I Have the Dick, So I Make the Rules

This week's free match from Beyond Wrestling features the Super Smash Bros (Player Uno y Player Dos) against Team Tremendous (Dan Barry and Ken Scampi), which triggers a number of unrelated thoughts. The main one concerns the factors that, in my opinion, define a great wrestling match, and by great I of course mean sexy:

1. gear: skimpy, preferably with a zipper or drawstring that hints at a likely wardrobe malfunction, or, ideally, a loincloth
2. athleticism: strength, agility, speed, resilience, knowledge of holds, ability to form credible segues between holds
3. angle: a storyline or backstory to the action in the ring, usually (for me, anyway) only implicit in the ring action itself, without being overwrought or dragged out over months--some of my favorites being more thoroughly explored here
4. appearance: rugged facial features with a hint of vulnerability; hard muscle, but not so cut as to seem ungraspable and impenetrable; some little thing (a tattoo, a scar through the eyebrow, a five o'clock shadow) that denotes, rather theatrically, "Danger"; either a buzzcut or, at the other extreme, long hair that can be grabbed and yanked
5. attitude: or, rather, "baditude"--my interest strongly corresponding to a wrestler's bad-ass-ness, the salient features being cockiness, a sadistic sense of humor, raunch, cowardice, and the will to dominate and, at the very least, mount an opponent. I would also include the wrestler's unflinching commitment to the ring action ("selling") as a sub-factor of attitude--the wrestler's willingness to moan, heave, tremble, roar, grimace, leer, stomp, scream, gag, talk shit, et cetera

Right now, attitude is the foremost condition in my idea of hot wrestling. In my experience of throw-rug and mattress wrestling at home and as a fan of catch wrestling, a butch enough attitude atones for a lot of deficits in the other four areas. As their name implies, the Super Smash Bros draw their inspiration from videogames, so there is a kind of comically manic and often inhuman lack of emotion in their self-presentation. They are good guys, but good guys driven by something other than a concern for righteousness or the common good. They mechanically move toward the "game over" point, unmotivated by detectable human values or emotions, only rarely concerned with stuff like payback, professionalism, pride, or even paycheck (to keep the "p" thing going). Still, there is something in their blank doggedness and Pac-Man-like determination that excites me.

Player Dos has a slackerly machismo that clicks with me. For me, a man's appearance is less a question of whether he has a good profile than a question of whether, when looking him up and down, I imagine what it would be like to fight him. I can appreciate the poreless beauty of guys like George Clooney, Ricky Martin, Cary Grant, and Rob Lowe, and I could stare at them for hours on end--but, in the end, because I just can't sustain a picture of them as physically aggressive, they have negligible impact on my dick. When I look at a man, I want to think "rare steak and whiskey," not "plovers' eggs and kir." Player Dos's face and torso tempt me to want to take a swing at him; the cosmopolitan elegance of Enrique Iglesias does not.

As for angle, this match plays out like this: Dos is the sidekick, the Beta. Without a mask to cover his emotions, Dos exhibits every pang of agony that Barry and Scampi inflict upon him. For most of the first half of the match, Dos is in peril, with Uno, the Alpha, eager but unable to help him. When Uno at last enters the ring, he cleans house, but in time the bad guys wear him down, too. Then, right at the moment of crisis, Dos tags in and returns Uno's earlier favor. This motif repeats itself, with the villains becoming increasingly arrogant and unconscionable in their tactics, leading to a decisive and spectacular (and largely unpredictable) climax. The key elements here are that the opponents are well matched and the ending is decisive.

I would say more about athleticism, but, for all my fanaticism for the sport, I know little about wrestling holds and moves--knowing what they are called only slightly better than how they are executed. I will say that an utter absence of athleticism--two clumsy oafs stiffly and unconvincingly whipping each other to the ropes or sloppily grinding themselves into each other--can spoil a match, even when the two are throwing their hearts into it. Part of the masculine mystique is and always has been "know-how." Speed and agility count for more with me than tests of strength, but even more important (to me) are toughness and bounce--a man's simply got to be able to take a punch--and sell it and then spring back into action. 

Bad gear is a turnoff. I'm especially annoyed by those tassels some younger wrestlers have dangling from their trunks--like Hawaiian grass skirts. I'm no fan of the unitard, as well. If a wrestler wants to cover his body--and out-of-shape bodies are often better off covered--I say go with jeans and a sweatshirt, or cargo shorts and a guyabera. Even the most modest wrestlers should wear something that can pull loose to expose a flash of skin now and then. And there are ways a wrestler like Uno can compensate for being a "never-nude," namely by excelling in one of the four other areas, especially attitude--yet, even then, it helps to have a partner or opponent less exposure-averse.  

Speaking of gear, I like Dan Barry's shirt. It reads, "I Have the Dick, So I Make the Rules." The lesson here is that a taunting, raunchy, and offensive motto may not be as bad-ass as an eight-pack, but it makes the same point.

Uno and Dos work well off each other. It's a wild, fun match, even by Beyond Wrestling standards, and it's free on YouTube. (I must remind myself sometimes that, in many ways, I live in happy, happy times.) What works best for me is Player Dos, the way his gut protrudes temptingly above the waistline, and his rigorous selling of every single move. In the final analysis, what matters most is a wrestler's total immersion in the action.