Blowout









If you want to see wrestling-ring storytelling at its finest, you don't want to miss BG East's Challengers: Bodybuilder Blowout. Even if you don't care about storytelling, you will want to see the pro-style action Brute Baynard, Braden Charron, and Brad Barnes deliver, especially as the match wears on. And even if you don't care about wrestling holds and escapes, you will want to see the beef this match puts on display.

Brute continues to present himself as a top contender for the title of BGE's best new wrestler of 2014. Braden has never looked better or stronger or more charismatic. And Brad, long a favorite of readers of this blog, has finally impressed me too as a wrestler (I've been impressed with his body and face since March of 2013).

But about the story. Brute and Braden are trying to impress each other in the BGE weight room when Brad saunters in, wearing skimpy baby-blue trunks that exist only to affirm the shape and size of his penis, whose 3-D outline gets a much appreciated closeup. All but licking their lips, Brute and Braden then wager which of them could kick Brad's ass faster and more thoroughly. Brad volunteers to take them both on, declaring that his "finesse" gives him an advantage over the other two's brawn. The challenge is set, and the three head to the ring.

The initial storyline is a familiar one: finesse versus brute strength, but with finesse being outnumbered for once by brute strength, a twist on the usual angle. Almost immediately, Brad demonstrates his finesse, locking up Braden's arm in a punishing hold, but precipitously pushing him aside when Braden refuses to submit. When Brute steps up, it becomes painfully clear that "finesse" will not triumph in this match, but a more interesting storyline emerges.

Braden and Brute take turns at beating the shit out of Brad. Braden follows Brute's lead move for move but claims either to be the move's originator or to have improved on it in some way. Inevitably the two resort to double-teaming, executing some stunning coordination, doubling the impact of submission moves that are effective enough when performed by only one wrestler--bear hugs and torture racks, for instance--but inhumanly brutal when performed by two strongmen.

While the first half of this 40-minute blowout is devoted to Brad's near annihilation, the second plot mounts in a slow burn between Brute and Braden, paced to whet appetites for the unavoidable faceoff. The Charron-Baynard rivalry takes shape at the end of a triumphant posedown after together they kick an unconscious Brad out of the ring.

When the two are left alone to decide who's the better man, I expect the match to scurry to a quick and tidy finish. The good news is that the last half of this match is every bit as strenuous and inventive as the first. Brute and Braden work up a shiny sweat in a give-and-take, rock-em-sock-em-style showdown that makes my heart pound and my balls snuggle up, while Brad lies forgotten at ringside, apparently still unconscious.

In the end, only one man is left standing in the ring, yet I was left guessing to the last three minutes which man that would be. This is what I call great wrestling, and it's a great example of how a pro-wrestling storyline can arise almost entirely from the action inside the squared circle.

Comments

Popular Posts

Archive

Show more