Gay Oriented

Slade Groman vs Ty Alexander, Wrestleshack 24 (BG East)

Slade studies every curve and hollow of Ty's body, as if determining whether the trophy boy interests him as an opponent. Ty passes muster, evidently, and the match commences in the classic foreplay style of mixing aggressive and amorous invasions, pushing the boundary between competition and seduction. The moves are calculated and unhurried, and it soon becomes clear that Ty is weighing his options with Slade no less than Slade is weighing his options with Ty.

This sort of match interests me less than hard rough play or legit academic wrestling, but I do understand it and appreciate the skills required to pull this kind of exchange off. Groman is a tried and true roughneck, and I still whack off to the image of him, fighting under the nom de guerre LS Powerhouse, forcibly ripping the lucha mask off his opponent's face (see my earlier discussions of this fight here and here). After five years, Ty remains an enigma to me. I can't say where his on-camera persona ends and the man himself begins. Not that it matters, I suppose, especially since I like an element of mystery in life. Last year I had the opportunity to raise the issue with him, but I sort of froze up, not unusual for me, tabling that question for the time being.

This match is climactic for Wrestleshack 24  because it is more explicitly erotic than the previous two matches. Over the years, Ty has become emblematic of the post-Jose, post-Vee, post-Rochelle, post-Adamov BGE star, and here he takes on a somewhat older wrestler (not his first either) with ease and confidence in a match so natural and unforced as to suggest we have entered a new era in underground wrestling, one that treats the eroticism of male-for-male wrestling as a given - without the giddiness or closetedness of the art form's earlier days. I don't want to suggest that this turn is unprecedented - or that the current state is overall better or worse than what used to be - only that the tone regarding sex is more relaxed and more matter-of-fact now.

Visit BG East here.