Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Firsts!

There is a first time for everything. Some firsts are memorable. Some are not. On my Justin Pierce vs. Kid Vicious review, Phil commented that Justin Pierce was his first obsession when it came to the homoerotic world. That got me thinking, who or what are my firsts? Here are a few that I can remember ...

1. First gay wrestling video obsession: Brad Rochelle

To use Phil's term, I do remember my first wrestling obsession in the homoerotic world. Yes, all wrestling can be pretty darn homoerotic, but you know what it means. I do not remember my first obsession in pro. That would be between a few guys and I mostly remember "moments" that I'd recorded and replayed until the tape wore out but not the order in which they happened.

How my obsession started is pretty simple. I searched "gay wrestling" (probably on Excite or some other defunct search engine) and BGEast came up. I clicked on the result and there was Brad Rochelle. I don't remember exactly which catalogue and BGEast's previous catalogues seem to only go back to catalogue 30. However, it was one of his early ones. Anyway, I checked out those tiny little pictures and wonderful match descriptions. My first wrestling obsession was born.

Brad's famous yellow speedo and
sultry stare burned into my mind.


A fresh-faced tease.

Those shiny-green trunks
in an outdoor match.


2. First time I watched a match

I did not buy my first video when I saw Brad. He captivated me but it was kind of scary to actually buy. The whole e-commerce thing was new for me and the internet was about being as anonymous as possible. It took a lot more time for me to plunk down cash and I cannot remember what I actually spent money on first. More than time, it actually took some validation from someone who'd done it.

The validation came from watching videos bought by others. I know, I know. So wrong. But BGEast has received a ton of my money thanks to tape sharing and trading. It did get me to feel like this was a good place to put my limited extra cash at the time. At the same time, I'd also found wrestling personals. And one of my first meet-ups was a guy named Mike. He had a lot of tapes of wrestling matches. Pro and "underground". So, we watched together.

I remember Mike. I remember him putting in the first video then sitting on the sofa with me. Whether he actively curated the right videos based on our chatting or just guessed or I was just so horny I would've loved anything, I don't know. He definitely showed me a ton of hot wrestling once I settled down. See, I also remember him putting his hand on my forearm to stop me from jerking. Mike was, like, "Slow down, sport, there's a lot more to see." And he was right.

I will admit that I eventually had to put my hands behind my back and let him drive. We watched for well over an hour and I was edged the whole time. It all ended extremely well and after that, I was hooked. (On wrestling videos, not Mike. I moved and that was the end of that.)

3. First match I watched: California Ripper vs. Dakota

This is the first match Mike put in the VCR. The one that had me going way too fast too early. It shocked me when I later discovered that it is only 14 minutes long. I thought, is this only part of it? Nope. It really was that short. No wonder he stopped me. Maybe this is why I prefer short videos.

California Ripper is a swarthy macho man. Things starts out with him dominating over frat boy Dakota, getting a quick fall. Hot. However, Dakota then owns Ripper's ass the rest of the match. Gear is stripped. Trash is talked. And the pretty boy that I expected to be the jobber turns out to be a major heel. He totally crushes the hairy hunk and humiliates him for the last eight minutes or so.

BGEast does have this for sale on a Private Bouts compilation (37-41) or as an Arena exclusive tokens-only VOD. However, there is no page with match descriptions nor does either wrestler have a profile page.

Sexy, swarthy California Ripper on top. As I expected.

Ripper living up to his name. Bye bye, white singlet.

What? I wasn't expecting that!

Stripping Dakota has unleashed his power.

The Ripper owned!

Now who's the real ripper?

The real heel chokes the poser with his own trunks!

Pure prettyboy domination.

The hairy hunk begs for mercy.


4. First wrestling story I read: A Family Affair (Redneck Arena) by Mangler

Last one for today. Mangler's stories were all posted on a long-gone site but with some googling, they can still be found. I found them neatly stored in Globalfight's story archive (HERE). Many (all?) were posted on 9-12-2012 and all listed as "by Mangler".

A Family Affair was the first one that I read. It is a brutal ballbusting story that is so not my personal taste but the inter-character dynamics got me through that. I always skimmed past the yucky (to me) parts and focused on some hot cocky studs getting their ass kicked. Here's the intro ...

The Redneck Arena was bustling with excitement. The last match had just concluded and the loser was being taken back to the locker room for some post match action. But most people in the crowd were anxious for the next match to begin. It was a first for the Redneck Arena; actually two firsts. Number one it was a handicapped match, 2 versus 1 (actually there had been other 2 on 1 matches before, but this was the first "legal" one), and number two all the combatants were related.

Fighting alone was Jon a 19 year old, 6', 220 lb bodybuilder who had won several bodybuilding titles. His opponents were his identical twin stepbrothers, Brad and Barry. They were 5'8", 150 lbs and competitive gymnasts. The hatred between the stepbrothers had been ongoing since their parents marriage 4 years ago. After the twins mother died, the hatred had intensified finally leading up to tonight's challenge, which was also the twins 18th birthday, the legal age for entrance to the Arena. In anticipation of the problems associated with the match, the promoters had assigned Tim, their best referee, to the match. Tim was 6'1" and 215 lbs of raw masculinity and accepted no shit from anyone. In addition, he also fought and wrestled in another league.

