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!

Steel

Steel!  I completely forgot to do this post  a while back.  Steel is typical for the wrestlers we see at Thunders Arena, coming in at 5' 9" and 200 pounds.  Clearly a bodybuilder.  I don't know where Mr. Mike finds these guys.  Here Steel is wrestling Jake, who is another notable find for TA.  Jake is no pushover himself at 5' 8" and 180 pounds.  The set up for the match is an argument over who ate whose chicken.  In the world of Thunders Arena, that's all that needed to convince a couple of alpha male that it's time to head to the mats and prove who the real man is.  When the actions starts, you get the sense that if this were an amateur wrestling match, Jake would dominate.  But this isn't amateur wrestling.  It's Thunders Arena.  And muscle is the name of the game.  And the bigger Steel uses the match to show off his muscles with power moves like head scissors (I'm convinced those thighs cracked Jake's skull), rib crushing bearhugs, and of course the most alpha wrestling move of all, the gorilla press.

I noticed this match is currently on sale at TA, so it's worth checking out.  I'm looking forward to seeing more of these two guys in action.

Reflections on 2016

Before we get too far into the New Year, let's spend a moment to reflect on what 2016 blessed us with in the world of the Bodyslam Fan blog.  But first, I'm sure most of you are anxiously awaiting the announcement for Wrestler of the Year, but I regret to inform you that there will be no such award for 2016.  The turmoil from the presidential election spilled over to the WOTY Selection Committee, and things got pretty ugly pretty fast.

No one was willing to compromise or even consider seeing things from someone else's point of view.  Allegations of corruption, criminal acts, and even sexual harassment were rampant, and #notmyWOTY became common place.  We also experimented with electronic voting, but every time the votes were tallied, Vladimir Putin came out the winner even though everyone on the Selection Committee denied voting for him.

With all this chaos and animosity, I decided to just completely scrap the Wrestler of the Year award this time around and instead do something different.  Because I always enjoy finding new wrestlers and featuring them in my blog, it seems like a good idea to highlight four of my favorite new guys who first appeared on the Bodyslam Fan scene last year:

Destroyer Dharma debuted on my blog shortly after making his own debut at Singapore Pro Wrestling in a high flying match against Rowdy Ranga.  And by high flying, I mean Dharma had his opponent flying high around the ring.  You can watch the whole match here.  Dharma's second match was a handicap bout because SPW felt it wasn't fair to have just one guy face the reining Mr Singapore in the ring alone.  As you can see here, it wasn't much of a handicap.  Now I understand from Dharma himself that he will be in a battle royale later this month.  It looks like the big guy is making a name for himself at SPW, and let's hope we get to see more of Destoyer Dharma in 2017.

One of my favorite posts from 2016 featured Kevin Lin in a match from Underground Championship Wrestling.  Despite doing this blog for several years, I never really paid much attention to UCW, but I'm glad I finally decided to check them out.  Kevin appears in a few UCW matches, but I don't think he's been in anything new for the past several months.  But I'm hopeful he'll be back on the mats again sometime in 2017.

What can you say about Steel?  Thunders Arena has a knack for finding the big guys who know how to flex their muscles and then really show them off by gorilla pressing other dudes.  Steel has appeared in several matches at TA during the last year, and although he has been an infrequent guest on my blog so far, I expect that to change in 2017.

And finally there's Tanner Hill at Rock Hard Wrestling.  While Thunders Arena loves to feature the big bodybuilder guys like Steel, the wrestlers at RHW like Tanner are more often the high school jock and college fratboy types.  RHW is not as prolific in its production of matches as TA is, and I was even worried last year that its run might be over, but luckily their wrestling continues.  I look forward to see what they have in store for us in 2017.

With wrestlers like Destroyer Dharma, Kevin Lin, Steel, and Tanner Hill in action, 2017 should be another exciting year for the blog.  And one wonders what new wrestler will take the scene by storm. We'll just have to wait and see how things play out over the course of the year, but here's one guy I hope we get to see more of in action:

Happy New Year dudes!

Pressing Times

At work today there was a group of people engaging in their neverending conversation about the upcoming election.  And one guy, who is always overly dramatic and a general downer, sighed and shaking his head said, "These are pressing times."  Well, I don't know exactly what he intended by that statement, but for me, it brought to mind much happier thoughts.  I think these pictures give you an idea of what I was thinking about.

Yes, pressing times indeed.  And if you are looking for an escape from the campaign, be sure to check out Thunders Arena, which is the source for the awesome pics above of badboy Steel in action.

Horse Play

Hey guys!  Here's a picture of me hanging out by the pool while I enjoy the great summer weather.  Ha ha!  It's not really me.  Maybe you recognize this dude as Steel from Thunders Arena.  I just caught a preview of a new match TA released of Steel wrestling Tak in a rooftop pool in Vegas (Bear is also there to join the fun).  It brought back memories from when I was a kid hanging out at the pool during the summer with my buddies.  One public pool we went to had a list rules prominently displayed, and rule number one was "NO HORSEPLAY!"  Of course, when you get a group of kids in a pool together, and some of them are wrestlers, there's going to be horse play.  I can still hear the lifeguard yelling at us, "Hey, no horseplay!"  In this match between Steel and Tak, it looks like the rough housing gets a little out of hand, especially for Tak.  Good thing for Steel there's no lifeguard there to yell at them to stop the fun.

Check out Thunders Arena for a preview of the match, and Joe at Ringside has also got some nice commentary and pics to enjoy.

Jake Is Back

I haven't been posting much lately, but I can't let this pass without a comment.  Jake Jenkins is back at Thunders Arena.  His first return match against Austin Cooper has been out for a few days already, but that wasn't just a cameo by Jake for a special reunion match with his old partner.  It looks like Jake is going to be a regular on the TA roster again, and he now has a match against the 200 pound Steel.  TA bills Jake as coming in at 155 pounds, but I think he looks bigger.  It definitely looks like he has put on some mass since his last appearance on the mats a few years back.  But extra mass or not, Jake is at a distinct physical disadvantage against the bodybuilder Steel.  The smaller dude is gonna have to rely on his superior wrestling skills if he's going to get out of this one alive.

Thunders Arena has been on a roll lately with some awesome matches and new wrestlers.  And with the return of Jake Jenkins, it looks like things are only going to get better.