Oil Strip Match














Gabe Steel vs Wolf Boy, Match 650 - Oil Strip Match (UCW)  

For the first half of Match 650, the competitors are in the ring, not just fully clothed but baggily clothed. Hold on, though, because both are going to be oiled up and buck naked in the next 28 minutes. For weeks rage has been eating the insides out of these guys - bombastic challenges issued on social media almost nonstop - and now at last they face each other in the squared circle. We're set for a classic big-bruiser-versus-feisty-punk match, and that is what we get.

Gabe and Wolfy are two of the most personable wrestlers to show up in the underground scene this past year - both are unusually articulate and damn near omnipresent in social media. They are oddly paired together here, but this fight has been heating up online for a while, dividing fans' loyalties and stoking anticipation. Gabe arrives expecting a ring match. Wolf Boy wants an oil match. Steel holds firm, and the action starts out in the squared circle, as already noted.

"What you got, huh?" Wolf Boy taunts as the two men circle. "Oh you're about to find out," Steel promises. Wolfy's relentlessness balances against Steel's brawn far more convincingly than I had imagined. The smaller guy earns the bigger guy's grudging respect in the opening minutes of the ring match, but it doesn't stop Gabe from forcing Wolf Boy flat on his back, writhing as Steel's hand clutches his throat. The match might have ended in two minutes if Gabe wanted it to, but he breaks the hold, obviously wanting to prolong this long-awaited contest.

Steel quickly adapts to UCW's roughhouse style, at one point raising Wolf Boy two or three feet off the mat with a forearm smash to the nuts. Then he yanks the Boy up off the mat by the hair and smothers him in his armpit, muffling Wolfy's piteous screams while clenching his fists together against the upper spine, adding merciless levels of tension to the hold. Barely surviving the body slam that follows, Wolf Boy retaliates with a stiff left hook to the strongman's balls - you don't get more UCWier than that!

Provoked, Wolf Boy lets out a roar - an effective psych-up and psych-out tactic - and awe-inspiring as macho-theatrics. He launches a strong offense that catches Gabe off-guard till Steel brings it to a stunning (literally stunning) stop. From that point on, the give and take intensifies. Beginning at the 08:00 mark, these guys strip off their shirts, a clear signal they are not pussyfooting around. At the 12:00 mark, the transition from the ring to the mat and oil is smooth, practically invisible.

While rage characterizes the ring battle, the oil match is sensuous while remaining competitive, sustained by Wolf Boy's cockiness and Gabe Steel's massive muscle. It's by far my favorite part of the match even though, by this point, both wrestlers are showing signs of exhaustion - and frustration. The closeness of the contest would be altogether unbelievable were it not for the wrestlers' larger-than-life flamboyance. The nudity at the end is frosting on the cake. The final title card pretty well sums it up while slightly stretching the truth:

This one was so close, we all won!


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