Man of Steel

The 1/12/21 episode of All Elite Wrestling Dark included a hot match that made me sit up and pay attention. The “Man of Steel” Mike Verna entered the ring in a beautiful and campy costume: American flag trunks, metallic breastplate, and flowing red cape. He’s even got that wayward curl of black hair on his forehead like Superman — I loved it!

But just when I had made up my mind to glue my eyes to Verna’s swole body and tight, colorful trunks, out dances an even more spectacular homo-erotic sex god in the person of Ricky Starks:

Ricky is so beautiful! His ass and bulge in those little shiny trunks, are you kidding me? Is he aware that gay guys are going to masturbate to him, the way he’s posing and strutting like that?!

By the way, this entire match is available on AEW’s YouTube channel. Thanks AEW — I love free wrestle-porn!

So here is the thing about Ricky Starks. He frequently breaks the “Fourth Wall” by pausing to gaze into the camera, making eye contact with the viewers at home, posing and flexing for us while waiting for his opponent to recover. This is classic Rick Rude action — it was a turn-on back then and it’s still a turn-on now. It’s like he’s saying to us: “Can you believe how great I look?? Go ahead and stare at my body, it’s all good!“

Based on these frequent poses, I suspect that Starks is very aware that gay guys are masturbating to him and he’s totally OK with that. He WANTS us to look at him and lust for him. He WANTS dudes to appreciate and worship his spectacular body and if some percent of the viewers pop a boner, so be it.

For example, check out this beefcake photo I found of Mr. Starks on — where else? — the Beefcakes of Wrestling blog (which has now posted 8 images of Ricky Starks…)

I mean, is this a wrestler’s promotional photo or a centerfold for Playgirl magazine??

Anyway, back to the rasslin. There is this really violent scene at 3:25 into the video where Ricky traps Verna in the corner and just BLISTERS him with about a dozen skull punches and stiff boot to the belly!

It’s so rough. I’m like, DAMN, hurt me you Bad Boy! It presents Ricky Starks as this dangerous, ruthless badger regardless of his hunky good looks. I felt my heart go pitter patter after he just decimates poor Verna!

It’s pretty much a one-sided squash! The poor “Man of Steel” is just being demolished in there, as if devious Ricky Starks has stuffed a rod of kryptonite into his shiny speedo.

Verna does manage to deliver one really sweet Power Slam that looked amazing:

Ricky wins by driving a shoulder into Verna’s stomach to drive the air out of him, and then easily pinning him. I was surprised that Verna was beaten by such a basic meh move. I mean, the least Ricky could do is perform some death-defying somersault off the top rope to flatten Verna so that the “Man of Steel” didn’t come off seeming wimpy and vulnerable.

Maybe their intent was to make Ricky Starks seem powerful and unbeatable. It worked on me because now I’m a big Ricky Starks fan and I want to see more of his shiny ass strutting around in the ring and flirting with me (through the camera) the entire time.

As he exits the arena in victory, Ricky performs this interesting air guitar solo. He gyrates his body with growing intensity, his left arm erect as his right hand strums faster and faster. Then he drops to his knees and throws his arms in the air. It seems to simulate a climax, with the intensity building into a sudden orgasmic release of energy.

I think this little post-match performance is Ricky’s way of letting us know that he’s aware of what we’re doing at home as we watch him wrestle and, again, he’s fine with it. He’s actually joining us by pantomiming a masturbation to orgasm. It seems Ricky is fully aware that pro wrestling is meant to be pornographic and he’s more than willing to do his part to make it that way.