As my friend pointed out about my Saturday morning wrestling post, neither wrestler in the Royal/Angel match could manage a head scissors, my favorite hold. Here's a video that's somewhat older than the era to which I was referring. But it captures the ambience even better perhaps--and there's a good head scissors within the first five moves!

I miss Saturday morning wrestling on television. Throughout my childhood and up until the time I was in college, watching wrestling on the local NBC affiliate was a ritual with me. I didn't grow out of it, obviously; the programs themselves either disappeared or changed to something I no longer enjoyed.

I'm in my 50s, and, like I said, back in the late '60s and throughout the '70s I watched wrestling on a local channel. This was before the coming of cable TV, of the big promotions and, ultimately, the downfall of the wrestling I loved. The program came on at 11:00 every Saturday morning, not prime time. I remember how I could hardly wait for the cartoons to finish and the wrestling to begin. The matches were filmed in a regional television studio, not in a huge arena. Along one or two sides of the ring, a few benches of spectators watched; often they appeared to be a troop of Boy Scouts or a 4-H Club.

This wrestling--while filled with good guys and bad buys, faces and heels--had a certain innocence about it. In its small setting, described by the voices of familiar ringside announcers, the wrestling also had a certain intimacy about it. I sat on the edge of my seat, waiting for my favorite wrestlers and my favorite holds. Exciting stuff! When my favorite wrestler got somebody in my favorite hold--or when some wrestler got him in that hold--I pulled a pillow onto my lap and tried not to look all hot and bothered. Usually I was watching alone, so it didn't matter.

I can't stand today's TV wrestling. Even the local stuff that shows up on independent channels at 3:00 in the morning is just a cheap imitation of the big cable shows. I've discovered some of those old matches on YouTube, and it's to these that I turn on such a Saturday morning as this, when I'm more or less alone in the house and in need of some wrestling nostalgia.

I received word last night that an old friend of mine died last week. We were friends when I was in my late teens and early 20s and he was in his early 30s. I suppose that it was with him that I made the first of my few failed attempts (all have failed) at bringing my "Normal" life and my wrestling life together. This was in the years when the days of playful, seemingly innocent schoolyard wrestling were past. I knew that wrestling meant something more to me than a game of pick-up basketball or touch football. But this was also 15 years or so before the cloak of anonymity offered by the Internet made discussing wrestling—and eventually actually wrestling—with other men relatively easy. This friend was a bit smaller than I, but he was athletic and had a fairly good wrestler’s build—strong legs, that belly I associate with the old pros. He was easy to picture in trunks and boots, and when I needed an image for my fantasies, his was one that I often called upon.

This failed attempt I mentioned happened one week when his wife and children were out of town on vacation and I was staying with him at his house. We’d been out to eat late one evening, and as we were crossing the parking lot to his car for the ride home, he mentioned how tired he was. I blurted out—masked as a joke—that I’d hoped we could wrestle a couple of falls when we got home. He just laughed and said he wasn’t up for tangling with somebody my size.

That’s all there was to it. But I must’ve been serious, for the moment was one I remember to have been prefaced by a breathlessness of anticipation followed by a lightning-quick sting of disappointment. The attempt to be fully myself with this friend failed. Now I recall only one or two other instances in the 30 years since when I veered close to this moment with another friend—also failures. I know I should stop hoping that such a transcending of boundaries will take place, but from time to time words about wrestling a couple of falls hang on the tip of my tongue when I’m with certain good friends who suspect little or nothing about the sublime passions and ferocious obsessions that haunt my love for them.

My last wrestling match was just over a month ago. It was a good one—the two pictures that made up my last entry are from that event. Whenever I have a fulfilling tussle like that, I’m okay to return home, where I don’t get to wrestle, with my wrestling desires satiated.

But then, after awhile, I can feel the need to hit the mat with another fellow and wrestle as long and hard as we can. Even though it’s been only a few weeks since my last match, I’m feeling the need again. Because I have no ready opportunity to wrestle where I live, I’ll have to wait until somebody passes through—which almost never happens—or until I travel somewhere. In the meantime, I know I’ll be doing a lot of thinking about wrestling.

And so it was last night.

I drove from my town to a nearby town to work on a project with a couple of friends I hadn’t seen in awhile. They are husband and wife, and I have at various times had a crush on both of them. As I traveled an easy four-lane, I let my mind wander and wonder. I thought of friends that I have here at home, some that I see regularly and some not so regularly. I thought in particular of those male friends that I love and would love to hit the wrestling mat with. But that’s more easily fantasized than done. And I wondered if that desire of mine manifests itself as a barrier in our friendship. Do these friends sense a level of reserve in me—or even suspect, at some level , my desires—that keeps us from fully enjoying one another?

As I drove, I thought back to the day before and the late afternoon telephone call I received from one of my great wrestling friends. This man knows about my wrestling desires. He shares them. To a great extent, he understands. If he lived closer to me or I to him—in my experience, never the case that I’ve lived close to a wrestler I really connected with—would we share a friendship richer and more rewarding than I now experience with the good friends around me? Or would that friendship be too rich and rewarding, so much so that it would threaten the life I’ve constructed?

I suppose that between myself and this wrestling friend, who is gay, I also construct barriers. My reserve in his presence—and in the presence of others like him—is different. While I’m afraid to let my friends at home know about my wrestling because I fear their thinking me a freak of some sort, I’m afraid to be completely comfortable with my wrestling friends because I fear I might act on sexual tensions that our wrestling passion can so easily generate.

I see no way of being truly at ease in any company. And so I suppose the best thing is to enjoy my friends—non-wrestlers and wrestlers alike—to the fullest extent that I can.

Back in January of 2007, I blogged about a match I'd wrestled with Rick in late summer 1996. As I wrote then, various circumstances left me disappointed with this meeting. For one, I had ridiculously high expectations. After that summer, R and I remained in touch, and sometime later, we met again.

It was winter, and I'm thinking that it was, perhaps, January 1998. Both of us slipped away from our daily routines and drove a couple of hours to meet in the middle between where he lived and where I was in school. I was still new enough at wrestling that every match involved some new experience. The new thing when R and I met this time was that it was the middle of the day, so we had to get a motel room in which to wrestle.

We met in a parking lot, talked between our open windows for a few minutes and then picked out a motel. R had to go up to the desk and register for a room, and then he had to let me know where it was. This was long before I considered having a mobile telephone, so I sat in my car and watched him register. (I don't remember asking if he'd used his real name, if he'd paid cash or credit. I wonder about these things.) Then when he came out, I simply followed him around to the back side of the motel. I remember as I pulled out of the parking space that I could feel the desk clerk watching me pull out and follow R. I wondered what he thought was going on and what he might do about what he thought was going on. This stayed in the back of my mind the entire time and kept me somewhat on edge with the expectation of somebody coming to the door, perhaps especially of some law enforcement officer coming to the door.

Inside the room, we did the usual moving of furniture and spreading of the "mat." Then we changed. I'm sure I wore a pair of lowrise briefs, but I don't remember the color. R wore regular briefs.

This time R as he was without expecting him to be "Luke," the online persona I initially knew him as. And there in that room with R, I enjoyed the wrestling we did. My best recall--probably seriously flawed after more than 10 years--is that we wrestled about 10 falls and that I won six or seven of them. R might remember different results. For a long time, this match stayed so fresh in my memory that I could remember every submission hold, mine on him and his on me. But all that's gone now. The one thing about the wrestling that I remember with any clarity was one submission where I got R in what I think is called an "Iron Cross." That was cool.

