Whatever It Takes





Saturday I went with a friend to the AML (America's Most Liked) Wrestling show in Winston-Salem. I videoed portions of all eight matches, but only a few are worth sharing here, and I blame only my camerawork (always iffy at best) because all eight matches were top notch, good as I've ever seen anywhere, from beginning to end. There was not a dud in the bunch. The show excelled in four key categories: drama, roughness, athleticism, and pulchritude. Some topped even my wrestling fantasies, providing grist for future fantasies, I'm sure.

My friend and I noted one wrestler's body as especially fine, particularly in the ass department. I won't say who it was (you might guess, anyway) because wrestlers sometimes visit outlier blogs like this one, and I wouldn't want anybody to feel left out. But at one point this wrestler flew over the ropes landing facedown at my feet, ass nearly touching the toe of my shoe. I fumbled to catch the moment on video and got only extreme closeups of my navy-blue corduroys. The sad truth is I can't shoot video and rein in a boner at the same time.

The Gifted One Yahya vs Colby Corino:  This was Colby's official return to the North Carolina wrestling scene. Before the show I visited him at the merch tables, telling him I mainly knew his work from YouTube and was looking forward to watching him live and in person. His was the opening match, which saw him poised against a much much bigger heel, the Gifted One Yahya. Steve Corino's baby boy did not disappoint, delivering a frenetic and nimble performance, though Yahya's size was ultimately too much for the guy. Colby held the crowd in the palm of his hand for the duration. He looked better than I'd ever seen him.





"The Angry Conservative" Preston Quinn vs JB Cole:  Quinn entered with two lackeys carrying banners that read "Trump 2020." He circled the ring, glad-handing a small number of (I assume) fellow conservatives, but most of us booed the heel. As he approached me, I nodded no to the hand-slapping, to which he responded by calling me "Fake News." My friend and I laughed our butts off. Later he called a ref's warning fake news, as well. His opponent was a highly talented rookie, JB Cole, whom I saw in action last month in Durham. This guy's going places. He's straight-out-of-the-'50s good-looking, Gene Pitney meets Fabian. But note his crisp, taut attacks on Quinn in the GIFs below. Sadly, he lost to the angry Trump supporter, but the crowd was crazy in love with him.





CW Anderson "'Da Rottweiler" vs Ken Dixon: I kinda wanted the BAMF heel Dixon to win this one, in large part because I didn't like Anderson's snake-oil-salesman shtick. Anderson entered with a beautiful lady in white dress and stiletto heels. He represented the quintessential self-made man, the Tony Robbins of the ring, I guess, and the crowd loved him. I didn't. He'd be a better heel, I think. Conversely, Dixon was a profuse sweat-er, and he had a tight, muscular body stuffed into his skull-and-crossbones trunks. I'm not usually a fan of scenery-chewing, but both wrestlers did their fair share of it in this match, and somehow it all pulled together and worked for me.







Axton Ray vs Devin "Divine" Driscoll:  Ray vs Driscoll was an uncommonly fine match among a large number of excellent events. Among its many fine qualities, it was a rarity: a two-out-of-three-falls contest. Old school. Both Tennesseans threw their hearts and souls into this one, especially Ray, who climbed and balanced on the ropes as effortlessly as I have ever seen (not depicted in the GIFs below, unfortunately). Both wrestlers are thickly, though solidly built, and 5'8" 167# Axton had speed to boot. Driscoll, the heel, is significantly bigger (6'5", 227#), and he put Axton through pure h-e-l-l, but the kid stuck to him like a gnat on sweat, eventually cutting the giant down to size. That operatic ball slam (second GIF below) played a part in bringing Ray the ultimate victory.





Caleb Konley vs PCO (Pierre Carter Ouellet): "He's not even human!" a fan cried out at a critical point of this match, in response to PCO's towering S&M-Frankenstein monster. There was definitely something uncanny about the Canadian, who looks like he's made of leather and concrete. Konley, the then-current (and still) AML champion, has the radiance of a Hollywood superstar. He looks dapper whether suffering or victorious, and the two conditions often occur simultaneously. He plays hero and heel with equal aplomb. From his high-price haircut to his dynamic ring presence, he epitomizes every aspect of the beauty of man-to-man combat. He has come a long way since I first saw him in Raleigh seven years ago - a slipshod bar show he claimed to remember well and proved by remembering details I had forgot.






The Rest of the Card

The Dawson Brothers, with George South vs the Gym Nasty Boys - This was a hugely entertaining battle for the tag team title, currently held by the Dawsons. The Gym Nasties, both plus-sized boys in singlets covered with their likenesses, were gay as Christmas and joyously fun to watch. Nice enough guys at the merch tables, but in the ring, Zane and Dave Dawson were ornery as possums and almost as lovable as scabies.   Elliott Russell vs George South - I don't love George South, but then I'm not supposed to. He plays the stereotypical old-school-veteran-who-refuses-to-make-way-for-the-young-lions. His villainy plays in contrast to his churchy gear, emblazoned with John 3:16 and Jesus, but I kinda like the old guy (he's nine years younger than I am), reminding me of the happier moments of my fire-and-brimstone-stoked boyhood. I spoke with Elliott a month ago at another show, and he remembered my name (it took three tries, though). He's one half of the Heatseekers (out of Knoxville), a gentle giant who plays rough, like my fantasy of a mountain man.  Sean Denny vs Billy Brash vs Brandon Scott - This three-way worked splendidly for me. It may be an angle that works best in a live show. I don't know. Billy Brash I have a semi-crush on. He's a good ol' boy, who suffers terribly, but has somehow managed to hold on to the AML Prestige Title since winning it in May. The Everyman who triumphs over adversity is a ring persona that's popular here in the American South - he gets beaten to a pulp and somehow comes out on top in the end. (I have a signed 8x10 hanging on my wall that shows Brash flat on the canvas, unconscious, and it reads, "Not just dead on the inside.") Denny and Scott tried to take the title away and failed. The crowd loved Denny as much as they did Brash. Nobody wanted Scott to come out of the match alive.


Visit AML Wrestling here.

Comments

  1. Great write - up. Isn't Indy wrestling a blast?! -- very entertaining even when it's not being amazingly arousing. Thanks for taking video, I think they worked out fine. I loved the Headscissor and the Low Blow. Keep doing what you're doing, I dig it.

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