Shot of the Week

My thanks to Wrestling Arsenal for publishing this shot of Chasyn Rance laying claim to a fallen adversary, ginger-haired heel Chico Adams. The picture, part of the article "In Support of Losing," put hummingbirds in my boxer shorts on Thursday, and it's still working its magic on me now almost 48 hours later. A good 45% of its appeal stems from Chasyn's body language, another 45% from the nonchalantly assertive expression on his face. Then Chico's look of agony, Chasyn's knotty shoulders and fresh-popped pectorals, and a near-perfect five-o'clock shadow explain the remaining 10%.

The photo got into my pants, hugely, somewhat frustrating because I could not place the wrestler. (Sometimes you just need a name to shout out, you know?) Thankfully, the admin at Arsenal gave me a name to go with the face. Not even Google Image Search could help me. The best it could come up with was a cluster of photographs of furniture and oaken wine barrels--which I took to be the search engine way of getting wood.

I should have remembered seeing Chasyn on Beefcakes of Wrestling in a posting a couple of years ago. But it's possible the wrestler did not impress me back then. Much more likely, I needed a photograph like this one to introduce me to his better qualities. Rance has his own web site, with photos (not this one, though) and an extensive bio. It turns out that this match is on YouTube, from three distinct angles (here and here and here). Chasyn cleaned Chico's clock late January for Pro Wrestling Xtreme in Orlando. The bout is short--Chico takes a good two (of six) minutes upfront to piss off the fans--but it's oh so sweet, climaxing with an over-the-middle-rope piledriver that directly sets up the tasty pinfall  in the photograph.