Tarzan the Millenial

It’s about time I blog about the wrestling Jungle Boy — son of the late actor Luke Perry (Luke played a brooding bad boy with a heart of gold on Beverly Hills 90210 back in the last century.)

Despite being the son of a once-famous actor, this Nate Coy ironically portrays a feral savage in his wrestling persona, jumping around like he was perhaps raised by a monkey instead of a celebrity.

In this bout from Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, the Jungle Boy fights a much larger gorilla named Brody King.  There once was a feared and dangerous Heel named “King Kong Brody”, so this modern-day Bad Ass seems to be named in honor of one of the greatest Heels of all time, perhaps to channel some of that sadistic brutality that unfolded in the wrestling ring over 40 years ago.

By the way, this match took place during PWG’s “Hand of Doom” event on January 18, 2019.  If you want to see the video, you can order the DVD from PWG.

The Jungle Boy gets in some high-flying offense early on: big Cross-Body leaps off the ropes as if he’s swinging on vines — but soon our young Lord of the Jungle begins his heroic suffering.

Big Brody can just yank this light-weight Tarzan up and toss him around whenever he feels like it.

We must talk about that beautiful long hair on the Jungle Boy — certainly Brody is obsessed with it, pulling and dragging it every chance he gets.

There are two types of guys who can pull off a wild mane like that: a privileged rich kid who lives above the rules, or an alienated rebel who doesn’t give a fuck.  Jungle Boy is kind of both.

I’ve written many times about the appeal of long hair on a wrestler.  It both effeminizes and sexualizes him.  It is the mark of youthful vanity — a source of envy for many of us older Heel types.  It accentuates his movements, but also gives the opponent a convenient grip — a bridle to drag and control him with.  Jungle Boy’s hair does all these things.

And long hair is common among pro wrestlers.  There are more long-haired male wrestlers than there are male [insert any other sport or occupation except maybe rock star].   This proves that the wrestlers realize the gender-bending sex appeal of long hair because they use it to entice us to watch them.

The Ringside at Skull Island blog wrote about Jungle Boy back in January 2017, dubbing him the “Prettiest Babyface in Wrestling.”

One of Ringside‘s readers commented: “Jungleboy Nate Coy is intensely beautiful. I love his slender, ripped, strong body (and the dude is damn strong). I do want to see him go up against a much bigger heel, preferably one willing to apply a long and painful claw on young Nate’s chiseled abs.”

Well here you get to see Jungle Boy against that “much bigger heel”, but unfortunately there was no long and painful abdominal claw.

There was, however, this really cool Torture Rack into a Power Bomb by Brody.  Jungle Kid attempts many fancy high-flying moves that go sadly wrong for him in this match.

In addition to the pretty hair, we’ve given visual access to that lean, hard body on this young wild man, on display as he contorts himself provocatively in suffering.  The lingering views of his shredded abs remind of the beefcake poses in the old Tarzan movies on Saturday morning television, full of enticing shots of Johnny Weismuller or Ron Ely, displaying their ideal masculine physiques, proudly shirtless in nothing more than a loincloth.

This Tarzan gimmick might be intended to distance the performer, Nate Coy, from his affiliation with celebrity and privilege — making it possible for us to love and pity him when he takes these beatings.

Or maybe he just wanted a sexy look, playing off the eroticism of the classic Tarzan persona — the  handsome beast master, the (nearly) naked savage.

I mean, who didn’t get off on those old black-and-while Tarzan films (Tarzan Wrestles the Apes I think one was called, at least in my childhood fantasies) and those hyper-sexualized Jungle Comics covers?!

Some of my younger readers may not understand how or why one could be aroused by a cartoon drawing of Kaanga pulling a lion’s mane while stabbing him with a phallic knife.  Please understand that these subtly homo-erotic publications were issued before the Internet was invented, which was a very bleak and lonesome time when we had to get our wrestle-porn wherever we could find it.  I digress…

Back to Nate Coy’s demolition by the much bigger Heel, King Kong Brody — oops, I mean Brody King.  The brute seems to want to either devour or rape our buff young hero.

I enjoyed this Do-Si-Do maneuver where Brody swings the king of the jungle around in circles, then flattens his ribcage.

Well the Jungle Boy is destroyed and defeated by repeated Pile-Drivers inflicted by the ape/Heel, but don’t you worry — this young twenty-something Tarzan is rapidly gaining fame and popularity, and I believe we’ll be seeing much more of him in this Suffering Baby-Face role in the coming months.  I hope he keeps that pretty hair for as long as possible.