The main good thing I remember about the day is that I felt our previous meeting had been redeemed. R and I could get together and wrestle as who we were, and "Luke" wasn't around. I felt that we reestablished something that day, even though we've fallen way way out of touch since then.

I'm glad to say that I'd like to wrestle him again one of these days. We live in the same basic region, so it's possible.

A couple of days ago I traveled to the house of a friend who lives less than two hours away. This was, I believe, our fourth wrestling meeting in the last year. But we hadn't wrestled since back in January, when he moved to a new place--out of the old apartment where we had a couple of good wrestling bouts and into a house located on some acreage. Our plan was to find a concealed spot not far from the house and wrestle outdoors. I haven't wrestled completely outdoors since I was a kid, so something about this prospect was really exciting.



Part of this excitement dates back to my days in elementary school. Remember National Geographic, the good boy's Playboy? My school library carried NG, and I looked at it often. But really, my reasons had little to do with the easy availability of beautiful photographs that sometimes included the bare breasts of women living in remote Third-World villages. I saw those pictures, sure, but for a boy with a mind like mine, the places the magazine could take me--be bare breasts there or not--drew me to its place on the shelf time and time again.



Even then, wrestling was a particular fascination, already eroticized in my prepubescent brain and body. Thus, one issue that drew me to itself again and again featured a story on Alexander the Great. Most of the photography connected to the article focused on landscapes through which Alexander moved to create his empire, but a couple of photographs were sort of reenactments of the man's life. One photo in particular showed Alexander wrestling with another man in lush green grass. Both men's bodies were taut and their sun-bronzed skin shiny with sweat, and, as I remember, both wore black briefs intended, I suppose, to suggest loincloths (although most like the real Alexander and his opponent would have wrestled naked).



This image is framed and hanging in a back gallery of my mind to this day.



Now, be assured that, while we wrestled in black briefs, my friend and I own no taut bodies, and the only portions of our skin that could be considered sun-bronzed are our arms and heads. We found a spot in tall clover and weeds, not lush green grass, and spread out three fairly small pieces of cloth for a mat. (Alexander and his man wrestled on no mat.) But we wrestled outdoors, two heavy white bodies against the blue and brown of the mat cloths and the not-so-brilliant green of the clover and weeds, beneath the mid-morning sun, an outbuilding a few feet away on one side, a thickly wooded hillside rising a few feet away on the other, our cast-off clothes hanging in a group of nearby saplings.



Not the perfect recreation of that old NG photo but a great experience--except for the fact that my skin is sensative to the grass, and that evening I noticed that my back was a swirl of red welts that were a reaction to a wonderful morning of splendid wrestling in the grass!

* * *

As I finished this entry, I decided to query the amazing Google for an image of "Alexander" "wrestling." Lo and behold, the old NG photo showed up on the 6th page of results from the image search. It was also used as part of a blog, and here is what the writer wrote about it: "The final photo is from an article from 1968, 'In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great'. A Turkish oil wrestling contest takes place amid the ruins of Ephesus. Here, back in the Western end of Eurasia, Turks act out the roles of ancient Greeks and Macedonians in the imagination of the reporter. "

Time clouds the memory. I'm trying to reach back and pick up this blog's early thread about the matches I've had over the past 12+ years. I know which match I wrote about last, but now I'm having difficulty coming up with who and what came next. That match with K in Ohio took place, I believe, in March 1997. I wrestled him again in the summer, although I'm having trouble remembering if it was summer of 1997 or 1998. Rather than let this freeze me up, I'm going to say that it was only a few months between the two matches with K.

I wrestled K again at a different motel near Kent, OH, in the summer of 1997. This time Dr. J, the AOL friend who introduced me to K, was in town, so I got together with him too. I met one on the first day of my stay and one on the second. Seems as if we were trying to get all three of us together for a third day of wrestling, but that didn't work out.

After I'd met him in real life, I always felt bad about Dr. J. Not that our online friendship didn't translate to the real world. That wasn't it. We got along just fine, I think. But I have my particulars about the kind of man I like to wrestle, which to some extent makes my matches too much about me. Dr. J was a really fine wrestler with a head scissors that felt as if it could pop the top of my head off. But just as K, a big and burly bear, was just the kind of wrestler I like to get my hands on, Dr. J weighed only 175 or so--the lightest man I've ever wrestled. While K had the kind of body you could easily roll around on the mat with, Dr. J was all hard muscles and sharp points. If I were deeply into wrestling in and of itself, I should've enjoyed this. But with Dr. J the erotic component was missing. I tried not to hurt his feelings, but I'm afraid I did. For that I'm sorry.

My second match with K went much like the first one, except that he didn't have a headcold this time. From time to time I got him in a good hold, but it wasn't good enough. As much as he enjoyed the punishment of a head scissors or an arm stretch, he always escaped and in a little while, I'd be submitting to some head scissors variation he'd worked me into.

The clearest memory of this encounter with K is a bit of conversation we had either before or after the match. We were talking about wrestling and sexuality, and he made the comment that it was through wrestling that he learned--or recognized--that he was gay. He told me a little story about the last--perhaps one of the last--girlfriends he had. He was going through the motions with her without realizing it. But she had a couple of brothers. And apparently during his visits to his girlfriend he became friends with her brothers. This friendship led to some friendly wrestling matches in the back yard at her house. K told me that these matches with her brothers really got him hot and bothered in more ways than one, and the contrast between those feelings and those he felt for their sister was a stark one. He loved the wrestling and the feeling of wrestling, and in this he realized that his passions and emotions were clearly more invested in the homoerotic and homosexual than in the opposite of these, the hetero versions.

This time we met, K was in a relationship, and when we wrestled, he didn't wear the no-fly briefs of our first encounter but a pair of shorts. I was disappointed in that look but not in the wrestling.

K is a man I'd like to wrestle again someday. Dr. J is a man I'd like to be friends with some day. Doesn't that sound like the selections some of us make for our lovers. One man is thrilled with the friendship of this one "other," perhaps even more so than with the friendship of this other "other." But the physical relationship with the other "other" is more to his liking and so he commits to the structure of that desire and lives with the loss of the better friend.

Come, O thou Traveler unknown,
whom still I hold, but cannot see!
My company before is gone,
and I am left alone with thee.
With thee all night I mean to stay,
and wrestle till the break of day;
with thee all night I mean to stay
and wrestle till the break of day.


Text: Charles Wesley, 1742 (Gen. 32:24-32)

I could be wrestling today. I intended to be wrestling today. My good friend nearby was expecting me to be wrestling today.

But life gets in the way. I can't walk away from family or from parenting obligations to indulge my wrestling interest. I can't even walk away from these to spend time with a good friend.

I can, however, reschedule!

Here are some great matches I found on YouTube:

Horst Hoffman vs. The Destroyer
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AWtOkrvP40
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XVi8PGgaRw

Nobuhiko Takada vs. Marty Jones
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qib1GRkuxT8
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-nETTfbqMo
One thing I love about these is that they have no commentary, and you can hear the wrestlers and the wrestling.

Jacobs vs. Weaver: The Third and Final Fall. Each has scored a victory in the two preceding. Which man will take two out of three, or will it be a draw?



The gym is filled with heat tonight. High above the empty ring, the large old windows creak open at the squeaking turn of a crank on the wall.

Jacobs comes out of the darkness and climbs into the ring.

Weaver appears from the other side of the room and climbs into the opposite corner.

