Ow Naturel

Axel vs Gabe Steel, Match 685 - Strip Match (UCW) 

This fight doesn't stop till one man is naked. Stark buck jaybird naked.  Gabe and Axel tug and tear at each other's gear, first stripping down to thongs and in the end one man is left bare as the day he was born. Everything must go! We're not talking tasteful Herb Ritts-y male nude. We're talking dick-and-balls-going-outside-for-a-smoke naked. Flopping, and bobbing, and sopping wet with sweat.

Axel and Gabe are better matched than I expected. The back and forth is fast and furious, with no times out for posing and giving each other meaningful looks. This is a strip match the way strip matches are meant to be - full of ferocious determination to clean one's opponent of every stitch. The spandex comes off by force. There's no tease here. In the end, no nothing but haircut and welts.

Some of you may recall these two faced off at UCW earlier this year. In a post, I called that one a thrilling fight. This one is better, I think. More thrilling. Steel is used to the digs now, the UCW house style being considerably less stately than what he was used to elsewhere. Not that it should matter to anyone but me, I still like Axel better on a mat than in the ring and I can't settle on one opinion of Gabe's grin - chummy? menacing? nerves?  - that said, though, the fight here is everything it needs to be - and Axel, in particular, goes after Steel with soulless, murderous eyes.

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