Magnum Opus

I had a thing for the “American Heart-Throb”, Magnum TA  — a handsome, masculine Baby-Face from the 1980’s.   His lean, hairy torso, his too-tight black trunks, his stoic demeanor, all had me on the edge of my seat during his matches.

A recent YouTube upload features Magnum rasslin’ a huge biker — Scott “Hog” Irwin.

I am impressed by Irwin’s dickhead Heel tactics in this classic video.  I don’t recall being a fan of this big ugly biker at that time, but seeing him going airborn to drop these huge Legdrops and Elbow Smashes has me gooning out.

And of course, the near nudity of his victim, in contrast to Irwin’s biker gear, adds that CMNM vibe.

Magnum TA’s matches were very short — under a minute usually.  He would apply his killer Belly-to-Belly Suplex on some jobber and pin the chump in short order.  The promoters seemed to be limiting Magnum’s ring time to keep us wanting more.  I sure wanted more.

This match was remarkable because we finally got a good long look at Magnum in a prolonged 8-minute punishment session, with plenty of views of those black briefs and cowboy boots

Adding to the homo-erotic tone of Magnum’s public beat-down is the ringside presence of Ric Flair in a gorgeous white suit.  Flair is on hand to “scout” (or perhaps to stalk) this exciting young talent.

Flair makes numerous suggestive comments in praise of Magnum, and concern over his safety, being trapped in the ring with the huge Hog.  The photo captions written in quotation marks in today’s article are actual words  spoken by Flair as he looks on in great interest, watching Magnum suffer.  Flair talks in his jocular tone using his deep, sonorous baritone, which adds verbal flavor to Magnum’s display of suffering.  We get the sense from his intense voice and colorful utterances that the Nature Boy may be as turned on by Magnum’s submissive display as we are.

And Hog Irwin is fuckin’ ROUGH on poor Magnum, gripping his hair and slugging him in the face so many times I lost count.  He kicks our cowboy hero in the gut, and picks him up and slams him.

This level of abuse is especially compelling because Magnum was usually presented as a dominant stud — always in control and on top (until now).

Flair’s head appears in the corner, floating above the action like a guardian angel.  This reminds us that he is watching this bout closely in his fancy white boss suit, clearly very interested in the suffering of this young, shirtless cowboy.

Wearing the costume of a plantation owner, the champ is just drooling over this “amazing athlete” clad in nothing but a black speedo.  We get the sense that boss Flair is going to use his powerful position to haze and harass young Magnum, which will happen often in the coming months.   This was before #Me Too, so Magnum will have no defense against the abusive and exploitive partriarchy, which makes us fear for young, vulnerable Magnum.

After suffering an unexpected one-sided beating from the Hog, after looking like a real jobber pussy for 8 straight minutes, Magnum suddenly snaps off his Belly-to-Belly Suplex and wins the match.

I didn’t create images of Magnum’s come-back because I was more entertained by the long torture scene at the hands of this big ugly biker (and I suspect Boss Flair felt the same way.)