I Could Use a Stiff One





When Bob at Rock Hard Wrestling told me Dash Decker, the new name on the roster, is "our next superstar," I believed him. Why wouldn't I? Bob hasn't steered me wrong yet. And the online photos of the "stud bodybuilder turned wrestler" bear out the prediction. "Our customers have immediately fallen in love with him," Bob writes, "think you will too!" Dash stands at an even six feet, 200 pounds. My type. He looks like a statue of the god Apollo, carved out of steak.

But can he wrestle? Oh hell yeah. It's hard to believe he's a beginner. Sure, he has a few rough edges, but no more than most in the underground scene, including many with experience. And he's a heel! RHW gives him quite a welcome too, squaring him off against Josh Steel, beefed up and on a winning streak of late.

We first see Josh sitting on the ring apron, downing his sixth prematch tallboy. Admittedly, not your typical warmup. Dash rides him for overloading on carbs, calling him "white trash" and knocking his fish-belly white complexion. Josh slurs his half-baked comebacks and runs his fingertips lightly across his rock-hard "beerpack." (What a kick it would be to wrestle Steel like this, pumped, buzzed, and feeling no pain!*) 

Josh staggers into the ring for an elbow-to-elbow posedown, killer physique versus killer physique. Josh is meatier, Dash more finely cut. Then, in one of those moments that define star quality, Dash takes the intoxicated surfer boy down with a dirty side-kick to the kneecap. Josh, too soused to give a damn, giggles while Decker pounds his body into the mat. It takes some time for the pain to cut through the beery haze and stir Josh to strike back.

As you know, it's sort of a rule that the rookie gets beat up in his first bout. As proved in more recent matches, Josh can be a formidable adversary and seems to enjoy trouncing his opponents. In contrast, Dash is brand new to the pro-wrestling game. He knows how to wear bronzer and strike poses. But here he looks like a natural and quick learner, keen on being RHW's newest resident bad boy, ... and with a belly full of brew, perhaps Josh is not in the best shape for taking the ambitious bodybuilder down.

As Bob predicted I would, I love Dash Decker (all wrestlers, especially heels, ought to have porn names). Josh has been my favorite RHB star since his 2012 debut. Almost everything about the louche surfer boy guarantees wood. I love this match too. In the course of the 24-minute two-rounder, both wrestlers work up a level of sweat I'd rate, from 0 to 10 (10 being soupy), an "11": in the fight's final minutes, you could stretch these boys out in a line and use their backs as a Slip 'A Slide. This is a fun, reckless brawl that never had less than my full attention. Two great bodies battle it out to a gloriously messy finish. This one's going to play in heavy rotation at my house for quite some time.






* Might I add a few words about WUI (wrestling under the influence)? Probably not safe, but it has its perks. Alcohol no doubt slows the reflexes, but it also dulls pain and, for me anyway, enhances the effect of body contact. Objectively the wrestling must be shit, embarrassingly sloppy in retrospect, but subjectively in the moment it's like a slow-motion dream, with an added element, a tingle of the same sort of excitement I feel when I sense risk (only it's not high risk, just the frisson of risk). It's like wrestling underwater ... or rather what I fantasize underwater wrestling to be like. It's definitely low class, not really athletic, but like other low-class activities it can be a cheap thrill. Scotch, a good but not great scotch, makes for the best WUI of all.

Comments

  1. I can't my RHW update in my mail yesterday featuring this match. Dash looks just amazing. I mentally tagged him as a stud I want to keep an eye ( and two hands) on.

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