Hail to the Muscle Gods!

Who's ready for another post dedicated to the over-the-knee backbreaker?  I could probably do about fifty posts on this wrestling move, but I'll just stop at two for now.  I drew upon the image of a "muscle god" in my last post to refer to a wrestler who likes to sacrifice his opponent over the knee.  As I look over these two posts, I realize there are so many muscle gods in wrestling.  It's such a popular move that you see it in all the underground wrestling companies I like to follow.  On this page alone we got Rock Hard Wrestling, Muscleboy Wrestling, Wrestler4Hire, 88 Wrestling, Thunders Arena, and NRW Wrestling.  The new Weekend Wrestling absolutely loves the OTK backbreaker, and at Untamed Creations (which I just started following recently), those boys are breaking backs all over the place!

And looking at these photos I see so many of my favorite wrestlers doing the move.  I have to say that Scrappy is one of the best at breaking backs, but guys like Tanner Hill (aka Cena), Dante, and Cody Nelson always impress when they do it, too.  And I love the first pic in this post where Jake Jenkins plays muscle god by breaking Austin Cooper's back.  Cooper is no slouch himself in the world of wrestling, but it just goes to show that even muscleboys can find themselves sacrificed to muscle gods.

 

Sacrificing muscleboys to muscle gods!

Fan Appreciation

I've thought about contacting some of the underground wrestling productions to ask about a tour, meet some of the wrestlers, maybe even watch some matches being filmed.  Afterall, I'm an influencer in the world of wrestling, I've promoted their products, so don't they owe me something like that?  Maybe if I had more than seven people reading my posts, I would have better luck catching the attention of the guys who run these companies.  But it looks like Cameron Matthews had a fan appreciation day a little while back where some lucky loser got to meet Dark Detective (Austin Cooper) and Detective Boy (Scrappy) at Hero Hunks.

Things start off awesome for our lucky fanboy when both Austin and Scrappy treat the dude to an impressive display of strength by pressing him overhead.  This is exactly the kind of experience I want when I get the chance to meet some of my favorite wrestlers.  But unfortunately for our fanboy, things quickly begin to unravel.  His big mistake is telling Austin that Scrappy is stronger.  Austin is second to no one, so he takes offense and quickly turns on the fanboy.  And Scrappy, who up to this point appears at best to be mildly annoyed with fanboy, quickly joins in on the punishment.  As for the remainder of fan appreciation day, well, I guess the pictures give you a little taste of what fanboy had to endure, finding himself hogtied in the end.  To be honest, if Cameron ever plans another fan appreciation day, after seeing this match I can't decide if I would skip it or run to the front of the line.  Seeing fanboy hogtied like that give me so many conflicting emotions . . .

Scrappy knows how to show his fans some love!

The New Boy Toy

Back in the earlier days of Thunders Arena, there was always one wrestler who was what I called the "Boy Toy" -- a smaller wrestler who often was no more than just a play thing for the bigger muscle studs at TA.  The Boy Toy often found himself high in the air, pressed overhead by the many powerful bodybuilders on the TA roster.  Older examples of the Boy Toy included Tak and Angel.  But I thought TA had moved beyond this gimic, and the Boy Toy character was no more.  Well, the other day while looking through some of my favorite photos from TA, I had a "holy crap!" moment.  It hit me that Blayne is the new Boy Toy!  How could I have missed this?  Blayne is no newcomer at Thunders Arena, and he's been gorilla pressed by some of TA's finest.  I am a professionally trained blogger, so I need to start paying better attention to these kind of things!

Odd Man Out

So, what happens to a lean, gawky, scrawny guy who finds himself in a wrestling ring with two beefy muscle guys?  He discovers pretty fast that he's the odd man out.

It's a two-on-one wrestling match at Wrestler4Hire featuring Brad Barnes, Austin Cooper, and Ethan Andrews.  Both Brad and Austin sport a lot of muscle on their bodies, but not so much for the lanky Ethan, who clearly looks like the odd man out.  I love Brad Barnes!  And I'm a big fan of Austin, too, because he loves bodyslams and other power moves.  But as for Ethan . . . well, I have to admit that I always struggle with him. The set up for this match is that Ethan has long been a a bully to Brad, but he finally gets his due when Brad and Austin exact revenge on the smaller dude. In real life no one would ever believe an Ethan could be a bully to a Brad Barnes, but in the world of underground wrestling, Ethan often plays the bully, or rather the heel, to bigger muscle guys.  And that's where I have struggled with Ethan.  I like seeing the good looking, masculine muscle jocks delivering a beat down on a smaller jobber.  But when I see Ethan giving a musclestud a beat down, it just doesn't appeal to me.  That's especially the case at 88Wrestling, where Ethan clearly is the "odd man out" among all the fitness studs and physique models on the roster there, but those muscleboys always seem to play jobber to Ethan's heel.  Of course, it's a matter of personal taste, and lots of guys obviously enjoy seeing Ethan in that type of match.  Also, to be fair, I don't want to give the impression that I don't like Ethan at all.  He's a talented and prolific wrestler, and I think he is awesome in the role of heel at UCW Wrestling.  He really fits in there.  But when he's wrestling a big, good-looking muscle jock, I want to see Ethan suffer.  So, this really is just a long-winded way of saying that I liked this two-on-one match at W4H a lot because two of my favorite musclestuds dominate Ethan with tons of power moves like bodyslams, pile drivers, backbreakers, torture racks, and bearhugs.  So there you go, Ethan!  Take that, you damn bully!

Now that's how a muscleboy treats a jobber!

