Have It Both Ways

Ace Aarons vs Dimitri, Wrestler Spotlight: Ace Aarons (BG East)

This match poses one of those problems - if indeed a problem - that gets me itchy - a contest between two wrestlers who turn me on. I have written about the so-called problem before. I want both men to win. Thus, I want both men to lose. But I positively do not want the match to end in a tie or a disqualification. One of the men has to go down. I'm not sure who I would like that to be. The pairing exhilarates me, but the quandary means I can never be fully satisfied with the outcome. Luckily, the exhilaration outweighs the slight letdown.

Both wrestlers have sexy voices. I'm crazy for Dimitri's accent and Ace's resonant purr. In the opening smack talk, the language differences are teased a little too heavily. For whatever reason, nationalism makes me cringe a little. I can ignore the attempts at comic relief because both men are heels. "I respect your style, but I don't respect you," Ace tells his opponent, which sets me at ease, too, since I think their styles are comparable.

Once they lock up, three or four minutes into the 29-minute match, the punning and fronting diminish. On the mat, the match becomes more interesting. Dimitri gets Ace in a headlock. Ace escapes and twists Dimitri's left arm behind his back. Dimitri grunts as he pulls himself and Ace back up on their feet, but Ace's side-headlock takedown brings them back to the horizontal position. Ace works the headlock like a lug wrench. Both are at their best down on the mat, true wrestlers, both of them.

Ace tells Dimitri there's no way the Frenchman will get the American's head in a scissors hold mere seconds before his head is trapped between Dimitri's thighs - famous last words, so to speak. Ace makes a guttural sound that convinces me the hold is tight. Dimitri also works an arm lock that Ace pulls free of shortly before escaping and getting a headlock on Dimitri. These tight squeezes are, for me, the essence of wrestling.

There's a reversal every minute until a low blow buys Dimitri some time to beat up on Aarons. Then a couple of minutes later, Ace strikes back, taking a short break to adjust the sweaty front of his trunks. Give and take is the dominant patter, so obviously I'm a happy man. By the halfway point, both are sweating, again much to my delight. The violence intensifies as the wrestlers careen towards the turnbuckles and ropes. There's no guessing the outcome before it happens in the last sixty seconds of the fight. I couldn't be more disappointed, I couldn't be happier.

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