2018 Cavey Awards: Promotions

It's time to wrap up the 2018 Cavey Awards.

The final day of the Cavey Awards is usually when I honor my favorite promotions in the gay wrestling ecosystem. Once again, I've awarded Caveys to a lot of great studs in great matches, but 2018 was a tough year for me in terms of choosing promotions. You might think that this should be easy, but I judge on my OVERALL experience, which includes several factors:

1. Quality of every match I watched
2. Enjoyment of every match I watched
3. Appeal of their roster in terms of personality, looks and talent
4. Production quality of every video I watched, including video, audio, gear, setting
5. Customer experience, including value (what I get for what I pay) and ease of doing business with them (e.g., distribution model)

So I look at a lot of factors and when I look at 2018 in totality, there was a ton of inconsistency. I even wondered, "Should I only consider each place's best?" That hardly seems fair. No, I had to look at all the great, the mediocre and the "why did I buy this?" videos. Should I ignore things like video quality, ease of doing business and value? No, because those things all matter a lot and are important to being a great promotion.

Of course, I could do the polite thing and hand out awards regardless of merit. Or I could do the safe thing and award a Cavey to the old standards. That way no one is upset with me. But then there's no point to this post at all. No, if I'm going to do Caveys, I'm going to do them right. I've decided to be true to my own experiences. My own experiences. It was a mediocre year FOR ME, but maybe not for you. Every promotion has fans. And I'll probably keep spending with all the same folks next year.

As a reminder, the eligible promotions are BGEast, Black Wrestling Network, Can-Am, 88Wrestling, Krushco, Movimus, Muscle Domination Wrestling, Muscleboy Wrestling, Thunders Arena, UCW, Wrestler4Hire and Wrestlingmale.

In the end, I do think that one promotion managed an award-worthy year against all those metrics.

Let's find out who ...

Favorite Promotion: Gold

Muscleboy Wrestling.

In only its second year of operation, Muscleboy Wrestling has really established itself as a leader in the underground wrestling world. Why? Here are three reasons they won my 2018 Gold Cavey ...

Talent. I like the mix of talent from familiar faces to amateurs to porn stars. What I most love about most of the MBW guys is their enthusiasm for performing on the mats. They're energetic. Passionate. Hard-working. They buy-in and embrace the setting. This electricity comes through my screen and draws me in. Any skill gaps are easily ignored, because the guys are selling and I'm buying.

Consistency. I think MBW really excelled at delivering the action you expect at the quality level you expect. I'm not going to claim that they were all outstanding matches, but what worked for me is that there were no 'bait-and-switch' videos. Guys, gear and action were just as advertised. It's one of the hallmarks of my past Cavey Award winners because it's the biggest component of value. I hate being duped.

Erotic action. MBW has become the leader in the erotic side of underground wrestling. And I don't just mean porn guys having sex. It's the sweatiest group of muscle studs. And they're always into each other. Videos with no nudity or sex are highly charged with chemistry and tension. Look at videos from JJ Allen, Austin Tyler or Nick Flex. They're technically tame, but fuck the chemistry is smoking hot. And when things do go further, it's always a natural result from the wrestling, not just tacked on.

So thanks MBW. You did a great job all year and I'm happy to give you a gold Cavey for 2018!

What about everyone else?

As I said, inconsistency was the biggest reason that I'm not giving a 2018 Cavey to the other big players. And some of the smaller guys fell short on elements like value or production. Yes, each of promotion had winners. Yes, some even achieved greatness. But they also had lackluster videos, outright duds, production missteps and/or missed opportunities. All this added up to me just not feeling it for anyone else this year.

Now that everything is done for another year, I hope you weigh in. I love comments and other opinions. And I love handing out awards, so I've really got my fingers crossed for a more consistently great 2019.

Alex