Laid Out Flat

Ronnie Pearl vs Ace Owens, Knocked Out (Wrestler4Hire)

Since Ronnie and Ace are among the present generation's finest heels and faces (respectively), I'm surprised it didn't occur to me earlier to fantasize about them wrestling each other, especially since they're a fairly good match in height and weight. I'm glad Cameron saw the potential for a classic squash not totally based on big-vs-little or newbie-vs-veteran contrasts. Seeing them wrestle, I sense that Pearl's holds and unmitigated abuses will somehow work their way into my four-tissue fantasies, not to mention Owens, so tasty-looking when knocked clean out.

I'm happy, too, that this is not a 100-percent squash job. But it is right at 99 percent, so don't get your hopes up for Owens. If you want to preserve your impression of Ace as a top, commit the first two screen shots above to memory because the video is all about the last four. I doubt Ace remembers three-quarters of this match. What he might remember, though, is getting slammed a lot as well as dragged by his curly hair and slapped. (Though not usually a fan, I have seen a few 100-percent squashes that were terrific. One very impressive one I viewed recently features, coincidentally, Ronnie. I plan to blog about it as soon as I can.)

My favorite of the shots above is the eighth. But for the high-key lighting, this could be a painting by Caravaggio. It also combines elements of Michelangelo's Pietà  and the Barberini Faun. The focus on the kid's gold-plated balls is well appreciated, but I'm also a fan of the grimace and the way Ace's midsection winds like a lava trail to the mat. Not least of all, there's Ronnie's face with its trimmed beard, reminiscent of the meticulous beards on he-men in my favorite sword-and-sandal films of the '60s.

I might concede my obsessions in this blog are not altogether healthy, but I'm not going to beat myself up over my love of the brutal aesthetics of staged fights. Rough sex has been my favorite kind of sex since before I knew what sex is, and (as I have said too many times in these pages - note: I'm old now, and old guys repeat themselves) for me wrestling is the epitome of man-for-man sex.

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