Cagey Veteran









In the almost five years since I started this blog, my kinks have changed. Offhand I can't think of any perversions I have lost over that time, but I have added a few I did not have before--for instance, tag team events (which I used not to like because they took away from the one-on-one-ness I love about wrestling, but then in time I came to appreciate them for their two-on-two-ness), refs (who were once a distraction and still an obstacle in photographing pro wrestling, but whose role I now appreciate--that is, to highlight the transgressiveness of the heels and illustrate the futility of law-and-order justice), and masked wrestling (which I failed to appreciate because I'm a fan of wrestlers' faces as much as their bodies, so masks were an obstacle, hiding the spasms of pain that are among the guiltier pleasures of wrestling, until I came to respect the symbolism of the mask and, especially, the symbolic violation that unmasking entails).

More than anybody, BG East's hugely popular main-eventer Cage Thunder, 5'11", 180#, opened my eyes to the joys of masquerade. In the same way that clothing can enhance the beauty of a well-toned physique, the wrestling mask can enhance the drama of man-to-man combat. The stripping away of the mask is a symbolic crippling of one's opponent--amplifying the impact of the agony of defeat. If his thickset hairy chest and belly weren't enough, the man is literate--way literate--to which claim his blog bears witness. And he's probably unmasked and un-trunked more wrestlers than any wrestler in history, and some of the hottest in the biz, too. He has yet to be unmasked himself, but his day, I was once assured, is coming--and I hope it's the work of the meanest, studliest badass BGE can find--ideally, one of his former victims (my vote's for Kid K, personally).

From top to bottom and left to right, we're looking at Cage Thunder versus Drew Russell in Jobberpaloozer 10, versus Alexi Adamov in Masked Mayhem 2, versus Boyd Hicks in Masked Mayhem 4, versus Gold Mantis in Masked Mayhem 10, versus Goldenrod in Masked Mayhem 7, versus Jobe Zander in Masked Mayhem 8, versus Kid Karisma in Masked Mayhem 5, versus Lobolito in Masked Mayhem 3, versus Pink Puma in Masked Mayhem 6, and versus Stinger in Masked Mayhem 9.

Oh, and happy solstice to you.

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