Both bodies already glisten with sweat.

"It's going to be a hot one," Weaver says.

"Lots of sweat," Jacobs says and smiles. "Are you ready?"

Weaver grins and nods. He turns into his corner and bends his knees, pulling on the ropes.

Jacobs leans between the ropes clangs the old bell mounted mounted on the side of the ring. Then he walks to the center of the mat.

Weaver springs out of his corner at the clanging and begins to circle, sees Jacobs moving to the center, and meets him there.

The two naked friends shake hands and grin with no hint of embarrassment over their pre‑match erections.

A moment of suspension hangs in the air, and then they move forward toward the collar and elbow lockup.

But Jacobs deflects Weaver's left arm with his right forearm. He grapevine's the arm in his own and locks up an arm bar with his left thumb in Weaver's left armpit, the palm of his left hand curling over Weaver's left shoulder.

"Aaaaaaaaah," Weaver yells in pain. His brown eyes shine for a moment with surprise at Jacobs's speed. But then they disappear in a grimace, and his right hand closes and uncloses in the air, pleading.

Jacobs concentrates the force of his hold on Weaver's shoulder, squeezing his thumb into the hairy sweat‑drenched armpit.

"Ooooowww," Weaver howls. His grimace deepens with the pain. "Please, Jacobs," he gasps.

Jacobs switches his focus to the arm now, pulling on it, but still gripping Weaver's shoulder and armpit tightly.

"Uuugghh." Weaver shakes his head against the pain, and sweat flies in the brassy pyramid of light descending from the dangling fixture above the center of the ring.

Jacobs feels the drops of sweat spatter his body. He purses his lips and squeezes his left hand harder into Weaver's shoulder and armpit.

"Mmmph," Weaver grunts. Still with his head down and shaking, he squares his body to Jacobs's and puts his right palm against Jacobs's chin and pushes. He can feel the sweaty stubble of Jacobs's beard in the hairless skin of his palm.

"Arrrgh," Jacobs says through gritted teeth as his head begins to give to the pressure of Weaver's right hand.

Weaver pushes Jacobs's head back. At the same time he flexes the fingers of his left hand, trying to restore the circulation Jacobs's arm bar has cut off. He feels the soft wet hair and the
heat of Jacobs's armpit against his forearm. In his mind's eye he sees his hand sticking out behind Jacobs's back, watches his pale fingers opening and closing shakily.

With Jacobs's head pushed upright, Weaver forces him back toward the ropes. And just at the moment when he feels Jacobs plant his feet to push back, he plants his own feet and pulls the
other way, using Jacobs's strength and weight against him.

Jacobs flips over Weaver's hip and lands on his bare butt in the center of the ring.

"Aaah," he says and presses the back of his right hand against
the small of his back.

Weaver stands up quickly, shaking his left arm and hand, feeling it tingle as the circulation returns.

Jacobs rolls up to his feet.

"Good hold, Jacobs," Weaver says between hard breaths.

"Thanks," Jacobs says, still pressing his hand to the small of his back.

The two begin a wary counterclockwise circling.

Weaver thumbs the sweat from his eyebrows and slings it into the darkness.

Jacobs stops and reaches out his right hand, offering a test of strength.

Weaver starts to meet Jacobs's right hand with his left but is reminded of its weakness by the continuing tingle.

"No way, Jacobs," he says and smiles.

Suddenly Jacobs dives in and grabs Weaver around the waist, cinching in a tight bear hug.

"Uuuuhh," Weaver grunts as he feels Jacobs's chest crush against his. Both of his hands rise into the air. A pleading gesture.

Jacobs cinches the hug tighter.

"Aaaahhhh," Weaver screams. "Jacobs, please!"

The two are locked together by Jacobs's powerful hold. Their sweaty chests and bellies heave into each other.

Weaver wraps both arms around Jacobs's head, seemingly trying to climb him like a tree in order to escape the painful pressure at his back.

"Uhhh," Jacobs grunts but maintains a tight hold.

Weaver's breath is coming in small gasped bursts. He unwraps his arms and leans back, pushing against Jacobs's chin with both hands.

"Aahhh," Jacobs says through gritted teeth as his neck is stretched back again.

The wrestlers' heads and upper torsos form a red and glistening Y. Their bellies still heave into each other, sliding on slick sweat. Their heat‑loosened baskets and tense thighs are pressed tightly together.

"Ohhhh," Weaver moans. The pain in his back increases by the second. With a grimace, he raises himself on tiptoes to put more leverage against Jacobs's chin. "Aaahhhhhhh," he screams, partly in pain from his aching back, partly to spur himself on to escape Jacobs's crushing arms. He feels Jacobs's breath struggle through his fingers.

Jacobs suddenly lets go.

Weaver sinks to his knees, his hands on his thighs, his chest and belly heaving desperately.

Jacobs rolls his neck and steps quickly behind Weaver. He sinks to one knee, leans his chest into Weaver's sweaty back, and wraps his left arm around Weaver's jaw and chin, cinching the
reverse chinlock with his hands clasped together just behind Weaver's right ear.

"Aahhhhh!" Weaver's eyes squeeze shut. His hands fly up, pleading again.

Jacobs holds Weaver's chin wedged in the crook of his left elbow. His hairy chest leans heavily on Weaver's back. He loosens the hold slightly and then cinches it even tighter, slamming his chest into Weaver's back so hard that sweat sprays out in all directions onto the mat.

Weaver feels the rough hair of Jacobs's chest grinding into the heated skin of his back. He feels Jacobs's bulging left bicep, rock‑hard, pressing into the left side of his face and nearly
forcing his left eye closed.

"Uffftt," he gasps. He slaps Jacobs's bicep with his right hand. Jacobs's weight on his weakened back makes him blink hard. "Oooohhh."

Jacobs leans into him heavily and tightens the reverse chinlock. Then he falls back to a sitting position, pulling Weaver with him, still in the chinlock. As Weaver settles roughly back between his thighs, Jacobs wraps his thick legs around Weaver's waist and squeezes.

"Noooooooooooooooo!" Weaver screams with what breath he can muster, and the ragged sound echoes through the dark gym.

Jacobs releases the reverse chinlock and wraps both arms around Weaver's chest. A reverse bear hug combined with a body scissor.

"Ooofff." Weaver feels the little breathing space left him above the vise‑like body scissor being squeezed to next to nothing by Jacobs's powerful arms. He breaths hard but draws little air.

Jacobs holds Weaver with his legs and arms.

"Uuhh," Weaver whimpers. He tries to push down on Jacobs's knees but Jacobs's thick biceps wrapped through his armpits block him from getting his arms close enough to his body for a powerful push. He sinks into the hold and feels the definition of Jacobs's pecs against his back.

Jacobs sits solidly on his naked buttocks, holding Weaver with his sweat‑sparkled arms and legs in the same position in front of him. Every few seconds he first cinches the scissors tighter, then the reverse bear hug. He feels Weaver's sweat‑slicked lower back against his basket, the heat of Weaver's hold‑reddened skin against his inner thighs. He smells the sweat on the back of Weaver's neck. He turns his head so that his lips almost touch Weaver's right ear.

"Come on, Weaver," he whispers. "You can't get out of this one and I won't let you go."

Weaver's mouth is open, and he gulps at the stifling air of the gym in ragged breaths. His head is starting to swim. His eyes glaze over. Jacobs's whisper at his ear reaches his fading
consciousness as if it were a sound from under water.

