Slapstick

Roger Atlas vs Blake Star, Catalog 27 - Let's Wrestle? Let's FUCK (MuscleBoy Wrestling)

There are some interesting developments in this match. Once or twice a minute you may find yourself rubbing your eyelids in disbelief. I did. However, I'm not going to blog about those developments, mostly because doing so might make the developments less interesting to you, assuming you  download this match, and you probably should. Instead, I want to talk about Roger Atlas's and Blake Star's peculiar chemistry here, which is, after all, the spring from which all the interesting developments flow.

Calling this match-up "over the top" isn't even the half of it. We have two master performers here, turning the heel-jobber dichotomy up on its head and inside out. The spots are straight out of an old Popeye cartoon. I half expect Roger to pound Blake's head down to his shoes and then stretch him out like an accordion. Both have chalked up genius performances in previous matches, but bringing them together in the MBW fight space is something else. Each is inventive, expressive, and fun to look at, and they both know how to sell a spot from both the giving and the receiving ends.

Roger toys with Blake like a cat on a mouse. He pummels and punches and turns him up on his head. He tenderizes Star's thighs, plucks his chest hairs, and sally slaps him to the mat. This is violence served up comically, but the strikes are solid as Ashford and Simpson. Atlas and Star serve up stinging abuses played up the way the Three Stooges used to. All the while, I sense the electricity between these two.  They draw their energy from each other and smack each other silly. It's not hard to imagine motion lines to emphasize the speed and concussions that are all but endless.

The match relies less on grappling than on stiff-style slapstick. I would have thought such a style would diminish the homoerotic heat, but, if anything, in these guys' hands, it expands it and makes it a little hotter. It reminds me of my favorite Austrian tag team, Team Turbulence, whose antics make me laugh and wince at the same time. It also reminds me of my old roughhouse pal's callous predilection for  making an opponent slap and punch himself. I'm amazed by how much pain Roger and Blake inflict on each other while exaggerating it enough to make it a caricature of pain.

Were these guys of similar size and build, I'd probably resent the goofy comedy, considering it a distraction from wrestling's innate homoeroticism, which I revere. But beefy Atlas and wiry Star are mismatched enough in size and weight to make the goings-on fantasy material.  Some of this spirit is detectable in earlier MBW matches, like Leo Luckett vs Armond Rizzo, for instance. I love a grueling match, to be sure, but I like fun, too..

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