Silence

Scrappy vs Jason Aleqsander, NHB (Underground Wrestler)

Because this NHB match has no sound for the first 16 minutes, it costs considerably less to download - $9.99, compared to $19.99. Without sound, I pay more attention to the bodies and body movement. This is a terrific rough and tumble fight. Despite their physical differences and Scrappy's greater experience as an underground wrestler, the two wrestlers are well matched. The two bodies are frequently entangled, creating the sort of stasis that fascinates me or, more specifically, turns me on - two bundles of muscle paralyzed by equilibrium. And speaking of bodies, Jason and Scrappy alike are solidly built and play the contest studiously as if it's a round of chess.

I cannot read lips, but it doesn't look like either Scrappy or Jason carries on a conversation. They are busy knotting their bodies together and attempting to force a tap-out. The match runs for almost 21 minutes, minus three minutes of warm-ups. But for 18 minutes, we get nonstop friction, muscle to muscle. The first submission happens close to the halfway point. The score evens out just two and a half minutes later. The game's not over yet, and the struggle seems to surge as we near the end. We get sound in the final minutes, and it comes, as hoped for, with a blast of grunts and heavy breathing.

A no-holds-barred match without sound is not necessarily a bad thing. I watched many of the matches I blogged about with the speaker at zero. The worst thing about a match without sound is I miss the grunts, groans, heavy breathing, the smack of bodies colliding, and the occasional scream. Most wrestlers say the same old thing anyway. (I can think of only a handful of wrestlers who say interesting things in the midst of battle - Guido Genatto, for one. There are others, but I am not in the mood for list-making.)

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