"Come on, Weaver," Jacobs whispers again, urgently this time. "I can feel you weaken. Don't make it go on for no reason."

"Okay, Jacobs," Weaver wheezes. "I give."

The wrestlers come untangled but not apart.

Jacobs releases his legs first and then his arms.

Weaver draws in a deep painful breath and lies back against Jacobs, breathing hard and wiping the sweat from his eyes.

Jacobs sits there, supporting his beaten opponent for a moment. Then he slides out from behind him, easing him down on his back, and sits beside him.

Outside, a late night summer rain begins to fall straight and steady through the amber lights of Cyber City.

Jacobs vs. Weaver: The Second Fall, in which the men really rough each other up.


Jacobs rings the bell, and it echoes from the rafters to the dark dressing rooms of the old gym.

The wrestlers circle the center of the ring, pause, and lock up.

Weaver quickly pulls Jacobs into a side headlock.

"Ahhh," Jacobs grunts. He puts his right arm around Weaver's waist.

Weaver feels the heat of Jacobs's hand on his naked flesh. He cinches the headlock tighter, crushing Jacobs's head between his forearm and bicep and his chest. He bends at his knees and rises slowly, grinding the headlock.

"Oohh," Jacobs cries through gritted teeth. His right hand spasm‑grips Weaver's lovehandles, his left hand rises into the air, pleading.

Weaver smiles and cinches the hold tighter still.

Jacobs moves his right hand to Weaver's right shoulder and presses his left against Weaver's belly.

Weaver smiles again at these pleading touches, cinches the headlock tighter, and then flips Jacobs across his hip to the mat, coming down hard on top of him and still maintaining the hold.

"Uhh," Jacobs grunts as part of his wind is lost.

Weaver lies with his naked side against Jacobs's pecs. Again, with all the weight of his torso on Jacobs's chest, he grinds the headlock tighter. He leans in close and can see the shining moisture in Jacobs's eyes, the gleam of sweat popping out on his forehead.

Jacobs grabs Weaver's wrist and with a muffled grunt, pulls on it.

But Weaver holds on and continues to squeeze Jacobs's head.

"Ohhh," Jacobs gasps. He puts his left hand to Weaver's chin and pushes. He gets his right hand across Weaver's bicep and pushes the chin with it too.

"Umph." The sound escapes through Weaver's nose as Jacobs pushes hard. Weaver begins to lose the powerful leverage he had on the hold as his head goes back. The headlock finally slips until he has it locked only by the tips of his fingers.

Jacobs slides his sweaty head out and rolls away.

Weaver rises to his knees and slaps the mat with both hands. He watches Jacobs get to his feet and shake his head. He wipes the sweat from his face and stands up.

They lock up again, but this time it is Jacobs who takes the quick hold, slipping behind Weaver and applying a full nelson.

"Aahh," Weaver yells, his eyes slammed shut and his chin being forced down onto his chest as Jacobs stretches out his neck. "Damn!" he says through gritted teeth.

Jacobs leans his chest against Weaver's back, his forehead against Weaver's left shoulder.

Weaver strains to pull his arms down in an attempt to break the hold.

"Oh, my neck!" he grunts, still pulling against Jacobs's full nelson. He feels Jacobs's laced fingers at the back of his neck, feels them slip a fraction. He pushes his hips forward and then thrusts his naked rump backward into Jacobs's round belly.

Jacobs loses the hold and backs away.

Both wrestlers are sweating heavily in the midnight heat of the old gym. Both are breathing hard, their bellies ballooning and then shrinking rapidly.

They lock up again and sweat flies in the amberwhite light. They feel each other out, pushing and pulling, looking for leverage. Jacobs's hands slip a little in the sweat on Weaver's body, and Weaver yanks him back into the side headlock.

"Nooo," Jacobs moans as Weaver cinches the headlock tight. "Not again."

But this time Jacobs moves quickly to free himself from the vise‑like hold. He maneuvers his bent body in close to Weaver's and drops his right hand to the outside of Weaver's right thigh.
Then he threads his left hand between Weaver's legs. His hands lock on Weaver's thigh, his left wrist is against Weaver's dangling basket, his shoulder is pressed against the top of Weaver's naked buttocks.

Weaver is leaning back, working Jacobs's neck muscles when he feels his bare feet leave the mat.

"Whaa?" he gasps in surprise, just as Jacobs, with great effort, continues to lift him and falls back in a suplex.

"Ooohh," Weaver says as he squirms on the mat with his hands to the back of his head.

Jacobs rolls quickly back to his feet, slapping his pecs and waiting. But waiting only for a moment.

Weaver rolls slowly to his side and gets up to his knees.

Jacobs moves behind him, and his fingers pinch deep into the muscles at the meeting of Weaver's neck and shoulder.

"Aahhh," Weaver screams, his hands flying up in the air, his face folding into a sweaty red grimace of pain.

Jacobs lifts his face toward the light, which shines on his sweat‑wet face and his bared and gritted teeth. His biceps and forearms bulge as he squeezes Weaver's muscle, digging the hold
deeper and pushing down with the grip.

"Ohh," Weaver groans and falls to his knees. His hands clench and unclench in the air. He is almost sobbing from the pain.

Jacobs stands over him now, dominating. He shakes his head and the sweat flies. He bears down hard with strength and weight.

"Ahhhhh! Please, Jacobs!" Weaver cries. His eyes open for a second and then squeeze shut again. His hands are clasped in the air in front of his face. In supplication.

"Do you wanna give?" Jacobs says through the strain of the pressure he is focusing on Weaver's shoulder.

"No!" Weaver shouts and with an impulse of panic, rises to one knee.

"Didn't think so," Jacobs says and squeezes the hold tighter, leaning even more of his weight into it now that Weaver is up on one knee. Then he feels the first sign of cramping in his fingers.

Weaver feels the weight behind the hold increase, but he senses a weakening in the hold itself. He pushes up suddenly, almost standing, and plants his left elbow in Jacobs's abs.

"Ooooff." The sound explodes from Jacobs as he releases the hold and backs away bent over. He rests his hands on his thigh to recapture his wind and then shakes the cramps out of his fingers.

Weaver rises to his feet, his neck stinging, but he doesn't wait for Jacobs. With Jacobs still bent over and trying to catch his breath, Weaver moves in on him and takes him in a front facelock. He feels the sweat of Jacobs's head between his left arm and side. He leans his belly over Jacobs's shoulders, still holding the facelock and easing his weight down onto Jacobs's broad
back. He pulls the hold tight.

"Aahh." Jacobs drops to one knee, Weaver standing over him, standing in front of him. Jacobs's neck aches as the pain from the two previous headlocks returns. He feels Weaver's weight still
leaning heavily down on his shoulder.

Then suddenly the weight is gone. The hold is gone. Weaver is gone.

Jacobs is on his knees in the ring, blinking at the darkness outside the ring. Then he sees the Weaver's left arm snaking down over his chin and up the right side of his face. He feels the
powerful reverse chinlock being cinched tight, feels Weaver's weight now from behind.

"Uugh," he grunts and his hands rise into the air, pleading.

Weaver leans into him, cinching the chinlock tight and putting pressure on Jacobs's back with his weight.

Jacobs reaches back and grabs the nape of Weaver's neck with both hands.

Weaver tries to shake him off.

Jacobs rises partway to his feet, moves his hand to the back of Weaver's head and Weaver's chin to the top of his. He drops quickly to both knees, jarring Weaver's jaw and teeth on the top of
his head.

