So That's How You Wanna Play

Xander Caden vs Tyson the Hammer, Match 512 (UCW)

UCW works as doggedly at achieving diversity as any other wrestling promotion I can think of. The wrestlers are White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, Butch, Femme, Gay, Straight, Introvert, Extrovert--variety that hardly ever happens just by accident. If there's a UCW "type," the company has ventured away from that type as often as practicable. It favors the young and the slender, but it has deliberately strayed from that formula in the past, with wrestlers like Corporal Punishment (who was even UCW champion briefly) and LS Powerhouse. Its ethos, as founder Bodyslam stated early in its history, is working class, blue collar, regular guys but with a thicker than usual skin.

Xander, with the "My Little Pony" hair, comes to UCW with "mainstream" (i.e. "not underground") indy experience. He's a lithe, resilient, deceptively delicate-looking wrestler, charismatic without being boisterous. The welts and bruises on his body testify to the fact that he's up for a stiff fight. Tyson, too, is a tough customer, having worked these mats for four years now. He's well schooled in the company's "house style" of no rules (except "Thou shalt not kill," and that rule is only loosely enforced). This fight I have seen at UCW before or one very much like it--gut punches, crotch twisting, nipple pinching, hair pulling, heavy on the mat work, with a brutal finish--but it's the wrestlers, their styles, their personalities, that make it seem like something new.

Damien Flawless was the first UCW fighter to experiment with, how do I put it, flamboyance. Caden's genderfuck is subtler than Damien's was (Damien eventually dropped the gimmick entirely), and it's the more potent as a result. Whether Caden can handle Eli, Derrick, and especially Quinn remains to be seen. I would not be at all surprised if, win or lose, he turns out to be more man than they can handle. For now, I am more than satisfied with Tyson and Xander giving me the male catfight I often long for.