Artwork by drumbear@aol.com

On a rainy Sunday afternoon a few days after my match with B, I met J at Applebee's. He and I had been talking online for some period of time. I was a little hesitant about him, but I was excited about the possibility of a third wrestling experience. I went against my better judgment and made the meeting at Applebee's, took him home and wrestled him.

I'd done better than with B as far as hosting the match went. I'd straigtened up a room in the basement and laid out some padding that gave us lots of room to wrestle in.

I didn't like J all that much. He was the youngest guy I'd met, although after more than 10 years, I don't remember how young. In his 20s, I think. At around 210 or so, he was the lightest guy I'd wrestled too. He seemed like a rich kid, kind of spoiled and cocky. If I could have disappeared from Applebee's and avoided spending any more time with him than I had to, I probably would have. But here we were, meeting as we planned, and I took him to the house.

We stripped down--he to gym shorts, I to my no-fly colored briefs--and we hit the mat.

I quickly learned another thing about him that I didn't like. He had a trashy mouth, full of insults and bad language that just came out in a stream--and mostly for no reason.

Now, I know that a lot of guys like trash talk when wrestling, whether it's foul or playful. I let 'em talk, if they must, but it doesn't do a thing for me. I like a little bit of verbal challenge, like "Come on, now, give it up" or simply "You give?" But on the whole I wrestle quietly and prefer that my opponent do the same. I like to hear heavy breathing and grunting. I've wrestled some verbal guys that I dearly love, but I always hope some happy medium between his desire for talk and my desire for quiet will be found without either of us having to say anything about it.

Returning to J, I must say, however, that the wrestling we did was more real and exciting than anything I'd done to that point. We went at it pretty hard, wrestling several submission falls--he won most of them--over the course of an hour or so. Again, memory fails me to some extent, but I remember working him into this one hold to which he submitted. We began the fall on our knees, and when he dove low at my waist, I pitched forward and put my weight on his back, his head at my crotch, my chest weighing down on his lower back. As he tried to press upward, I opened my legs and caught his head between my thighs and locked on a head scissors. Then I wrapped my arms around his waist and cinched in a bear hug. Both holds were tight. He struggled for a while but ultimately could do nothing but submit.

Again, this wrestling was the best I'd done in my limited experience, but the trash talk and the whole spirit he brought to the match had wounded me in a way. The worst result of this was that the following week when I traveled to meet my longtime friend Luke--a wrestling experience I'd been anticipating for a long time--I wasn't excited about it. J's bad attitude put a damper on my enthusiasm, and because of that my meeting with Luke, while satifying on a personal level, suffered on a wrestling level. Strange as it might sound, I got through the match with Luke--which wasn't how I wanted our match to turn out--and then didn't look for any wrestling for a good while after that.