Weaver's howl of pain sounds more like a gurgle as he clamps his hands over his mouth and stumbles across the ring.

Jacobs stumbles forward and then steadies himself on his feet.

Both wrestlers are tired and weaving, soaked with sweat from hair to bare feet, breathing hard. Weaver holds onto the ropes, trying to shake the cobwebs from his head. Jacobs stands a few
feet away, rubbing his neck. They eye each other for a moment then simultaneously grin and extend their right hands and shake.

They circle, slowly and warily, tiredly. Then they lock up and the sweat flies in all directions as they jerk each other, struggling for leverage.

Jacobs begins to reach around Weaver's shoulder and moves in a bit too close.

Weaver pulls him into the third side headlock of the match.

"Nooo!" Jacobs screams, his left hand to the side of his neck.

Weaver bends into the hold, every moment cinching it tighter around Jacobs's head.

Jacobs reaches both hands around Weaver's waist and holds on tightly against the pain in his neck and ears.

"Ahhhh," Jacobs yells and begins desperately to push Weaver toward the ropes.

Weaver's side touches the ropes. He feels Jacobs leaning heavily into him, his breath lifting his shoulders up and down. Weaver releases the hold and raises his hands.

Jacobs straightens up and slowly backs away.

But Weaver jumps, returning to the headlock.

"Ahhh," Jacobs cries, a whimper of frustration.

Weaver works the headlock up and down on Jacobs's red ears.

Jacobs grabs Weaver's wrists, twists his body, and pushes up into a top wristlock.

"Ummppht," Weaver grunts, straining against his opponent and friend. He spreads his legs for balance.

The wrestlers arms are over their heads. Sweat pours into their eyes and down their arms and armpits and sides. They are almost face to face, their arms locked together, muscle against
muscle.

But after an attack made up completely of various arm‑oriented holds, Weaver weakens first. Jacobs's strength forces him to stumble back, but he awkwardly pulls Jacobs with him into a clumsy arm drag.

Jacobs pulls against it, but Weaver's weight is in free fall now, and he goes over with him to the mat, flipping over Weaver's hip and landing hard on the flat of his back.

Weaver is quickly to his feet. He grabs Jacobs's red ears and lifts him to sitting.

"Aahh," Jacobs screams.

Weaver moves his right hand to the top of Jacobs's head and his left cups Jacobs's chin. He throws his right leg over Jacobs's right shoulder and falls back into a straight head scissors from
behind.

"Aahhhh," Jacobs cries.

Weaver leans back on his hands and cinches the scissors tight.

"Ooohh noooo," Jacobs yells through gritted teeth, his face already reddening. He pulls frantically at the thighs squeezing his head.

Weaver plants his right heel into Jacobs's fleshy belly, and, leaning back on his hands, lifts his buttocks off the mat. His jaw clamps shut and he cinches the scissors tighter.

"Uuhhhhh," Jacobs grunts. His hands fly off Weaver's thighs and into the air as Weaver cinches the scissors again. "Ohhh, Weaver! Please!"

Weaver knows this will eventually be it if he handles himself and his opponent right. He looks down and sees his erection blooming from behind Jacobs's head. He feels Jacobs's short hair
scratching at the blood‑tightened skin.

His thighs tighten to stone, and he breathes hard through clenched teeth.

Jacobs grabs Weaver's ankles and pulls as hard as he can, but his arms are weak from trying to escape the headlocks, from own his full nelson, suplex, and extended nerve pinch.

Weaver's legs are practically fresh, and the ankles do not budge.

Jacobs tries to roll over.

"Uuughh." He grunts with the effort.

Weaver feels the pressure to roll with him, but he is desperate to maintain this hold. He cinches the scissors tighter yet.

"Ohhh, Weaver, nooooo!" Jacobs wheezes.

Weaver thumps a heel hard into Jacobs's heaving belly to stop his attempt to roll. Again the scissors tightens.

Jacobs stamps his heels repeatedly on the mat. He slaps Weaver's thighs frantically.

His own erection jolts from side to side.

Weaver leans back on his right hand, and places his left hand on top of Jacobs's sweaty head as more leverage to prevent another attempt to roll‑‑and for another reason.

Jacobs feels light‑headed, but he feels the hardness of Weaver's basket at the back of his head.

Weaver squeezes again, slowly and steadily building the pressure on the sides of Jacobs's head.

"Ooooohhhhhhhhhhh!" Jacobs howls in a raspy voice.

With his fingers locked in Jacobs's hair to hold his head in place, Weaver gives one hard quick squeeze to the straight head scissors to divert Jacobs's attention while he makes the split‑
second switch to a figure‑4 head scissors.

"Please!" Jacobs cries.

Weaver, breathing heavily but otherwise silent, leans to his right and begins bending his left leg, the hook leg, back under himself. The further he gets it under, the greater the pressure with which his right calf crushes into Jacobs's chin and jaw.

Jacobs knows he can't take much more.

"Please, Weaver," he sobs one last time, his voice muffled by the hold.

Weaver leans to the right again, moves his left hand from Jacobs's head grabs his own left ankle, and draws his hook leg even further back.

"Aaahhh!" Jacobs scream-mumbles with his last ounce of energy. His hands fly up in the air and shake. "I give! Weaver, I give!"

Weaver untangles the hold and falls back on the mat, exhausted.

Jacobs, his cheek pillowed against the inside of Weaver's right thigh, grabs his head.

"What a headache," he says.

Both wrestlers lie there under the ring light until the heavy breathing has stopped and the sweat is dried and the erections have subsided.

Back in the mid 1990s, when I first entered cyberspace and discovered wrestlers there, I did a good bit of cyberwrestling with various men and women on AOL. Luke, mentioned long ago on this blog, was my favorite. After I began meeting men and wrestling for real, I quit cyberwrestling, but before I used the text of those cybermatches with Luke to create a three-fall wrestling story. I named my characters Jacobs and Weaver, after two of my favorite wrestlers from back in the day. Although I don't remember clearly now, I think I must have posted these somewhere, after which they floated around the Internet. They might still be found in various places, but I know they're still advertised on www.wrestlemen.com.

What follows is the first fall:

The gym stands abandoned in the middle of a block of buildings built in the '20s, not far from what is now downtown Cyber City. Its brick face is pale with age, and the paint peels from the woodtrim around its one large front window and the glass door. "Blond Tiger Boxing" is painted in yellow on both the door and window, but the telephone number below it has been scraped off with a razor blade.

Inside, the cavernous main room, with its cold brick walls and concrete floor, echoes the thunder slap of flesh against flesh, the sharp breaths caught and released in grunts, the muffled rumble of
footwork and bodywork on the sweat-stained canvas that covers the wood floor of the ring.

Motes of dust ride the air and play in the nostrils, tickling. The close atmosphere is laden with the familiar smells of old sweat and old leather, the shrill fragrance of balms and salves for muscles, the yellow pungency of urine and the dull brown odor of spiders.

Darkness crowds ringside, shouldering its way into the brassy coronet of light that vibrates around the wrestle of wrestlers. The two are naked and beautiful. If not for the ring and the
building you might think yourself a month past some ancient summer solstice and come to Olympia for the Games.

That is what we know of how those people looked--starkly white and naked and beautiful.

No. You can see the truth.

These are not beautiful. They are not at all the pale and perfectly proportioned youths we see cut from Parian marble. They are men in their 40s, unevenly tanned, and clinically overweight. But their girth and age only adds a level of power and hard-won ability not seen in the contests between younger and smaller men. Their faces are not cool and impassive studies of effortless grace but are twisted and red and slavering.

