Exed

Exavier vs Cameron Matthews, Ringwars 35: In Their Rookie Years (BG East)

This is the most conventional of the three matches in Ringwars 35. Exavier is the swaggering bully, who refuses to shake his youthful opponent's proffered hand, and Cameron is in his fledgling stage, not yet the wrestler/entrepreneur he is to become - or, as a friend once described him at this age, "still rather scrawny with the bad haircut, the gummy smile, the earnestness that makes you want to smack him around." (I will vouch for my friend that he said this out of fondness for the guy.)  The setup is familiar, a myth embedded in our collective DNA: youthful pluck opposing sky-scraping arrogance,

I have always enjoyed Exavier - a deadpan ring-comedian with big muscles and world-weary eyes. Here he takes advantage of the new kid's naïve adherence to protocol to pull a dirty trick on him and, for most of the first half of the match, gets punished for his disrespect. Then, midway through, Exavier reassumes control and damn near kills the kid. (No worries, Cam is not finished with him ... yet.) What I say of Exavier here I said of him last year, more or less - looking back at the post, I'm shocked by my consistency. My current opinion has not swayed far from even my first mention of Ex seven years ago, in a match against Paul Hudson  (a living, breathing stick of dynamite, amen).

Matthews, back when, did not have his current wrestling chops, but he puts on a pretty show of standard ring-wrestling moves and holds. But his ring skills take second place to Exavier, who stuffs earnest Cameron's crack with the seat of the kid's stars-and-stripes trunks. As stated above, Cam gives the too-sure-of-himself heel a great fight, but, in my humble, nothing Matthews does to Exavier equals what Exavier does to Matthews.

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