Review: Austin Tyler vs. Jessie Lee (Muscleboy Wrestling)

I've been loving Austin Tyler for a while, but especially this year thanks to winners like his tag matches at UCW and his battle against Nick Flex at Muscleboy Wrestling. Buying his match against Jessie Lee was a no-brainer. So how'd Austin Tyler vs. Jessie Lee go?

Boot fetishists will love how Austin
shows off his yellow footwear.

Austin Tyler's a hot commodity these days. No wonder. He's got awesome pro skills. He fills out trunks as well as anyone. His smooth muscular body is beautiful. And he oozes charisma (and sweat). In this match, his assets are somewhat muted in dark trunks and he's not really required to sell or sweat, but I still thought he was great, so that's impressive.

Now, as often happens, I rave about one guy and shortchange his opponent. In this case, I 100% bought this for Austin, but it's not like Jessie's unworthy of attention. He's compact, muscular and jobs well.

Austin's black trunks suit his dominant position.

Jessie's hard-bodied but bendy.

Looks like these two fit together nicely.

Things start out fairly fast. That's by design. Austin's on a schedule, so he wants to destroy Jessie and get moving. A real wham-bam-thank-you-man kind of guy (although he'd probably expect you to be the one to say thank you). Austin keeps wanting Jessie to submit, but the jobber is stubbornly resilient. Luckily, things don't go fast. After a 1-minute setup with Jessie stretching, Austin delivers 24 more minutes of punishment.

This is a 95.8% squash. That might not be a surprise, because I feel like there's a trope of Asian men being jobbers in gay-oriented wrestling. Now, it might be me because I can't actually name that many Asian underground wrestlers, but I'd bet it's definitely the most common portrayal. In this case, I've only seen Jessie against Nick Flex and Austin, so I don't know if he's always a jobber, but it might be nice to see this particular trope upended some time. If you've seen his other matches, let me know in the comments.

Austin wants a quickie, but
Jessie's in for the long haul.

Austin's comfortable in his dominant dude role.

What? The jobber flips the script (and Austin).

The 4.2% is a one-minute hope spot mid-match. Jessie upends Austin, but is too tentative to keep his advantage for long. In the GIF below, check out Austin's expression at being pinned. Hi-freaking-larious. That's a pro, man. Anyway, Jessie does his thing, but he's just no match for the bigger, more experienced beefcake.

I've never seen Austin in complete control before. What does he do with control as the mega-dominant super-stud? We get a terrific run through classic moves and some unique variations. It's all well-executed with the only hiccup being Jessie's unconvincing reactions to the opening beatdown. He doesn't react big enough for my tastes, but it's not a big deal. Once he's bent, stretched, folded and tossed around, he's plenty convincing.

I love Austin's WTF look here.

Will Jessie finally go down?

I started with a boot image and I'll end with another.
SYMMETRY!

In the end, Austin handles his role as dominant dude well, keeping things moving and crisp. He's got a big repertoire of moves at his disposal, so he can keep going all night, baby. Or at least for 24 minutes, which is still pretty good. I totally believe he could manhandle Jessie, which is helped by the jobber's pained expressions as he's tortured. I still want to see more sweaty, exhausting, back-and-forth matches with Austin, but this was a nice change of pace.

So that's my take. What's yours?

Alex