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!

All American Jobber

In some of my other posts about Taylor Reign of Muscleboy Wrestling, I joke about the possibility of Taylor being the boss at Muscleboy.  Afterall, he's got a few good matches out there being a Grade A heel.  But to be honest, Taylor is a versatile wrestler, and he does great playing jobber, too.  We saw that in his match against Nick Flex.  Don't get me wrong.  I love Taylor the heel, but you can't ignore the appeal of Taylor the jobber.  Taylor is smooth and lean, he's clean cut, has boyish good looks . . . he's the All-American jobber we love to see suffer.

And suffer he does!  What makes a wrestler a good jobber is his ability to endure the punishment, and Taylor does a great job of enduring.  We see that in another match of his at Muscleboy where Taylor faces off against Chris Cannon.  A great jobber needs a great heel, and that's exactly what we get in Cannon who really manhandles Taylor with multiple power moves, like suplexes, racks, and bodyslams.  And if you are a fan of the tombstone piledriver (and who isn't?), Cannon does not disappoint.  It's one of his specialties.  Meanwhile, Taylor endures throughout.  All in all, it's a fun jobber vs heel match where each wrestler compliments the other.  Taylor's performance as jobber makes Cannon shine as the heel, and Cannon's performance as the heel makes Taylor shine as the All American jobber.

Taylor the jobber . . . the boy knows how to suffer!

PS - To see more pics and commentary about this match, be sure to check out Joe's always insightful thoughts at his Ringside blog.

Power to the People!

I have openly wondered before who the owner of Muscleboy Wrestling is, suspecting that it must be one of the wrestlers on the roster.  Taylor Reign is one wrestler who is high on the list as the possible boss.  We've seen him in a match where he dominated the muscular Justin Powers, and it makes you wonder if Powers had to take a fall in that match just to please the boss.  Now today here's another match from Muscleboy I want to feature where Taylor Reign wrestles a bigger opponent in Dante.  On the website, Taylor is listed at 170 pounds, which seems generous to me given his slender (albeit ripped) physique.  Meanwhile, young Dante from Mexico weighs in at a muscular 185 pounds.  On paper, this match should be an easy win for Dante, but when the wrestling starts, Taylor controls much of the action.  To me at least, this is more evidence Taylor is running the show at Muscleboy.  But assuming that's the case, in this match Dante is having some problems taking orders from the boss.  For parts of the match, it's almost like he knows he's supposed to take the punishment to make the boss look good, but then other times he just can't help himself, so he outmuscles Taylor to take control and dish out some punishment of his own.  Like an exploited and mistreated employee, it's like Dante has finally had all the abuse he can take from "The Man", and he decides to fight back.

The times when Dante chooses to beat up on the boss, he scores one for the little people everywhere.  And he does so with some nice power moves, too.  As you can see above, at one point Dante gets the boss in a crushing bearhug, and another time he dominates the boss with a punishing torture rack.  And my favorite, of course, has to be when Dante scoops Taylor up with a crotchlift and drops him over the knee for a hard backbreaker.  I just love how Dante wraps his arms around Taylor's body and grips him tight with his hands balled up into a fist.  There's just something super-alpha about the way he does that.

And on the subject of breaking the boss's back, it's a Monday, so it's time to celebrate another Backbreaker Monday, courtesy of Dante:

Who among us hasn't at one time wanted to be like Dante, to scoop up some jack-ass boss (or arrogant teacher or school bully or lame assistant wrestling coach who will remain nameless) and break his miserable, fucking back across the knee?  Surely, I'm not the only one.

Keep flexing those muscles, Dante!  Power to the people!

PS - New matches coming out at Muscleboy Wrestling in a week or so.  Keep a watch out!

