Slippery People








UCW-Wrestling's latest release [#341] is the company's second oil wrestling match. The first featured Axel up against Johnny Deep, whose girlfriend supposedly came up with the idea. Long before Can-Am's classic Musclehunk Oil Wrestling series of the 1980s and 1990s (or BG East's more limited forays into the genre: the live Paradise matches), my introduction to this fetish was a relatively tame illustration of ancient Greek wrestlers in a National Geographic magazine (see illustration below). I was just a kid at the time, but already I sensed what I liked. 

In #341 Axel returns to the oil pit to square off against newcomer Tyson the Hammer. Both wrestlers have slender, muscular builds that the oil nicely highlights. They wrestle in white cotton briefs, which, soaking wet, leave nothing to the imagination. The yellow tint of olive oil exaggerates the aura of risqué naughtiness.  To its credit, UCW fills a gap with this and the previous oil match at a time when other wrestling sites no longer do this sort of thing (or never did). It's a bold step for the company and its wrestlers, more openly embracing the homoerotic aspects of the sport.

The oil-wrestling genre poses inevitable challenges, though. The choice of angles (and proximity) in shooting the action is limited by the borders of the oil pit. And slickness is not conducive to maintaining tight wrestling clenches or navigating from one hold to the next. Bodyslams and piledrivers are almost entirely out of the question.

In this match, a prologue depicts the wrestlers' qualms about the contest. Neither man seems ready to commit 100% to the event's potential as sex fantasy (unlike, say, Can-Am's Doug Brandon and Jimmy Dean, back in the day). In retrospect, I think the match might have worked better without the intro, which comes off as a bit sheepish, even apologetic. "I feel like a glazed ham," Tyson complains mildly as Axel applies the oil to his chest and shoulders. I can sympathize, but glazed ham is just not the image I need in my wrestling fantasy.

Once the match gets going, though, the wrestlers loosen up. The oil and nearly transparent underwear push them to new levels of daring and raunch. The trademark crotch grabs are more sexually charged than usual. In time, the guys maneuver around each other's slippery body with relative ease, and we even get something damn near close to a serious wrestling match.

Like swimming-pool wrestling and mud fights, oil matches are novelty acts. In similar events at state fairs and titty bars, the participants often goof around and play up the obvious comic possibilities. Plenty of toothy smiles and eye-rolling. Everybody yucking it up. But the secret to a great oil match, I believe, is to play it as straight as possible, no wisecracks, no giggles, no irony. Just slick up, put on your best fight face, and go at it. Just like the noble Greeks of old.



Comments

  1. I remember well the last photo (and over the years it is a background resource). The photo/drawing/painting was associated as part of the NG coverage of the 1964 Tokyo games. Thanks for rebooting it for me. Love those noble Greeks.

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