Undone!

Titanium Blue vs Green Envy, Masked Mayhem 14 (BG East)

Unmasking a masked wrestler is tantamount to stealing his soul. Even when the identity of the enmascarado is already known to all, the forcible unmasking is a humiliating blow to the man's dignity. I may like this angle more than a rip 'n' strip match. A good unmasking makes for a sexier climax than a "fight to the death" because the loser is utterly vanquished yet fully cognizant of his disgrace, living under its weight probably for the rest of his life.  

Green Envy's identity is no secret. If you did not see his name and naked face in BG East's newly released Catalog 132, the arm and torso tattoos give him away. By the end of this fight, both he and Titanium Blue are barefaced, only one of his own free will. Their fates, if not their faces, are fairly evident from the beginning. The differences in the men's physiques all but predict the outcome. Titanium Blue is built like the archetypal wrestler - with massive shoulders, arms, chest, and thighs. Envy's built, as the catalog description puts it, like "an Olympic platform diver." He doesn't have a chance. His only hope is to protect the mask and preserve his pride.

The match sets the tone for the other matches on this disk, all wonderful, by the way. It opens with a series of reversals that promise a far more balanced contest than what we ultimately get, but it's thrilling to watch the tall and slender Envy in a dominant role, if only briefly (however, NOT for the last time). Next, we get a series of turnbuckle assaults so savage and beautifully executed as to excite the non-sadists among us. Green Envy's sufferings are exquisite, and Titanium Blue's sweat is evidence of the hard work he puts into destroying Envy. A third of the way through, a minute-long bear hug is one of the best I've ever seen for intensity and well-articulated anguish. It's so fine it begs for an encore, which we get, in the form of a 40-second reverse bear hug a minute or so later. 

In the last half of the match, things turn dark when Blue targets Green's knee brace. It's almost (almost!) too painful to watch. (Green deserves an Oscar for his portrayal of abject agony throughout the fight - all the more so because his facial expressions are well hidden.) What works particularly well in the match is the actual unmasking. The victor gets the victim in a camel clutch and, one hand holding the head up, plucks the laces free of the eyelets as if ripping flesh from the skull. He holds the bare face up to the camera, while the victim frantically tries to hide it with one hand. The debasement is 100-percent sold! Eight minutes remaining, the match is far from anticlimactic - the abuses continue to mount, past the unmasking, past the submission, past the victim's Shakespearean cries of "I'm done! I'm done!" Totally physical, totally hot, totally impossible to tear my eyes from.

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