El Nino

Nino Leone vs Skip Vance, Wrestleshack 24 (BG East)

Right now Wrestleshack is my favorite BG East series. It's a small space with mythic magnitude. It represents everything the words "underground wrestling" mean to me - rough play, intimacy, privacy, possibly seduction. It's not a venue that one would find himself in accidentally - he would have to choose to be there and presumably have a reason for being there - more than likely a bad reason, a really bad reason. There's also the sense that the opponents have chosen each other, rather than having been booked for a match by a third party - this sense is patently false, pure kayfabe, but I like it and believe it despite knowing better. (To quote a refrigerator magnet a friend who knows me too well gave me, "KNOWING BETTER HAS NEVER STOPPED ME.")

Skip Vance has been to the Shack many more times than Nino Leone has. (So far, nobody has been here more times than Skip*.) Skip has experience on his side, and guile, but Nino is enough bigger than Skip to beat him up. Nino, however, doesn't suspect how low Skip is willing to go for a cheap win, so he takes the match a little too casually at first, confident in his superior strength. All it takes is a hard strike to the balls to wise Nino up - and to convince him to pull out the stops against Vance and fight fire with fire. It's the last half that makes this my favorite of either Skip's or Nino's matches to date, ending with a rear naked choke that lets the victor do as he pleases with the loser's immobilized body. It's sweet in a dirty sort of way, precisely how I like my sweets.

I like blonds, especially Southern blonds who wrestle, but it's Leone I like in this match. He's hairy with a dry sense of humor and mischievous bedroom eyes to die for. He also handles himself well in a fight.

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* Skip is tied with his ex-partner Christian Taylor for the top spot. I hope that BGE has the breakup match in the vault and that it took place in the Wrestleshack. A blogger can dream, can't he?