Two on One

I like Alex Waters at Rock Hard Wrestling any way I can get him, even in a two-on-one match. However, if somebody is going to take the Prince of Heels down, I would prefer the match to be one on one, perhaps a rematch with Austin Cooper or Jake Jenkins, both of whom he's faced in the recent past and both highly capable at dealing with heels because they have some heel blood in them, too.

The good news is that this two-on-one match is not what I feared it would be. For one thing, it does not start off as a two-on-one match. Round 1 features Alex and Gage Cardano mano a mano, with no third party in sight, and it goes the route I might expect of this pairing: Alex proceeds to tear Gage a dozen new assholes with the offhand brutality and sexy swagger that have made Alex the man at RHW I most love to love-hate. 

Then about five minutes into the humiliating beatdown, Gage turns on Alex. Gage attacks with such rage that even Alex's normally glib composure shows signs of cracking under its pressure. But--and I am not the only one to have said it--Alex is at his LEAST convincing as a victim, which is the bad news about this match.

About five minutes into Round 2, Ethan Andrews shows up as an interested observer, Gage being his protege. By now Alex has temporarily regained his alpha-male status and is casually reducing Gage to a mere shadow of the man he was only minutes before. Ethan leans over the apron, urging Gage to get up and fight while Alex continues making table scraps out of the kid.

RHW seems to know Alex's opponents lack the heel gene. We first see Gage in glasses and red underwear, a look that makes my heart skip a beat or two (I am, after all, an academic), but is far removed from Alex's level of cool menace. Gifted wrestler and swell guy that he is, Ethan shows no natural propensity for talking shit, with which he struggles like an Amish deacon trying to cuss.

Alex invites Ethan into the ring, confident that he can take both Ethan and Gage at once. In tragedy this would be called Alex's fatal flaw, leading to his reversal of fortune. Gage takes advantage of the distraction and turns the tables on Alex, and the heel's much deserved ass-whomping begins about halfway through the 31-minute three-rounder. Liking what he sees, Ethan jumps in the ring to partake of the fun.

And I had fun watching this match. Still, I think it's a waste of a perfectly good heel to use him like this. The guy is fucking brilliant at what he does well, which is making me want to see somebody kick his ass. He's just not so great at getting his ass kicked. It gets kicked all right, but his downfall is not as satisfying as the downfall of a guy with his attitude should be, even less so since it takes two guys ganging up on him to get the job done. That said, Alex is mouth-watering under all conditions, and it might even be argued that his moans and grimaces perceptibly improve when he has two guys in the ring to rough him up.