, James the Never Give Up Kid, who's an inch shorter.  And when we're talking wrestlers who are under 200 pounds, 30 pounds is a significant weight difference.

The Deliverer's got a proud round gut, too, that's just begging for somebody to just try and take a shot at it.  Already I'm salivating.

James takes early control of the big guy, mainly by working his left arm, wearing him down, cutting him down to size in the calm, methodical way James has of doing such things.

As so often happens in such ordeals, a shot to the balls turns the tide.  The Deliverer shows promise.

It turns out that maybe James was punishing the wrong arm, as Deliverer throws some piston-like punches to the abs with his right.  The new guy has some pretty big gunz to fire, too, and he shows them off to James after James is nailed to the wall, groaning.   Flexing, Deliverer purrs, "This is all for you."

As much as I'm tickled by the comic touches Joker and Black Dragon bring to UCW, I'm mostly a fan of this kind of thing--tough guys who take themselves a little too seriously mixing it up with other un-ironic tough guys.  This is the kind of statement I make from time to time that makes my friends smirk and roll their eyes and barely stifle their giggles--yeah, I admit it, I'm a sucker for masculinity, old style, circa 1957.  (What can I say?  Steve Reeves must have imprinted on me at age four.)

The Deliverer is a good-looking kid.  He's got the sort of mean streak I like in a guy, and though James outclasses him in technique and experience, in his first match at UCW, Deliverer makes a good impression.  He has the habit of doing his trash talk through clenched teeth--an old habit of mine, too--though he tends to stick with banalities like "You like that huh?"

The fight follows a predictable route of four or five important turning points, spaced almost evenly apart to allow each wrestler ample time to give the other guy's body a good going-over.  Lots of chest punching in this fight ... hair pulling too ... the obligatory wedgy.  I'm not the first to say it, but, folks, we just got to get James out of those clown pants, so we can see some thigh and flashes of butt cheek.  Also, James seems a little reticent in this match--overall--whether because of the stress of fighting a much bigger opponent or the pressure of taking the new talent out for a test drive, I can't say.

Fortunately, The Deliverer is not shy about his body at all, burly, smooth, fluid, ready to take whatever you got in you that needs to be gotten out.  It may be time to let El Chulo loose on this guy.  Or Crazy Kevin.  See what happens then.