In spite of this appearance, they are only beginning this submission-only contest. They have wrestled stop-and-go for half an hour already, warming up, each getting to know the feel, the
strength, the weakness of the other's body and mind tonight.

With smiles of recognition that the time has come to get serious and begin the match, the two break off and go to opposite corners. They stand with their backs to each other and wipe their
faces with towels and drink deeply from plastic bottles of water. Then they turn and face each other.

Jacobs is the younger of the two and slightly larger. His hair is light brown and short, and his eyes are a bright silver blue. He is less than an inch taller and barely five pounds heavier, but his upper body--his broad shoulders and back, his massive pectoral muscles, the paunch that is not flabby but tight as a drum--gives the impression that he the larger by more height and weight than he actually is. He is clean shaven but burley, with wiry dark brown hair that spreads across his pecs and down across his belly to his basket. His buttocks and thighs are thick and powerful.

Weaver is darker, not of skin but of aspect. His hair is darker brown, his eyes are brown with hints of green, and on his chin he wears a beard that is a mixture of black, brown, red, and white. He is large in a way that does not seem obvious. He has no great breadth of shoulder or definition of chest as does Jacobs, but he is thick and powerful all over, in the way of the mountain stock from which he comes.

"Ready, buddy?" Jacobs says.

"Ring it," Weaver says.

Jacobs leans between the ropes and clangs a bell mounted there.

The two men walk to the center of the ring, smiling at each other. They are anxious to wrestle, and now that the warm-up period is over and the match not yet begun, both have throbbing
erections. They shake hands.

"Good luck, buddy," Jacobs says.

"Good match to you, Jacobs," Weaver says.

"Let's do it."

They begin to circle the center of the ring, now trotting forward counterclockwise, now continuing in the same direction but turning and backpedaling.

Jacobs slaps his biceps and pecs.

Weaver throws his arms across his chest.

They slow and stop, hands raised, looking into each other's eyes. Then with the loud slap of large fleshy bodies coming together, they lock up collar and elbow.

"Uhhh," Jacobs grunts, bending deep at the waist and leaning into his opponent.

They struggle, their hands moving quickly by inches, searching for some kind of leverage, some kind of grip.

Weaver's left hand grasps at the nape of Jacobs's neck. His right forearm and wrist stretch across the crook of Jacobs's elbow, the palm of his hand hovers over Jacobs's bulging left bicep, his fingers press lightly against Jacobs's clean shaven left cheek. Jacobs's left hand is pulling at the back of Weaver's neck, and the palm of his right hand is pressed against Weaver's left
shoulder.

Both lean in and grunt with the effort, pulling and pushing powerfully, trying to get an advantage. They lean into each other and their sweaty foreheads touch. Both blink hard as their mingled sweat runs down into their eyes. Their faces grimace with the effort. Their bodies glisten with new sweat, displacing the old sweat of their warm-up so that it runs in streaks down their faces, out of their hair, down their backs and chests, and flies from their arms and baskets and legs.

Jacobs decreases the pressure at the back of Weaver's neck and with his right hand pushes Weaver slightly upright, gaining leverage and forcing him back toward the ropes.

With his back against the worn oil-darkened ropes, Weaver untangles his arms and lightly slaps his palms twice on Jacobs's shoulders. His feet are forward, and his body curved upward.

Jacobs presses against him.

They are torso to torso in the ropes. Their bellies heave into each other. Their baskets, now loose with the struggle, swing and tap lightly against each other. Each feels the heat of the other's body on his face.

Jacobs's eyes glaze with thought as he wonders whether to break completely or just enough to pull Weaver into a headlock. After a few seconds, he brings both hands flat against Weaver's
pecs and pushes himself away.

Weaver quickly steps to his right so that his back is away from the ropes and stops, eying Jacobs.

Jacobs raises his hands, ready.

They lock up again near the ropes.

For a moment, they push and pull as before, but then Weaver coils his right arm around Jacobs's left, straightening it and preparing to bring intense pressure to bear on the elbow. He brings his left hand from behind Jacobs's neck and plants it against his left shoulder and locks in an arm bar.

"Aahhhhhh," Jacobs cries. He raises his head, and his face is a shiny grimacing red mask.

Weaver grunts and cinches the hold deeper. The crook of his right arm comes under Jacobs's elbow and then pulls up, straightening it painfully. His right hand grips his left forearm for the lock and the leverage. The palm of his left hand is pressed deep into Jacobs's left breast.

Jacobs squares his body to Weaver's. His head and torso bow toward Weaver in an effort to relieve the pressure on the arm bar. He raises his right hand and slaps lightly at Weaver's chest, just below the base of his neck.

Weaver raises himself on his tiptoes and cinches more pressure into the arm bar.

"Ohhhhhhhhhh," Jacobs moans. He wiggles the fingers of his left hand in an attempt to keep the circulation from being cut off.

Weaver bends at the knees and slowly raises himself to tiptoes again, straightening Jacobs's left elbow until it almost begins to bend backward.

"Aahhhhh!" Jacobs yells. He slaps Weaver's right breast twice with his free hand and tries to push.

But Weaver has the leverage. He plants his right foot behind himself and stands his ground. At the same time he slips the thumb of his left hand into Jacobs's armpit and begins squeezing a claw into Jacobs's left pec.

"Oooowww," Jacobs cries. He stops pushing and raises his right hand with the palm turned toward Weaver. He pleads.

"Please, Weaver. Oh, please."

"You want to give, Jacobs?" Weaver says.

Jacobs does not answer.

Weaver cinches the arm bar deeper into his armpit and closes down tighter on the pec claw, feeling against his palm the wiry hair and slick sweat on Jacobs's chest.

"Uhh," Jacobs gasps. He can feel the sweat-drenched hair of Weaver's armpit on his forearm. But he cannot feel much of that arm beyond that. The fingers and the wrist are numbing fast. He
puts the palm of his right hand against Weaver's forehead, stretching his fingers back through Weaver's sweaty hair. He begins to push.

"Mmmph," Weaver says, feeling his head going back and his holds losing power.

Jacobs pushes harder on Weaver's forehead.

Weaver feels his holds becoming nothing more than a holding on to keep himself from stumbling backward. His leverage is lost.

Jacobs senses the weakness of Weaver's position and switches his right hand downward to push on Weaver's chin and mouth.

"Mmmph," Weaver gasps again. The pec claw comes loose and the bar is sliding off toward Jacobs's numbed hand.

Jacobs drops his right hand again, this time to Weaver's chest, and pushes hard, freeing himself as Weaver stumbles backward. He steps away from his opponent, shaking his left arm, trying to return the circulation to his fingers.

Weaver does not hesitate but moves toward Jacobs quickly, hands raised for another lockup.

Jacobs tries to shield his left arm. He locks up with Weaver, using just his right arm for the initial contact. But then he raises his left arm to Weaver's side and quickly drops both hands to the backs of Weaver's thighs, lowering his head at the same time. He pulls up on Weaver's legs and rams him in the chest with his head.

"Whaa?" Weaver gasps as he goes down hard on his naked buttocks. "Ooofff." He sits on the mat, his legs spread in front of him, his body momentarily stunned with the jarring effect of
Jacobs's takedown. He looks up just as Jacobs jumps toward him, but Jacobs's movement is so quick that he can do nothing to get out of the way.