Tim was standing in the center of the ring when the announcement was made. The crowds reaction indicated that most of them were rooting for the twins. The ref called the combatants to the middle of the ring and admonished them, "Okay, you all know the rules, no low blows and regular tag-team rules. Don't even think about violating them, because I won't stand for it."

"It doesn't really matter what you think," Jon said. "These two pieces of shit are going down in a matter of minutes so you don't have to worry about violations."

"There you go daydreaming again big brother. You always were such an asshole," Brad replied.

"Enough already. Save it for the damned wrestling. Now go back to your corner and wait for the bell."

First off, the idea of a redneck arena is fascinating. Second, it's brothers battling. Third, it goes down in a really hot fashion. It ends with the promise of more that never happens (as far as I know), but that's probably right. We don't need to see any follow up. The violence goes a little too far for me but the scenario and rest of the action is really excellent.

So, those are some of my firsts. What about you? Got any great firsts you'd like to share? The comment box is the perfect place to do it!

Alex



29 comments:

  1. My first wrestling videos were from BG East. They were Demolition 6, Demolition 3, Squared Circle 1 and Clobber The Jobber. It took me over a year to work up to finally ordering them but when I did, I was hooked.
    Greg Michaels was my first wrestling obsession, I watched his match with Josh Avery over and over and over again. I'm a sucker for redheads and wimpy jobbers and Greg fit the bill perfectly.

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  2. Damn I can't even remember my first time of those you mentioned above except for my first obsession for a favorite wrestler being Alexi A. And I love Manglers stories I always tried to search for more after reading every one that was posted on Globalfights. I love a nice beatdown which his stories had, even if it was a bit too brutal at times.

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    1. Right after I posted it I remembered that my first Wrestling story I read was JungleKingKaisers Celebrity Wrestling Island. Well his Gotham Wrestling comics if those counted. Seemed like all of the good wrestling fiction was back in the day, minus for yours of course.

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    2. Well, the reason I remember the first match is because it was part of a great shared experience. I can’t remember the first match I bought.

      I LOVE LOVE LOVE JungleKingKazar’s stuff.

      I’m glad you added that last part. I was about to be offended. LOL. I do agree a lot of creation has shifted in the approach. One thing that’s interesting is that there are private stories - I’ve heard from several people where they create stories for themselves and their close friends not for public consumption.

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    3. I loved JKKs material too. His comics and stories were the best. I always wished he made some superman matches after seeing how great the gotham comics were. He still makes some youtube videos with WWE games but I cant help but miss his writing.

      That does make sense. Too bad though I love a good wrestling fiction. I need to figure out how to infiltrate these private circles haha!

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    4. He had a great Superboy vs Kryptonite Kid one that might have been the first time I saw his work. And his Korak vs twins one was fun but never finished as far as I know.

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  3. I wish I remember how I stumbled across Can-Am, but that was the first website that opened the door into underground wrestling for me. My first purchase was Thunder's very first DVD. It had 2 or 3 matches with Ajax and 2 other guys. It's lying around here somewhere! lol

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    1. Ajax was likely my first Thunders guy, too. He’s the first I remember.

      I definitely know I searched because I wasn’t even sure if I’d find anything. I only discovered Can-Am later through a friend but it has never really been my thing. I don’t know how I discovered anywhere else.

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  4. Haha, Honored I could help inspire a post!

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  5. Great post. I found Can-Am from an ad in the back of a small magazine advertising porn tapes(mostly straight}. The magazine was given to me by my parent's neighbor, an 85 year old straight guy telling me I should order a tape of one of his favorite girls. I had different thing in mind :)

    I ordered the catalog from Can-Am and my first obsession was with Mark Wolff. All I needed were the pictures in the catalog to keep me satisfied for a while! I finally built up the courage to order a tape and was hooked on gay wrestling forever. Some other early obsessions were also Brad Rochelle and Wade Cutler, they both suffered so well.

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    1. Wow, that’s awesome.

      Agree on Wade Cutler. What a perfect stud.

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  6. GREAT post, Alex, and thank you for sharing! I remember the wonder and excitement I first felt when I discovered sites like BG East, Can-Am, and the Bearhug Submission Page during my first forays onto the world wide web. It was so awesome knowing there were actually people out there who had the same interests as me! My first computer only had about 250 MB of memory, and I quickly filled it with images saved from those sites (which took forever to download via modem, lol). Mark Wolff, Ed Harte, Steve Arnold, Bart Tyler, Skip Roberts, Tony Valor, Kid Lightning, Paul Perris, Buster Bergeron. Mike Columbo, Wade Cutler… I had to sneak my obsessions past my family, so I spent a lot of late nights in front of the screen after everyone else was in bed. With the bearhug being my favorite hold, I also spent countless hours in the basement going through VCR recordings of movies, cartoons, and pro wrestling shows and splicing together the bearhug scenes on one cassette.

