Victor/Victorious










I captured these shots originally from the extras disk of the two-disk release of Victor Rook's remarkable documentary Stronghold: In the Grip of Wrestling (2009). This match, shot outdoors at a men's wrestling camp and available in its entirety in Stronghold's special features, is one of my favorite extra features on the DVD, and I grew considerable bone just cropping these bad boys on iPhoto. The hairy bull-muscled wrestler in blue trunks is a clean scientific wrestler who dominates the man in black for a good two-thirds of the match, but the goateed heel fights dirty and ignores the ref, thus gaining the ultimate pinfall, in the end the only thing that counts.

Wrestling documentarian Rook's empire covers film, books, and Internet, as well as, not least of all, wrestling mats--Victor's strong thighs have spelled death to many a challenger. He is not, however, one of the brawlers shown above. Perhaps his biggest legacy to date is WrestleMen, the popular social networking site for wrestlers and lovers of wrestling, up and running for fifteen years now. But it's more than just a meet-meat site, though on that point its directory lists over 10,000 men just waiting to take a tumble with you on the mat or in a ring or just in your mutual imagination in cyberspace. The site also features streaming videos, stories (true and fictional), and a store stocked with DVDs of regular guys in hot wrestling action and other wrestling-related products, including a full array of Rook's fine documentaries and books. 

WrestleMen's YouTuber page, a fairly new addition, which is not restricted to members only, searches the popular video site for the best in freestyle, underground, and pro-style wrestling and makes it easy to replay matches divided into separate posts consecutively, as a whole. The site also has a mobile-ready feature for smart phones I have not yet tried out. Most recently, Rook added an online game room featuring slide and jigsaw puzzles that let you reassemble photos of wrestlers in action and a trivia game to test your knowledge of wrestling ... and, hm, geography (I got 16 out of 20 right--nothing to shout about, but something--I don't know if he was teasing me, but a little later Vic let me know that he knew the score I had made and helpfully informed me that it is possible to back out of the game and look up some answers before hitting Send). 

Comments

  1. Thanks for posting thus entry, Joe ... I purchased this documentary late last summer and just realized I still need to watch it! (too much YouTube, I guess ...) D-oh! Time flies ....

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