The Gumption Factor

Drake Vaughn vs Lash (Wrestler4Hire)

I will take a messy fight over one that's too thought out. Not so much anymore, but I used to regularly vent my dislike of staged or scripted wrestling matches. I just want to see two guys beat each other up. I'm even fine if they pull their punches or suck dick so long as blind rage is the driving force. 

I'm impressed but not deeply moved by leaps off the top ropes or precision dance moves. I don't think I am asking too much. Drake and Lash recklessly assault each other from start to finish. They make up moves that I'm pretty sure are not actual wrestling moves. 

This is improvisational wrestling, as I see it, making up stuff as they go, and it works. When I said "start to finish," I wasn't being exact. There is no "finish.". One of these guys gets fed up and limps out the ring at the end of 19 minutes, whining, "I don't want to go anymore." Who needs a knockout punch if you can make an opponent go crying back to Mommy? Yep, I can get hard on that.

Shot last year, this battle is unlike other matches I've seen. A lot of Lash and Drake's moves bear a resemblance to swimming, as W4H's product description reveals, and at times this match does benefit from the cross-pollination of wrestling and sports like diving and surfing. Drake, the slimmer and livelier of the two, compares himself to 23 times gold medalist Michael Phelps. Yet, unlike many matches that pop up during the summer months, there's no pool to splash into. 

Innovation is the product of mixing categories - creating a synthesis. This synthesis works, thanks to the wrestlers' adaptability and imagination. Innovation keeps a match from being predictable or boring. Drake and Lash may know nothing about ring psychology and scientific moves, but their killer instincts are 100-percent. I suspect they know exactly what they're up to. 

I don't doubt that Drake and Lash clearly make shit up as they go. A neuron gets excited and misfires in the head, and the wrestlers run with it.  - and these guys are pretty good at it. If you don't know a wrestling hold, make one up. Both wrestlers' half-cocked improvisations somehow make the fight seem realer. And better than most.

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