    In college, I had roommates but was very much in the closet, so I still wasn’t able to indulge in my vices. It wasn’t until I finally moved out on my own at age 22 that I finally made my first video order. Unsurprisingly, I purchased the five bearhug compilation videos that were offered by the Bearhug Submission Page at the time. From there it moved to the bearhug specialty DVDs produced by PWP Wrestling, but my first legitimate wrestling DVD was Mat Rats 6 from Thunder’s Arena. I took one look at Z-Man’s flawless physique and knew I had to see him in action over and over again – and I was NOT disappointed! Z-Man wrestles Batar in that video, and the bearhugs they share are some of the best I’ve ever seen!

    What I enjoy more than wrestling videos, though, are wrestling stories. That’s what brings me back to The Cave on a daily basis! I think it’s because the imagination is more powerful than choreography. I, too, was totally taken by JKK’s stories and drawings, but before that, I was really into the random stories I found on Yahoo and Google groups and various places around the internet. Some of my favorites were the stories by PecMan, Bigsqueezer, Crusher, Mangler, and especially Gym Dude. The “Going Shopping” series by Gym Dude is probably my all-time favorite. The site where these stories were originally housed was shut down long ago, and I can’t thank you enough for providing this post and its link to the GlobalFight Personals Page where they’ve been preserved!

    -JS

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    1. Very cool. And I’m glad the link helped out. I never really read a Gym Dude story. I should give it a try.

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  7. I saw a one time magazine about underground wrestling at a newsstand with Steve Sterling on the cover. Bought the mag, basically an ad for early bg east and can-am, and I was hooked.

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    1. Wow, the magazine intro again. I can’t decide if I ever would’ve bought a gay wrestling magazine if I’d seen it. I’m thinking I wouldn’t so good on you.

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  8. For me is ricky martines all his video omg when i first time watching my jaw hurt

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    1. That’s awesome. I forgot about Ricky but yeah, he was a great jobber. One of the top guys at his time. Hot, great personality and a good ring worker. I’ll have to go back and watch him.

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  9. My first taste with underground wrestling was thanks to YouTube. Someone had uploaded the Football Capture section from Can-Am's Tales from the Chamber 2. My internet connection was garbage and this was the early days of Youtube but I was hooked and started exploring.

    My next first taste was with BGEast. My attention went right to Troy Baker. Who I just checked and is no longer listed on their site???

    I'm not sure if it was JungleKingKazar or not, but I'm certain it was a celebrity wrestling story that I first read, then WrestleBard's stuff.

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    1. Yeah, I can see that with original YouTube. Now they’d probably delete that pretty fast. Interesting you saw CanAm but bought BGEast.

      I didn’t know Troy was gone but they do do that occasionally. I actually found him kind of boring, but he was stunning. He is on the Arena.

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    2. Well, they didn't even have the title of that section up. It just started immediately with the video, I think. So I started google searching, found BGEast and then eventually stumbled onto CanAm and the full movie.

      Yeah, he wasn't an amazing performer, but to my younger self, he was one of the most gorgeous men I had seen.

      I knew that they did it for guys that requested it, like certain current WWE stars, but I wasn't aware of them doing that for other guys. Any ones you know of?

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    3. Yeah, I can think of a couple where I know the reason they disappeared but there are likely others that I don’t even know went missing. BGEast does have a huge roster. The one weird one is Kid Leopard himself. I went to link to his profile once and couldn’t find it.

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  10. Well I'm dating myself here, but my first exposure to gay wrestling was through BG enterprises (not BG East). They sold early wrestling matches. At one time I had a tape of "private bouts 1-3) which had the likes of Tiger Collins, Sailor Rob and Kid Leopard. KL was my fist, and my best and continuing, wrestling crush. They also sold "photo series" which were photos of the matches. I "enjoyed" the photoset of KL, Sailor Rob and tiger Collins for many years. The best part was that BG Enterprises sold wrestling stories. I still have quite the collection somewhere. It is also where I got my idea for writing wrestling story -- and the Mangler was born.

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    1. Wow, I didn’t know the sold wrestling stories. Any good? I wonder who owns the rights to them now? Would be interesting to see classic wrestling stories.

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  11. Yes the stories were generally very good. I don't know who, if anyone, owns the stories now. I have a collection of them somewhere buried in the basement. My biggest regret was not buying more them when I had the chance.

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    1. Yeah, I’m sad I missed them. They sound interesting.

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  12. https://innerjobber.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-first-look.html
    Here's my Firsts story! It's one of those deleted/resurrected posts. I wrote about it in 2013. If this is too spammy feel free to delete this comment. :)

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    1. Sean, you’ve earned the right to post literal pictures of Spam here and I’ll allow it! So I basically stole your idea for a post, seven years later. And here I thought I was being so clever. I do love me some Wade Cutler! What a man.

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