UPDATE: Although this doesn't work on the blog, it makes a mesmerizing desktop background.

This is an experiment. It's a little video I picked up from a google search of images using "headscissors" as the search term. Unfortunately it didn't work. The guy in the white and black leggings takes the guy in the black trunks and pull his back into a head scissors. It's a good little video, and I'm sorry it didn't work.

After the three matches in August of 1996, something gave way in me, leaving behind a hollowness that echoed feelings of both relief and shame. In the end, I couldn't say that I enjoyed any of the matches. Either they didn't live up to expectations or they darkened my spirit by disappointing sexual desires I wasn't ready to think about yet. I stopped hanging out so much in the AOL wrestling chat rooms, which saved me a good bit of money, and I got busy with other things, easily not thinking much about wrestling and the men who wrestle.

But by March 1997, I began to feel that old itch again, that old stirring, and it was stronger than it had ever been in my life now that I'd actually wrestled a little bit. I had a business trip planned to Ohio, and I got busy looking for a match. Unfortunately, this was in those days before the online wrestling directories, and I had no knowledge of any paper directories that migth be circulating. At any rate, I left on my trip with nothing planned and only an old laptop to suggest any hope of something's being arranged while I was out on the road.

I stayed in this little motel in this little Ohio downtown. I was to be there only a night or two, as I recall, so after supper I signed into AOL and started looking for somebody local. In the "Wrestling M2M" chatroom, I met a friend with whom I'd done a little cyber wrestling. He claimed to be able to pop open burlap feed sacks with his scissors, so I liked talking to him. I think he was in Louisiana as I we talked that night, but the amazing thing was that he knew the town where I was and, even more amazing, knew a wrestler there that he might be able to put me in touch with. I don't remember now if he just gave me K's email address or if he called K and gave him my email. Long story short, I was soon on the telephone with K, telling him where I was and arranging to wrestle him in my motel room.

K showed up at my door--a big guy, maybe 5'11" and 270 pounds, with dark hair and a goatee. He went into the bathroom and came out as the kind of wrestler I'd always wanted to get my hands on--hairy chest and back, big belly, thick legs. We were both dressed out in no-fly briefs, and when we got down on the mat we looked like a couple of real old school wrestlers. I was lucky that he came, because he wasn't feeling very well, but as I say, he looked great.

We took it easy, swapping holds. To my great joy, he's a head scissors fan too. He put me in some great scissors and made me submit several times. I put him in some good scissors too, but, tough jobber that he is, I could never get him to submit. He always eventually broke out of my scissors and then was on me, working toward another head scissors. One of my clearest memories of that match is of me on my back, several times, looking up at his big belly and basket as he loomed over me on hands and knees, working my head into position between his powerful thighs. When he had me just where he wanted me, he would roll down to his left side, trap my left arm beneath his belly and start working that scissors.

It was a great hour or so. And I was glad to have the memory of his great head scissors when I eventually came down with his cold.

I wrestled him again some months, maybe a year or so, later, but that's a story to be taken up in its turn.

Bill Hughes

On Tuesday I received from my friend Larry a message telling me that the great Bill "Ironcross" Hughes is dead. (The Ironcross was his signature hold.) I never met Bill in person, but he and I corresponded off and on for the last few years. I always enjoyed hearing from him and learning about the old days when he was a professional wrestler. The story goes, as I recall, that he grew up in the UK and became a pro at a young age. After traveling all over the world, he settled in southern California. There he opened a gym and kept wrestling, teaching younger men, such as Larry, the game.

Bill and I had been out of touch for a little while when I sent him a New Year's greeting and the link to this blog. The response I received was so very Billish:

[m***]- FIRST, hAPPY nEW yEAR MATE! SECOND- MANY MANY THANKS for the blog you post- as good, clear and honest as any i have read. maybe as you know from my web site, i am a former pro rasler from Europe, now live in Long beach California. i am from Wales, UK, my dad and uncles pro rasler, old style, and my earliest me,mories are watching rasling, and i swear at age 5 i got hard! at 14 i went to London to learn the *trade* ar Bert Assirati*s rasling *academy*- happiest 18 months of me life. turned pro at 16 and rasled Europe, Australia, Japan, India, Canada and the States. you put the fascination as good as i could- loe it as much as i ever did, and like you my gave holds are also the head sciussors, the figurte 4 head scissors especially ( i remember when i w asa kid in Wales seeing my uncle Billy rasle this bigger beefy stud, big meaty thighs,. and Billy went a long tome before he was exausted, and then the stud had his way with him,. and Billy wouldnt quit- and the crowd loved it! he also had this great head scissors,m and loved etting Billys head in therte, his face against his sweaty crotch, and grinding it in- and Billy finally qui, but the stud decked him again, pinned his arms above his head, mountged his face and dry fucked his face, the ef *trying* to get him off and the crowd going apeshit!!! still locked in my memory! today i am rasling a German rasler, former pro like me- Nazi, brutal stud, we have rasled *grudge* matches, for stakes, for over 14 years now! always about two houirs of hot rasling, then an hour after the winner is decided for some hot man to man action. you*d love it! love to see more of you mate- and i have some great pics, not in my web site which is for fans and kiddies !- love to send toyiou mate, and sure love to hear more from ya!!!! BILL

Jacob wrestleth with an angel

Genesis 32: 24-28

24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. 25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. 26 And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. 27 And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. 28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

Here in the doldrums of winter, I'm doing a lot of thinking. I was recently wondering about the various shapes the proverbial male midlife crisis takes. Most of the time we hear about a man buying a red sportscar or having an affair, quitting his job or taking up skydiving.

My midlife crisis--I'm 48--seems to be taking the shape of reframing my sexual identity. I don't intend to say that I'm a closet homosexual. I don't even intend to say that I'm bi-curious. Identity is more fluid than that. We create and recreate ourselves--our masks--as we come into different life situations. In the same way, our sexual identity, as an article I posted earlier on this blog suggests, is also more fluid than that.

Although wrestling has brought me several homoerotic experiences. These come unbidden, given the very nature of wrestling. But as of yet, I've had no consciously sexual experience with another man. But this enters my mind more and more these days.

I wonder if I would be having these ideas if it weren't for wrestling. A friend of mine once told me that it was through wrestling that he learned he was gay. He was dating a woman who had brothers. He got close to the brothers and realized that he enjoyed wrestling with them much more than he enjoyed fondling their sister. What a stunning realization that must have been! But then again, maybe not. At some level that couldn't have come as a surprise.

So I wrestle with myself and my identity. And I look for men who in some way resemble the image of that man I want to hit the mats with, wrestling every one of them I can get my hands on.

Here's what I had planned for my friend D yesterday. Unfortunately, life got in the way, and I had to leave his town before he was available and head home.

Another time, D, okay? And soon, I hope.

This evening I'm getting together with the first man I ever wrestled. (That experience is described in a post on 12/19/2006.) I happened to be coming to his town on business and got in touch with him. We talked on the telephone for a good while yesterday afternoon, and I think both of us are looking forward to it. We're eleven years older now, which will probably play into this new experience. He said that he'd had only one other wrestling experience in the time between January 1996 and now. I've had maybe 30, although I haven't stopped to count them.

We'll get together this afternoon after his workday, and we'll probably just swap hold, very low intensity. I expect there to be bear hugs and head scissors all over the room for an hour or so, and then I'll hit the road for home.