Sock It to Me




RJ City vs Space Monkey, Greektown 13 - 24 March 2019, Toronto (Greektown Wrestling)

This week, Ruth Buzzi, comic star of Laugh-In  and The Hollywood Squares and unexpected fan of pro wrestling, videoed a birthday greeting to Toronto-based wrestler RJ City. The actor, stand-up comic, and baby-faced heel proclaimed it the best birthday present he has received. Not only did Buzzi declare herself a fan, but assured City that her old pal Charles Nelson Reilly would have loved  him. I first posted on City in 2010, a few years after his ring debut, noting that he had recorded an album of 1960s lounge music. All of this is too gay and baby boomer and sexy-sweet for me to ignore, so I sped to RJ's latest YouTube match, in which he takes on masked grappler Space Monkey. As my friends know, monkeys are among my favorite things in life, so even though wacky wrestling is not my thing, serendipity compels me to post on this contest.

The six-footer is ridiculously handsome and ridiculously cocky. He's a master of mic gab, not my idea of wrestling, but I have to respect his skills at it. Space Monkey is a high-flyer with jujitsu-flavored moves. The crowd loves Space Monkey, of course, and loves hating the silky hot bigmouth, whose cowardice is limitless. Leading with a 40-second side headlock (my idea of heaven), City flees the ring as soon as Monkey escapes his grip. The main pleasure of an off-kilter match like this is watching the underdog punish the stuck-up pretty-boy in humiliating ways, and Space Monkey does that, giving RJ a front-row seat to his own unmanning. Of course, that's not the end of it.

Comic wrestling is a constant Tom-and-Jerry, Roadrunner-and-Coyote seesaw that accelerates as it draws to a finish. Timing is important in comedy and wrestling. Both play on innuendo, providing the crowd with a touch of naughtiness, but not going so far as to offend middle-class notions of good taste. (This sort of teasing is, I feel, what has allowed traditional pro wrestling - male to male or female to female - to be implicitly gay.) Veering away from a hot topic before the crowd feels queasy goes back as far as medieval court jesters. Misdirection is also important. Good wrestling and good comedy must surprise. If the schtick is predictable, the audience feels superior to the performance and turns up its collective nose. The trick is to look like you're going to do one thing and then do something else. As opposed to, say, art or sports, entertainment balances expectations against surprises, without tipping too far in either direction.

RJ City is a mix of cornball and sex. His work in other forms of entertainment has taught him how to engage with a live audience and play to the camera. Like Gladys Ormphby, I'm a big fan. And Space Monkey has convinced me that more wrestlers should have tails - a tail-vs-tail match could be super-hot. Has anybody done this yet?
















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