Hard to Resist

Toney Rico vs Drake Marcos, Sexy Showdown 10 (BG East)

Drake Marcos is an Everyman for the schoolboy pin crowd. Wholesomely good-looking and fearless against a grappler of Toney Rico's size and savvy, Marcos stands in for all us regular guys who sit at ringside, dreaming of putting Rico in a headlock. His matches are mischievous and quirky, but not trivial. Nobody expects him to win - though victory is hardly out of the question. For me, his appeal is all about his resilience even at his most vulnerable.

Toney Rico takes on wrestlers of all sizes. I can't tell whether he prefers challengers like slim, pretty Richie Douglas or heavyweight studs like Kelly King, but he's an able rival for any weight class. He's a reliable hard worker, but not highfalutin. I'm a big fan of his, admiring the man's look and ring style. I favor burly wrestlers with swagger.  Toney has a sly come-hither smile and 55 pounds on Drake, a weight difference neither man seems to mind.

The 31-minute video begins with Drake leading Toney into the mat room. They immediately interlock fingers and press their foreheads together, eager for the fight to come. Drake gets Toney in a headlock, and Toney falls backwards, bringing both crashing to the mat. For the most part, Drake maintains control, carting Toney through a variety of traditional holds. When he strikes back, though, Rico goes for the jugular, delighting in Marcos's moaning and panicky thrashing. He's a brute, but Rico has a disarming smile.

"This is fun, man," Toney says, beaming, as Drake shakes the cobwebs from his head. Drake has his doubts that Toney knows what he's doing, daunted yet drawn to the big guy's steamroller approach to wrestling. Drake regains control through some classic binds, demonstrating agility and speed I haven't noticed in previous contests. With textbook tactics, he holds Toney in place. But when Toney turns the tables, he lunges for Drake's throat again, without regard for fair play or rules. He's more amorous than menacing, like a caveman bent on dragging Marcos home by the hair.

When Drake teasingly resists Toney's kiss, Rico won't take no for an answer. He bears down on Drake, smothering him with one hand over the mouth, his lips pressed to his knuckles. "Got a change of heart?" he asks as Marcos flails. Rico brings new levels of meaning to the phrase "hard to resist," and they are as erotic as they are bruising, but Drake won't back down, drawn in as if hypnotized by the pheromones in the air.

By the match's midpoint, Rico has lit a fire inside Marcos that he may regret lighting. Drake gets down and dirty as the advantage careens from one man to the other and then back again. We have two cavemen now, and temperatures sky-rocket on both sides of the TV screen. In the last eight minutes, the action rolls off the mat and tumbles into the wrestling ring, where second by second it looks like anything is possible.


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