Hammer and Tongs

Kevin Bennett vs Daniel Garcia, Summer of Sleaze (Empire State Wrestling)

Dr. L sent me the link to this summer of 2018 mid-card match, featuring two wrestlers I have followed off and on. The good doctor promised enmity, sweat, and top-shelf sells. He said he thought of me when he saw it, and I am, of course, flattered. Since he has never failed me yet, I rushed to YouTube and saw a fight that was beyond belligerent, verging on willful cruelty. 

Kevin, "weighing in at 195 beats per minute," has always looked white-bread pretty, like the president of a Glee Club, instead of the rapper he is, but he is tough in the ring, favoring pummeling over acrobatic flips, which he's also good at. Daniel, then 19, is newer to the ring, his pro-wrestling career having started about six years after Kevin's. He's more thickly, more coarsely built than Kevin. This isn't gym muscle; this is backbreaking-work muscle, the sort of muscle that grows out of a life of hard knocks. He's also mean, exactly what Kevin prefers to face in the squared circle, based on his previous gigs. He and Garcia fight like somebody's dog was shot.

The single handheld camera adds an erratic tremor to the action. The opening showdown outside the ring (not pictured here) looks like footage shot on the edge of a South Seas typhoon. The camera quakes and pivots like a thing possessed. It calms down once the action returns to the ring, but even there it tracks the action with passion. Too seldom are matches recorded with such ardent attention to the drama, effectively putting the viewer in the middle of things. A stationary camera in the fifth row would have caught less than a quarter of what we see here.

The live crowd here is totally into the match's intensity and youthful rage, the fighters pushing and shoving before the bell sounds, hungry for a piece of the other guy. Fans are divided between the two. which raises the temperature in the room. Ringside commentators quote Garcia as saying the Buffalo guys weren't working until he showed up and he means to humiliate Bennett in front of his "friends, family, and pregnant girlfriend." Bennett, we're told, is rebounding from a big loss to Pepper Parks, so he has plenty to prove to himself and his fans in this fight. Such tidbits of information aren't necessary, because the body language of Garcia and Bennett requires no interpretation. These guys need to rip into each other like they need air to breathe.

Hot wrestlers, intense match, a killer finisher - what could be better? 

Visit Empire State Wrestling here.