Tease

Elite Eliot vs Garrett Thomas (Wrestler4Hire)

I've seen both these wrestlers live, and that's not something I can say every day. Eliot I saw this past February at Wrestling with Pride. Garrett I spoke with six years ago at a Ring of Honor merch table. A friend of mine blurted out that I had a wrestling blog, and Garrett politely asked me to tell him more about it. I told him it was aimed at gay fans of wrestling. I also told him I liked his Ric Flair horsepower and the sexy undercurrent he gave to it.  He signed an 8x10 glossy for me - "To Joe ALL NIGHT LONG!" 

In this Wrestler4Hire match Garrett storms into the ring, and the boys start pushing and shoving with no prologue and for no clear reason. They are enraged for the sheer joy of rage. You know that feeling? I do. I get it, totally. Would it be better if they had a reason to fight each other? An old grudge, a championship belt to win? I doubt it. Who even cares if it's real or not so long as it expresses something real at this moment. Garrett pours on the grunts and growls in excess - and it's that excess of hooah that juices up the battle. 

A friend, a different one, asked me recently - with sincere interest, I think - what I get out of going to wrestling shows. I said, one, I think the body contact in wrestling is sexy, and, two, its hyperbole, if done right, makes for exciting theater. But I suspect the real question was "Don't you know it's fake?" And of course I do, but that only matters to me when it feels fake.

Fakery, like reality, can be either good or bad, important or unimportant depending on its effect. For me the value of something is not whether it's real. Take flirting, for example - it's a superficial form of playing with a stranger that can exist for itself and not add up to anything anyone else might consider worthwhile. Some of my best memories are of encounters that "didn't mean anything,"  except they kinda meant a lot ... and still do. They had impact. They were connections, however fleeting or immaterial. Golf, on the other hand, is real, but for me it has no impact. For me it's just something I don't get - and telling me it's a real sport doesn't change a thing for me.

Thomas vs Eliot is the sort of match I enjoy at Wrestler4Hire - two talented and charismatic wrestlers who know how to hurt and play up the sexy side of hurt, too. I get it, and it resonates with me. Eliot's sexy trunks are a big plus. It's all a cock tease, of course. I know it's a tease - and so do Eliot and Garrett. W4H founder Cameron Matthews built a career on teasing his gay male fans with skimpy see-thru gear and knowing winks. It's good business, too - giving the customer what he wants - and letting him believe what he wants to believe.

Visit Wrestler4Hire here.