Mystery Match

You guys probably know that Marco from Thunders Arena and Wrestler4Hire has gone out on his own under the name Underground Wrestler.  He's available for private matches and will even produce custom wrestling videos, all for a fee of course.  So, the other day, I received an email from Marco, or so I thought, with a link to a wrestling video.  I figured it was a custom match featuring Austin Cooper (aka Frey) and Joey King double teaming our favorite boy wonder, Scrappy.  But in preparing for this blog post, I tried to go back to the video link, and it's gone, and I'm also unable to access what I thought was Marco's webpage.  So, I really don't know for sure where this match came from.  It's a mystery.

What's not a mystery, however, is why this match was produced.  Back in July I blogged about a match from Wrestler4Hire between Scrappy and Austin Cooper.  My post made much about how Scrappy totally dominated Austin.  It was a celebration of youth and future promise of the student (in the form of Scrappy) overtaking the older, perhaps seen-better-days teacher (in the form of Austin).  I really enjoyed that match.  But obviously Austin Cooper did not.  I think what we get in this mystery match here is Austin's response to his humiliating defeat in the first match.  Clearly this match is a set up to get Scrappy.  It starts with Austin accusing Scrappy of stealing from him.  As if our adorable little Scrappy is capable of such a thing.  Understandably, Scrappy is caught off guard with the false accusation, and that's when the fink Joey King comes up from behind and attacks the young stud.  The rest of the match plays out with Austin and Joey delivering a beat down of Scrappy.  Now, I, for one, am shocked and appalled by this (surely this is all real, it's pro-style wrestling after all).  There's no doubt in my mind that Austin arranged this treacherous little sneak attack as payback for Scrappy showing him up in their last match.  Austin is incapable of facing Scrappy one-on-one in a fair fight, so he has to resort to deceit and to bringing in the help of his hired goon.  I'm so disgusted by this display that I vow to boycott further matches of Austin Cooper, at least until I see one where he delivers another awesome bodyslam on a dude.  You know, Austin really does know how to fucking bodyslam a guy.  He's one of the best!

Look at that sweet, innocent face!  Who could ever believe our precious little Scrappy is a thief?!

UPDATE:  Marco at Undergound Wrestler still exists.  He has a new FB page with a link here, so be sure to check it out.  YouTube is being a big butt about his videos for some reason, but hopefully he gets that back up and running.  I look forward to seeing what matches he produces.  Best of luck, Marco!

Scrappy

Scrappy has been part of the underground internet wrestling scene for a few years now after making his appearance at Thunders Arena.  While the dude is thickly muscled, at TA he seems to face much bigger opponents, and more often than not his role there is to be the boy toy for larger bodybuilders.  But Scrappy also wrestles at Wrestler4Hire where much of the competition is either closer to his size or smaller, which gives Scrappy a better opportunity to show us just what he's capable of.  Still, when I saw that W4H posted a recent match of Scrappy against Austin Cooper, I figured this would be another match where Scrappy is made to suffer by a bigger heel.  Boy, was I wrong.  First off, the 23 year old Scrappy is billed at W4H as 5' 7" and 165 pounds.  I'm gonna call bullshit on that, at least the weight.  Scrappy is bulging with muscles, and I'd say he's at least 180 pounds.  And given how he manhandles the beefier Austin Cooper in this match, Scrappy looks even bigger than that.

The set up for this match is that Austin slept with Scrappy's girlfriend, and Scrappy is looking for some vengeance.  As an aside, we've seen the "you messed with my girlfriend" wrestling theme used before.  It's not a bad set up for a match, but why not have two masculine dudes mix it up in the ring because one guy messed with the other guy's boyfriend?  To be honest, I would have enjoyed this match better if that had been the case.  But only marginally better, because there was so much I fucking loved about this match.

I think what appeals to me about this match is that it's the teacher (Austin) against the student (Scrappy).  Austin reminds Scrappy that he's the one who trained him.  But as the wrestling begins, it's clear that the student has surpassed the teacher.  Scrappy is young, cocky, musclebound.  And while Austin is no pushover himself, he's a bit older and thicker now, no longer the young ripped stud we saw when he debuted at Rock Hard Wrestling many years ago.  This is no knock on Austin (he's one of my favorites), but seeing the young musclestud in Scrappy dominate the seasoned Austin is what makes this match for me.  It's kind of strange that I feel this way since my guess is that I'm not that much older than Austin (ok, maybe a little older than that).  But it's the youth of Scrappy dominating the older Austin that gets me going in this match.  So what's the best highlight?  Is it when Scrappy briefly presses Austin over his head before throwing him across the ring?  There's no more alpha wrestling move than a gorilla press, and Scrappy definitely makes a statement (i.e., Austin is his bitch) when he does so.

But there's more.  So much more.  It seems like Austin spends at least half this match in the air as the young Scrappy puts his muscles to good use by repeatedly lifting and carrying his mentor around the ring.  When Scrappy scoops Austin off the mat and performs arm curls before bodyslamming the older wrestler, that's pretty fucking awesome, too.  But is that the best moment of the match?

Maybe it's when Scrappy gets Austin in a torture rack and carries him around the ring.  I think this move puts Scrappy's physique on display, showing off his powerful chest and broad shoulders.  He also sports a cocky, confident expression.  The smooth muscles and the expression along with the pierced ears and blond highlights make the young wrestler look like a bad ass punk.  The groaning and moaning coming from the struggling Austin with his body across Scrappy's muscular shoulders only accentuates the younger wrestler's dominance.  There's no doubt that youth is in control.

In the end, there's just too much good stuff in this match for me to be able to point out one moment in particular as the highlight.  This match is all about the young musclestud Scrappy, who clearly revels in his masculine domination over the older opponent.  I guess that in a nutshell is the highlight for me.

Time to move over, Austin.  There's a new muscleboy in town.