The Wrestlers' Tale

Tim Messina vs Drake Marcos, Undagear 30 (BG East)

A storyline in wrestling is always an iffy thing with me. I don't like distractions from the wrestling itself. I want the fight to be immersive, and the story, if there absolutely has to be one, to be indistinguishable from the competition between the two wrestlers. The third match in Undagear 30  has a story so interwoven into the struggle it's practically invisible. There is guile, betrayal, tragedy, and even romance, and hardly any of it is extraneous to the fight itself. In fact, it's the fight that reveals who is the heel and who, the babyface. There's virtually no prologue or setup or preconceptions about where this battle will take Messina and Marcos. The moves and holds tell the story - along with the occasional scrap of dialogue.

Oh, and grunting and gasping, too. Drake Marcos belongs in the ranks of the great sufferers of BG East - only Kirk Donahue comes to mind as his potential equal. BGE prides itself on its heels, with good reason, but what are heels without expressive victims (especially victims who are themselves heels). Yet Drake is not alone in his pain. Tim feels it too and feels in feelingly. As for the guile, one of these guys plays on the other guy's trust by redefining submission  to suit his own interests. As for betrayal, an unspoken pact is broken, and mercy is not only punished but also reviled. Tragedy and romance appear only in the final minutes, and if putting the two together seems perverse, it is that most definitely - a hair's breath away from necrophilia, in fact.

Oh, and there's reversal of fortune, too. But as Aristotle teaches us, such reversals are common to tragedy.

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