Fireworks

Jonny Firestorm vs Paul Hudson, Ringwars 27 (BG East)

I don't know but I've been told on good authority that this is Jonny's first BG East match ever, and what a match it is! (To the anonymous commenter on one of last week's posts, I don't know why BG East releases its matches not just out of chronological order but wildly out of chronological order. It's a mystery to me, too, buddy. Right now I'm just happy this match was released while I am alive to enjoy it.)

Jonny is terrific, of course, but half of the credit goes to Paul Hudson, a great brawler and a great character. Hudson looks like he can handle himself in any kind of fight you can think of. I've always been drawn to the guy. He's one of the best and toughest battlers on the BGE roster, shockingly underrepresented in these pages and underused by the company (but who's to say there aren't hundreds of other Hudson scraps still tucked away in the BG East vault, waiting to see the light of day?) How Hudson looks, the way he carries himself, but mostly how he plunges his opponents into a world of hurt fires up these old loins every time I think of him.

But let's talk some Firestorm, too. The guy is an underground wrestling superhero, still going strong, still snapping the balls off posers who must learn the hard way the importance of giving Jonny respect. This match with Hudson is one of his best--but the man has too many great matches to count! For me personally his Ultra Fight Seven against Frankie Flave is the all-time favorite, but I no sooner say that and moments of his limited-release dust-up with Aryx Quinn flash into memory like motherfucking IMAX, and the image of him twisting poor Dylon Roberts into balloon-animals (almost six years ago!) still feels like a kick in the gut. Practically anything with Jonny in it (win, lose, or draw) becomes the Citizen Kane, Big Mac, White Album, Thrilla in Manila, Super Bowl XIII, and RDS-220 of underground wrestling.

Matched pound for pound and almost millimeter to millimeter, equally skilled and equally merciless, Firestorm and Hudson in the ring together are mesmerizing to watch. The action steadily mounts in near-mirror-image attacks and counterattacks. Every fall one man gains is soon matched and surpassed by the other man. Soon the veneer of sportsmanlike civility vanishes (if it can rightly be said to have ever existed here), savagery and instinct take over, and by midpoint it's obvious we are watching more than just a wrestling match. Jonny and Paul fight like their lives depend on it, and the volcanic, erotic, and martial heat becomes too big for the squared circle to contain, the fury spilling outside the ropes. The ending is an escalating whirl of pile-drivers and grunts, with the victor accepting nothing less than a full 10-count to press home the fact that he has utterly demolished his man.

Now, excuse me while I whack off with all this firmly in memory.