Introducing Leon Lange

Kirk Donahue vs Leon Lange, Hunkbash 26 (BG East)

I'm not sure of Kirk's standing as a heel. For four years now, he's jumped from babyface to heel and back again. I'm not sure it's a good idea to pigeonhole the popular ring veteran. He can do babyface and heel with aplomb, though his boyish looks appear best suited for suffering. He seems poised to assume a Jekyll-Hyde angle, but I think he would be better served in the middle ground - by dropping both the gleaming rookie schtick and the snarling villain schtick. 

I prefer to see Kirk as a regular guy, good but imperfect, who likes fair and above-board competition, but who is occasionally cornered into using brute force. In my mind, that means reserving his low blows for opponents who step over the line, assume a superiority they have not yet earned, or have no business entering the BGE ring in the first place. I'd prefer his dark side to lie dormant until the other guy steps over a line, prompting a quick and painful retribution. That's my Donahue fantasy.

Leon Lange, his opponent here, is a perfectly assembled athlete who can potentially be a top attraction at BG East. I heard gasps when he bounded into the squared circle and struck a double-biceps pose. Then I realized I was the one gasping. I yearned to see him fight somebody. He's the very picture of the phys-ed coach I secretly wanted to take 15-year-old me under his wing. Abruptly, Kirk enters the ring and scoffs at the guy's muscle and blocks the camera's view of the stud in order to show off his own biceps.

A couple of armlocks indicate that Leon may be the better man. Kirk is frustrated by the ease with which Leon hurls him from turnbuckle to turnbuckle. Leon isn't doing anything wrong. He's just physically stronger than Kirk. So, naturally, Kirk drives his forearm up between Leon's thighs and smashes the guy's nuts. Leon falls on his back, clutching his crotch, rocking his body back and forth in agony. The next eighteen minutes presents a nonstop hazing of the newcomer - an inevitability at BGE and most other underground wrestling sites, nothing unexpected, but perhaps too often too expected and predictable.

Kirk is more at ease in the ring. For all his promise at the beginning, Leon Lange never recovers. Quite evidently, Kirk can destroy him. Both men are feasts for my eyes.   

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