Out With The Old: Ab Stretches

It’s the time of year for rummage sales where people put out the stuff they used to love but no longer have room for, and other enthusiasts with similar interests or needs come along to buy their used items.

A rummage sale is a fairly intimate personal exchange if you think about it:  the seller displays his treasures, revealing all his fetishes and hobbies in broad daylight.  The buyer paws through the stranger’s used stuff, looking for a shared interest, a turn-on, something that excites him.

The sense of touch is so intimate, and the buyer gets to run his dirty hands all over the seller’s used goods.  The items may still have the seller’s fingerprints on them, or may smell like him, and the buyer doesn’t mind (or perhaps prefers it that way…)

So anyway, today I’m launching a new series on my blog for your viewing pleasure called “Out With the Old.”  I will dig through my archives of wrestling images and put out some items that have been collecting dust on the old Hard Drive.

You can paw through my used junk and see if there is anything you want to keep, and I can clear some room on the old Hard Drive to gather more treasures.

Today’s focus is the Ab Stretch, where you bend the opponent to the side and show his twisted body and suffering face to the fans.

I don’t recall the Iron Sheik using the Ab Stretch so frequently, but apparently it was one of his signature moves.  I just remember his deadly Camel Clutches where he would bend and break his soft American jobber boys  — riding them like camels.

Maybe the Ab Stretch was meant to weaken their backs, soften them up for the inevitable Camel Clutch.  Maybe the Ab Stretch was meant to be a sort of foreplay, and the Camel Clutch was the big climax.

And speaking of climaxes, DAMN do I ever love a good long Ab Stretch.  For reasons I’m sure I’ve blogged about before, the hold is so beautiful conceptually.  The trapped/tortured state of the helpless victim is such a provocative mind fuck.  I hate to bore you by repeating comments and concepts that I wrote about previously, so you can go check out my Ab(use) Stretch article for more details.

Here is Mike Rotundo in yet another Sheik Stretch.  I colored the Sheik’s trunks to draw your attention to those powerful glutes pouring on the pressure.  I also added a caption that implies the victim, Mike Rotundo, is being tortured, forced to endure the same hold for over 45 minutes.

Hopefully my little revisions haven’t reduced the value of the item.  Sometimes when you get things second-hand, they’ve been altered by the original owner.  Sometimes that makes the item even more valuable — sometimes not.

Ric Flair often found himself in the Ab Stretch for some reason.  Did he enjoy the hold so much he would beg or bribe his opponents to use it on him?  “Hey buddy — I got a $100 dollar bill in my suit coat for you if you work me over with the Ab Stretch during our match…”

I still remember the first photo I ever saw of the Ab Stretch: Ricky Steamboat dominating Flair in the hold.  Steamboat looked so possessive and strong, his muscles flexing.  Flair meanwhile appeared broken and in agony.  I thought to myself: “Whoa– What in tarnation is THAT sweet hold?!  I gotta learn the name of it — I want to put someone in it!”   Maybe I didn’t say ‘tarnation’ but you get the picture…

So anyway, if I see that image of the Dragon stretching the Nature Boy, I will definitely want to own it.  That’s part of the appeal of rummage sales — finding something that really had excitement and power and positive feelings for you in your younger days, and reliving those days a little bit by owning the item (although the feelings usually aren’t as intoxicating as they were the first time…)

This also explains my attraction to the classic style of wrestlin’.  It’s what I first enjoyed in my younger days and it really rocked my world back then, so to see a match that riffs on those old themes or looks and feels old-school in nature really makes my head spin in a good way.

For you magazine collectors, here is a classic item featuring Kerry von Erich in one of his many battles with Flair.  Of course we see Flair once again enjoying the ravages of the deadly Ab Stretch (Kerry must have needed the $100…)

The text and images are clearly meant to arouse the reader’s interest in von Erich.  Above photos of his rippling muscles and tan torso, we read bonerific phrases like: “defeated,” “sensational” (three times), “youth,” “honor,” “got the best of me,” and “anxiously awaiting.”  (Do people put out their old pornography at rummage sales?)

This image displays for us the old “exploiting the injury” gimmick — the young victim wearing a strap to protect his damaged shoulder, which the hairy-chested veteran readily exploits without mercy.

I also enjoy the sense of ownership and possession by the older wrestler over the smooth victim — one hand resting on his thigh like “I will put my hand there all day if I feel like it…”  Like I said earlier, touch is an intimate experience and the dominant wrestler is assuming the right to run his hands and his long fingers all over the other man’s body.

So I hope you enjoyed rummaging through my old stuff and you found some keepers.  The last item features the Iron Sheik being tortured in his own signature hold by the Great Inoki.

Just as people give and take at rummage sales, sometimes picking up new items, sometimes downsizing, so too do pro wrestlers give and take in their matches.  Sometimes you’re the Stretcher, and sometimes you’re the Stretchee.