As a suburban high school kid back in 1987, I’m sure I would’ve been triggered by this classic match recently posted to YouTube featuring Shaska (0r “Pistol Pez”) Whatley against Barry Windham from ’87.
I now realize that these talented performers really knew how to sexualize a match through their actions and acting.
Pez Whatley became an evil Heel in 1986, turning against his Tag Team partner over a remark that he felt was racist, changing his first name to “Shaska” and wearing fancy attire I guess to irritate the racist fan base by acting out. I get the sense that his tuxedo jacket, bow tie, and top hat (but with no shirt or pants) was meant to portray him as a pimp — a dangerous sexual predator, a human trafficker.
He also grew a villainous goatee and wore bright yellow trunks which drew our attention to his powerful lower body and impressive bulge. Shaska may not be cute or sexy in the conventional sense, but as a sadistic, dominant, and sexually threatening Heel, he was boner-inspiring for this suburban white boy.
Speaking of boners, the lanky blond cowboy, Barry Windham, was always a sight for sore eyes as soon as he entered the ring and peeled off his leather vest, stripping down to nothing more than black bikini briefs and cowboy boots. We all tried to grow our hair like that back in 1987 — but few had the balls to bleach it platinum blond. Barry’s lean body is exposed and vulnerable, ready for Mac Daddy Shaska to start beating on him,
During the Baby-Face Shine sequence at the beginning of the match, Barry employs a bunch of punishing Arm Bars which Shaska sells gloriously.
The camera pushes our faces repeatedly into Shaska’s crotch to emphasize his sexual potency. His big bulge is highlighted by the bright yellow trunks as we are made to understand that he is a powerful and well-endowed specimen .
In classic pro wrestling, many of the minority wrestlers were portrayed as having thick, rock-hard skulls which they’d use to batter the vulnerable white wrestlers.
Yes, this was a racist depiction of brutishness, but the Heel’s race wasn’t my focus or my take-away as an excited young fan.
My attention was on the dazed, stumbling Baby-Face. It was thrilling for Whatley to have this unfair advantage, this built-in secret weapon or empowerment that our hero lacks. It was as if Whatley was permitted to wear a football helmet in the ring and to use it to repeatedly to concuss the poor Good Guy with his soft, vulnerable cranium and unprotected brain.
Now firmly in control, Shaska plays up the pimp daddy antics, strutting around and shaking his dick to infuriate the jeering audience who were eager, I’m sure, to see their handsome young (white) cowboy teach this uppity thug a lesson. But my reaction was not anger over Shaska’s dominance, but that dizzying tingle of simmering anticipation and a stiffy as I watched this rotund show-off displaying his wares. My thinking was, go ahead and rub your cock right in his face Shaska — you’re turning me on with all your arrogant big-bellied peacocking.
As I was working on this write-up, I actually found a second match on YouTube posted in 2014, also from 1987 where Barry and Shaska wore the same costumes and performed almost exactly the same moves (the many head-butts, Shaska hooking his feet in the ropes for leverage, Barry repeatedly thrown out to the floor like a jobber, etc.)
So the images in this gallery are actually a mash-up of both the new 2019 video and the older 2014 video. The two matches are so remarkably similar, with the Pimp Daddy in yellow trunks over-powering the black-speedoed cowboy and molesting him for most of the match, that you can hardly tell which images I’ve posted here came from which match.
Whatley cheats every chance he gets, for example, escaping Barry’s headlock by illegally yanking his blond mane like he’s snatching up one of his hoes.
Whatley thereby constantly reminds us that a strong pimp hand is a real threat, that even suburban white boys are not safe, that you may get your mullet pulled or you may get raped by a thick black man at any moment. That sense of danger always made my dick hard.
The danger we feel for young, blond Barry — wrestling against this thuggish predator — is that this Mac Daddy might decide to turn him out, to sex-traffic the pretty blond and force him to turn tricks or else face constant violent beatings like the one he is experiencing here in the ring as we all watch in horny, outraged fascination.
When you grow up safe, loved, and well-fed in a good neighborhood, you never learn that the world is mostly a scary, violent place, full of predators, terrorists, thugs, and pimps who want to either take advantage of you, or behead you or perhaps bite your cute face off while ignoring your cries for mercy.
So pro wrestling sneaked into my living room like a thief in the night to give me an intoxicating dose of this violent, raunchy, bare-chested, dangerous world, which made my head swim.
This seedy, raunchy peril and savagery was thrilling to a youngster raised on Boy Scouts, Sunday church, and balanced meals.
What a turn-on to enter this strange Wild, Wild West (to enter it virtually by watching it on TV each week), this Gangsta’s Paradise where grown men rolled around in colorful underwear, where heartless thugs would bite their weaker victims if given the chance, where pimps would try to turn out leather-clad young cowboys.
It was a wealth of material to fantasize about, so unlike humdrum suburban wholesomeness, that it was overwhelmingly enticing. It was like when Dorothy stepped out of her black-and-white Kansas house into that vibrant (but rather queer) Munchkinland set. Who the hell would ever want to go back to Kansas after experiencing that strange but amazing fantasy-land?!
Here we see Shaska yank those golden tresses and actually try to bite Barry’s face off, an extravagant display of brutish Heel savagery.
Just think how intimate and homo-erotic it would feel to pull another man’s hair, and then lean into him and bite (or kiss) him. As I mentioned above, both of these wrestlers knew how to make their “fights” seem super sexual and gay.
If Barry’s weakness is his thin skull, Shaska’s weakness is presented as his big rotund belly. Barry slugs Shaska in the gut several times in both matches, and Shaska sells the fuck out of his abdominal pain, groaning loudly and clutching his big round gut as if he had just been shanked.
Both matches end in the same way: with Barry outside the ropes driving a shoulder into Shaska’s weak stomach to double him over in pain, then diving over top to Sunset Flip the Heel for a surprise three-count.
Here we see Shaska accepting defeat in the newer 2019 video, with his legs spread apart and his ass in the air, his bulge presented to the cowboy’s face.
And here is how Shaska portrayed a defeated, vulnerable, submissive bottom in the older 2014 video, again with his bright yellow bulge on display, his taint presented to the dominant cowboy who proceeds to spank him like a thieving ho.
Am I reading too much into these old-school wrestling matches, or are they loaded with homo-erotic subtext, sexual innuendo, and barely concealed acts of sado-masochism? Something about it caught my eye and triggered my arousal from before I even knew what any of those words meant.