Jacobs settles down in front of Weaver, facing him, his naked butt on the mat between Weaver's thighs, his legs wrapping around Weaver's back and locking in the front body scissors.

"Nnnnoooooo!" Weaver screams.

Jacobs leans back on his hands, applying intense pressure to the scissors, his rock hard thighs squeezing Weaver's sides.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!" Weaver yells.

Jacobs knows he is in control. He feels Weaver's belly heaving against his basket where another erection is starting. He sees and feels the sweat pouring down Weaver's sides and chest and
pooling at the point where his python-like thighs grip Weaver's waist. He feels the heat of Weaver's basket and thighs beneath his own basket and buttocks.

Weaver leans back on his right arm and presses the heel of his left hand to his forehead. His face is one red grimace of pain and struggle. He leans to his right in an attempt to raise and turn Jacobs enough to work his right leg under Jacobs's buttocks, to a position where he can get his knees drawn up under himself. But Jacobs is positioned too well. His buttocks keep Weaver's
thighs spread apart, stopping all Weaver's attempts to get to his knees. To counter Weaver's attempt, Jacobs leans back on his own right hand and places his left hand against Weaver's belly to steady him. Then he takes a deep breath and flexes his powerful thighs.

"Aaaahh!" Weaver screams. He sits flat on his butt now, his thighs sprawled uselessly on either side of Jacobs's buttocks. He raises his hands in the air and pleads.

"Jacobs," he gasps. "Please let up."

"Do you want to give, Weaver?"

"No!" Weaver yells.

Jacobs wipes the sweat from his face and slings it away. Then he calmly plants both hands behind him, takes a deep breath that expands his chest and belly, and cinches the scissors tighter and squeezes.

Weaver's head snaps back and his hands go into his hair. "Uugghhhhh!" Weaver says, the sound escaping from him like air from a balloon.

Jacobs's face is turning dark red, but he is maintaining this final squeeze.

Weaver's hands flit around like dazed birds--now at the sides of his head, now bracing him from behind, now in the air pleading, now pressing without effect on Jacobs's rock hard thighs.

"I Give!" he yells hoarsely. "I give, Jacobs!"

Jacobs immediately loosens the hold and starts to unwrap his legs.

"Don't," Weaver says, putting a hand on Jacobs's right thigh.

"Not until I'm a little steadier."

Jacobs puts his hand on Weaver's shoulder and bends to look him in the eye.

"Okay. Are you all right?"

"Yes, just let me get my breath."

They sit like that for two minutes.

"I'm all right now," Weaver says.

Jacobs unwraps his legs from around Weaver's waist, and they both lie down on their backs. They talk for thirty minutes, get up and shake hands, and hit the showers.

These days I fall asleep more easily than I have at any point in my adult life. We're talking minutes, sometimes even seconds, I think. Fifteen years ago, I'd lie awake at night for an hour or more before falling asleep. Maybe it's my age. Maybe it's the work I do now. Maybe it's something else.

But the sleep pattern after that isn't ideal. When I initially fall asleep, I'll be out for two or three hours, and then I wake up. Sometimes I have to pee. Sometimes I have to take some heartburn meds. Sometimes I just wake up for no apparent reason. Usually I don't have much of a problem going back to sleep, but the remainder of the night I'll be up and down every hour or so, which gets annoying. Sometimes, however, I'm up for an hour or two in the deep watches of the night.

What do I do when I'm awake? Most times I just lie there and wait for the return of sleep. But sometimes I read or watch TV. I discovered recently that ESPN-Classic has AWA Wrestling on from 1:00-2:00 in the morning. These are television shows from the 1980s, and while they aren't as good as show from 10, 20 or 30 years earlier, they're far better than what's on these days.

I didn't mean to write about that kind of wrestling in this post.

I don't think that I'm particularly troubled by anything. But then again. . . . Love (and the absence thereof) and death (and the looming nature thereof) and sex (and the absence thereof) and sexuality (and the fluid nature thereof) and taxes (and the taxing nature thereof). Rock-and-roll and wrestling. Work. The mind that should write but won't or can't.

I want to write more here. I need to write more here. And not just about wrestling as wrestling but about wrestling as life.

And so, I'm going to write a series of sketches--about people I know and people I've imagined, about situations that I find myself in or imagine myself in or witness others finding themselves in (or being in without realizing), about dreams and dreams, about my life and the lives of others, about wrestling I've done and wrestling I've imagined, about things I believe and things I don't believe and things in the vast middle between these two.

I doubt that I have many readers here, but if you read and would like to contribute a comment, please do. If you would like for me to post something for you, send it to me at wrestling-life@hotmail.com.

Rarely does it fail that when I get a little downtime from work and life my mind turns to wrestling. I can spend hours thinking, writing and surfing wrestling. What I can't do, of course, is spend hours wrestling. Those opportunities come few and far between, but I tend to enjoy them when they come along.



I recently received a note from a bodybuilder/wrestler that I've been aware of for awhile now. He looks like he'd be fun to wrestle, but I hesitate to contact him. Something tells me that he's just out for himself and what he likes. I don't mind that if it happens that what I'm interested in becomes a consideration as well. I don't know if that would be the case here. So I'll think about it.



Meanwhile, I've been thinking about a former friend that I never got a chance to wrestle. We had a conversation about wrestling one day at lunch, but it never led to our considering actual wrestling with each other. Of course, I thought about it a lot, but I don't know that he ever did. I want to say that he did, but I don't know. Anyway I came across a couple of pictures that got me thinking of him. He's the guy facing the camera here, and I think that my former friend decked out in a pair of black trunks would look a lot like this. Unfortunately, the guy with his back to the camera doesn't look anything like me, so I don't get that easy picture of myself wrestling my big friend.



But I do get the opportunity to see a hint of my favorite hold being applied to this stand-in of my imagined opponent. Again, the man going for the head scissors here doesn't look much like me at all, but I can easily imagine that the big man about to go down in the hold is the guy I wanted so much to wrestle and never did. As I've said here before, I'm sure, I have several men in my life that I'd like to strip down and wrestle. If we were kids together, a good backyard or pool match would be more likely than not when we are together. But as we become adults, regardless of our interests, the notion of doing something like this--of wrestling for fun and the pleasure of the friendly competition--becomes so remote as to exist only in a memory or a dream.

This past week I took an annual trip to Wicked City. The place put on its best face, as usual. It smiles and tells us of its history, its great deeds, its love of justice and truth. I'm sure you know the place.



This is a wrestler who lives there. A friend of mine. While his mask appears to make him dark and dangerous, he is, unlike Wicked City, at heart good and gracious. We didn't wrestle this trip. We had our reasons, chief of which, I think, was that neither of us is particularly interested in wrestling just now. We'll have another opportunity to get together in June. Maybe we'll wrestle, maybe not.



He recently got involved in the entertainment industry--a gay porn company that wanted to feature wrestling and fighting in its films. Of course, he got burned by the company, which is to be expected when dealing with entertainment folk. Anyway, we watched one of these films that he'd been involved with, as the writer of the screenplay and choreographer of the wrestling scenes. This was porn, as I say, so the sex was the object, not the wrestling. Generally nasty stuff, and while I appreciated sharing my friend's enthusiasm for his project (the wrestling, not the sex, which he doesn't seem to like watching either), I don't have any interest in such films for their intended purpose.



I'll stick to wrestling . . . if I ever get back to it.