The End of Taylor's Reign

In my my last post, I extolled the virtues of Taylor Reign, conferring upon him the coveted title of "muscleboy" after watching his beat down of Justin Powers at Muscleboy Wrestling.  But the wrestling gods are fickle, or at least they can be here at the Bodyslam Fan blog.  Taylor sure looked totally alpha in his match against Justin, but what happens when you put the 170 pound Taylor on the mat to face Nick Flex, who comes in at 5' 11" and 215 pounds?  Nick has big muscles, and not only does he know how to use them, he totally LOVES to use them.  There's really not much that Taylor can do against Nick's muscles, and to be honest, Taylor doesn't even try to resist for most of the much.  He knows his role here is to be nothing more than a rag doll for Nick to play with.  And for his part, Nick takes full advantage.  If you enjoy seeing a muscular wrestler show off power by dominating a smaller opponent, then this match is not to be missed.

Sorry, Taylor, but you can't be the muscleboy forever!

Taylor Reign

Taylor Reign is one of the more prolific wrestlers at Muscleboy Wrestling, appearing in almost twenty matches to date.  At 5' 11" and 170 pounds, Taylor represents what I like best about Muscleboy.  What do I mean?  Well, let's contrast Muscleboy with Thunders Arena.  The talent at TA these days is comprised mostly of bodybuilders, which is pretty different than what you see at Muscleboy.  Now, I'm not criticizing TA at all.  I love the wrestling they produce there.  But the thing I like about Muscleboy is the "average Joe" type wrestlers it features.  And by "average Joe", I mean the lean, muscular jock type you run into in an everyday environment, like at the gym, the coffee shop, or even at work or school.  Taylor Reign represents the accessible "average Joe" stud wrestler, as compared to the almost mythical muscle gods you see wrestling at a place like Thunders Arena (and again, I'm don't mean this as a compaint against TA at all).

So, all in all, I very much enjoy watching Taylor wrestle.  Here are scenes from one of his matches at Muscleboy where he goes up against Justin Powers.  At first glance, you notice that Justin is thick and muscular, so you think he should dominate Taylor, right?  But at 5' 10" and 175 pounds, Justin really isn't much bigger than Taylor.  Let's imagine Taylor is wrestling a 6' 3" and 230 pound bodybuilder dude.  If Taylor were to dominate that match, you may find it entertaining, but certainly not believable.  But here against a "regular" sized Justin Powers, we get treated to Taylor delivering torture racks, backbreakers, powerslams, and perhaps the best finisher move of all, the tombstone piledriver.  These are all among my most favorite alpha wrestling moves, and I don't have to suspend my disbelief to enjoy watching a lean, fit Taylor Reign dominate a muscular Justin Powers with this type of action.  It's like I went to the gym, pointed to two dudes, and ordered them to wrestle each other for my own entertainment.  That's a good way to describe a lot of the wrestling matches you get to see at Muscleboy Wrestling. 

While bodyslams are my primary inspiration for this blog, I love a good torture rack, too.  I've been doing this blog for eight years now, and Taylor treats us to not just one, but two of the best torture racks I have ever seen.  Watching Taylor rack Justin is more than enough to make this match worth your while.  I find myself wishing I were the one being held across Taylor's shoulders like this.  Holy fuck!

Taylor Reign shows you don't need big, bulging biceps to flex like a muscleboy!

Read more about this match in blogsphere at The Cave by Alex and at Ringside by Joe.

Ethan Slade

Not long ago I did a post about Dante from Muscleboy Wrestling and his match against Ethan Slade.  As I noted in that last post, a lot can be said about Slade, so now I'm ready to add a few of my own words to the conversation.  The dude is 5' 7" and 145 pounds, not very big size, but you can see he's pretty cut.  Slade must be a popular wrestler for Muscleboy because he already appears in seven videos.  It looks like he's pretty popular with the other wrestlers, too.  Given his size, it's fairly easy for some other strong wrestler to toss him around.  And what wrestler doesn't like that?  Unfortunately I haven't seen the full matchess that these shots come from, but by the looks of them, Slade takes a beating often, and he takes it well.

In my prior post I commented about how the action at Muscleboy often moves beyond mere wrestling and into other things.  I guess if I were Slade and I got grabbed, carried, and slammed over and over like this, I'd be in the mood for some extracurricular activity too.

Nice!  Take me out back when you're done with me boys!