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Kaden Talbain vs Steve West, No Rest for the Weird - 5 May 2017 (3-2-1 Battle!)

Despite my reservations about burlesque/gameshow-style wrestling, 3-2-1 Battle!, this match, and Kaden Talbain somehow put their stamp on my wrestling kink. On the subject of professional wrestling, I tend to be on the serious side - hosses in black trunks, unironic clobber and slobber backroom brawls, virility vs vanity. For me, wrestling is high-holy ritual. I probably like shiny objects and goofy slapstick cheese as much as any other guy who spent a large part of his childhood in trailer parks, but wrestling (mat or ring) is a serious subject with me. Some say too serious.

Despite all that, the bawdy, shameless irreverence of Seattle-based 3-2-1 Battle! (the exclamation point is part of the name) has infected me. I retain my skepticism, but almost all the matches I've clicked on I have watched to the end. There's something exhilarating in the way the promotion and its wrestlers embrace their tackiness and weirdness. It's as if John Waters turned wrestling promoter. Steve West is an all-out nasty so-and-so - he bites, he snarls - and he knows his way around the squared circle better than his opponent. Kaden Talbain is Mr. Excitement, a cheerleader with one foot still in backyard wrestling, where he got his start, and the other in burlesque. (Watch this teasy and off-color promo for a good laugh. What's not to love about this guy?) He reminds me of Leon Saver and Joey Ryan, Saver's slim build, Ryan's hairy torso, both wrestlers' XXL exuberance.


Visit 3-2-1 Battle! here on Facebook.

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