Strange how the world can change without our knowing it. On 15 February 2008, I was traveling with a group of colleagues to a conference near Nashville, Tennessee. Sometime during that day, some few hundred miles away, one of my childhood heroes, Johnny Weaver, died. And I didn't know it until today. I did a search on YouTube, looking for any new Weaver videos that might have been posted recently, and a memorial video came up.

I never met Weaver, of course, but I hold so many pictures of him in my mind. Pictures from the wrestling matches on TV through the late '60s, the '70s and the early '80s. Pictures of him wrestling live in high school gyms near where I grew up.

Weaver was my grandfather's favorite wrestler, and possibly for that reason he was mine as well.

http://johnnyweaver.blogspot.com/

Yesterday, I wrestled with this man in the black singlet, the third time we've wrestled. As usual, our conversations between falls and over lunch were great. And I think we both enjoyed the wrestling, even though our time on the mat was shorter than either of us wanted. If I counted correctly, we wrestled some five or six falls to submission, most of them fairly short.

The last time we wrestled, which was 12 December, I left thinking that I wasn't much of a wrestler, that I didn't even enjoy wrestling. M had punished me every fall with takedowns into powerful holds that I no skill either to escape from or counter. So, I submitted. And submitted. And submitted again.

M and I talked about that match via email quite a bit and came to some understandings, and I came up with the idea to wear my wrestling mask in an effort to allow me to forget fears of my hair being pulled and to instill in me, perhaps, a little more attitude and aggression.

So, yesterday, as I drove to his place, I kept telling myself to get a good workout. I told myself to stop playing and wrestle.

When I arrived, we each dressed out in the same gear as in the picture above. Except that I wore my mask. It worked. I didn't worry about my hair. The mask stayed on reasonably well. And I wrestled harder than I had before. These elements came together--with, I suspect, a little easing up from M (although I couldn't really tell if he was easing up or not) to make our match much more even than the one in December.

Here's what I remember:

First fall--This one actually went on the longest, and both of us were fairly winded when it was over. M called this one a draw when he had me on my back well off the mat. I had him in a body scissors, but given the position I was in, I didn't bring much power to bear on it. He was on his knees and between my legs, but he loomed over me and was mostly in control. I somehow kept him from pressing his advantage to a submission hold, and he pulled out of the weak scissors and moved away.

Second fall--from a standing position, he fairly quickly had me down and in a headlock. Or it might have been closer to a chinlock. Anyway, a bone in his forearm pressed painfully hard agains the right side of my jawbone, and I submitted pretty quickly. My jaw is sore today.

Third fall--I think we began this one on our knees. After a few attempts to lock up, I reached through his defenses and took him in a pretty good headlock. I rolled him down to his back and cinched it tight. I don't think he was in pain, but he wasn't really going anywhere, so after a few unsuccessful attempts to break the hold, he tapped out.

Fourth fall--If I'm remembering correctly, this one when much like the second one and ended with a similar hold--and a similar pain.

Fifth fall--This one began standing, I think, and seemed as if it would end like the third fall. I think I took him down and into the same headlock, and I thought I had him again. This time, however, he surprised me. Just as he has me in the picture above, I had him. But he worked his right hand under my chin and pushed backwards. When let go of the clinch with my right hand, holding him in a one-armed headlock and trying to push his hand off my chin, he caught my right hand in his left and kept pushing both my arm and chin backwards. I still held the headlock for a few breaths and struggled to regain my balance and leverage, but it was not to be. He was quick! Before I knew what hit me, his legs had exploded upwards and pulled me back into a powerful head scissors. My head was sideways between his knees, my face toward his powerful calves and locked ankles. I love a good head scissors, and this was a good one! He could have held me like that for a long time and the forced me into submission. But he put so much into the hold that I thought I felt my bottom teeth grinding against one another and shifting out of place! I tapped out pretty quickly.

Sixth and final fall--I think he took me down from a standing position and was working me into another of his tough headlocks. The mask allowed me not to worry about my hair and pull out. I got him off balance, I think, and tried to get him in a head scissors. But the angle of attack was bad and his arm half blocked me, so I couldn't lock it in. He pulled free and pushed me back, but somehow in the process left his head open and somehow I locked on one of the best head scissors holds I'd ever applied in the heat of a fall. I had him cleanly, and I had him good--he flat on his back and trapped, I on my left side with his jawline and chin tucked neatly into the crook of my right knee and my right foot locked tightly behind my left calf. I pulled his left arm toward me, pinned it under my side, and he wasn't going anywhere. In just a few moments, he tapped out.
More than my jaw is sore today!

This powerhouse is working me over! How can I apply a good scissors hold when my legs are cramping up after something like this?

The new year always gets busier than I want it to be. The coming of 2008 is certainly no exception. And the busier I am, the less I think about wrestling. And that's a good thing for me, at least from time to time. I have a tendency to obsess about it--as this blog proves. When I have time away from thinking about wrestling, I find it refreshing. Such times clear my head just as a good wrestling experience does.

Near the end of last year, I became somewhat discouraged about myself as a wrestler. I didn't want to see that I wasn't very good. I didn't want to see that perhaps I was more into the eroticism of it than I was the competitive parts. But those feelings have faded a bit. I don't know if they've faded because of distance from the event or because of some rethinking a good friend and I have done. All I know is that I have another match coming up on 30 January and that I'm looking forward to it. In part this anticipation must have to do with the fact that I'm wrestling my good friend that day. Also in part, the anticipation has to do with some ideas we've discussed for the match. For example, I'll wear a mask, which I haven't done before. My main reason for doing this is to protect the long and thinning hair that becomes a handicap to my concentration whenever I'm wrestling seriously. The mask might also give my attitude an edge that might in turn raise my level of aggression a notch to match somewhat better with that of my friendly opponent. We have a couple of other "match" changes under discussion, and I'll write about those soon.

As for life, it's pretty good right now. The world confuses to the point of frightening, but I'm balancing it fairly well. I live in one of the 5 February primary states, so I'm starting to think some about voting. I've refused to think of it much before this, in personal protest against the sudden extension of the campaign season. How long has this election been going on? How long does it have left to go? The answer to both questions is too long. I believe it's criminal the amount of money the candidates are spending to be elected. I believe it's criminal the amount of money required to be elected. I believe it's criminal that those candidates currently serving in another capacity--as a U.S. Senator, say--are spending so much time away from the jobs they were elected to do and are currently being paid to do. Those people and places who elected these candidates as their representatives ought to be pissed off.

Personally, I'm still wrestling with the angel or wrestling with God. Our pastor at church recently included in the service a renewal covenant that John Wesley used to do with the early Methodists. It called for absolute honesty and had a place for a signature at the end. I couldn't sign it--at least I was that honest. Sneaking around to wrestle when I'm supposed to be doing something else--whether or not anything illicit is going on--is dishonest. But still I do it, all the while hoping that one of these days I'll either stop wrestling or figure out how to do it without half truths and misdirection. I rarely tell outright lies, but I'm not sure a difference really exists between lies and half truths.

If I had many millions of dollars and a desire to be president of the United States of America, I wonder what would happen when somebody discovered--and somebody would--that I've wrestled men in homes and hotel rooms across the country. What would happen to my campaign when somebody discovered that I like being caught in a good figure-4 head scissors. What might these truths reveal about me, and how would a public dazzled by the strange react?

19th-century French artist Gustave Dore depicted the forgers in Dante's Inferno. This looks like a tough wrestling match and not one that I would want to be involved in for an eternity, even if I were the man on top.