Pièce de Résistance
I'm not often caught by surprise, but the opening match of BG East's upcoming Ringwars 23 snuck up on me and pulled the back of my underpants over my head.
Jobe Zander is a wrestler I have sometimes found entertaining because he walks the line between old-school pro wrestling viciousness and Tijuana raunch. His gimmick is The Centerpiece, a perpetual erection that comically indicates his superior manliness and provides opponents with a nearly irresistible target.
His opponent in this match is Peter Owens, not a newcomer to BGE, but new to me. In physique and bearing, Owens is a typical jobber boy, set up for a one-sided squash. Or so at first it seemed to me.
Fans may or may not find the ending of this match predictable, or satisfying, but what is unexpectedly thrilling is the fight's vehemence. This is a dirty, grueling back-and-forth battle fully deserving of its inclusion in the Ringwars series. To an extent that surprises me, even in retrospect, Zander and Owens go to war for 23 grueling, sweat-drenched minutes, toe to toe, forehead to forehead, cock to cock.
The wrestlers deliver strong style chops and tumble in and out of the ring with hardly a break in the intensity. These guys could stand proudly in any puroresu arena in Japan! When they're not fighting, one of them is intently torturing the other. The moans alone are worth the price of the DVD.
No sooner do I think Owens is down for the count than the kid rebounds, more pissed off than before and determined, against the odds, to kick Zander's butt till it's black and blue. Then, just when I'm convinced that both these men must be indestructible, the fight draws to a precipitous close, and one thoroughly destroys the other and exits the ring, leaving the loser to gingerly piece together what's left of his shattered ego.
Zander has changed since last I saw him. He's cut his hair and improved his conditioning. His body was always promising but lacked something. From these images I'd say he's more closely achieved that promise.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that has long bothered me about him is his reliance on the cock and/or balls grab. In general, I don't like that, but if you have it in a match a little goes a long way. And it isn't as if he couldn't be competitive without it. I hope he kept it out of this match or used it very minimally.
Owens may be a scrapper, but IMO, in the end he's outmatched. The victor should be Jobe.