Short and Sweet

I started following a Tumblr site called sockman1234, featuring lots of short video clips (15 to 30 seconds usually) taken from episodes of old 1980’s wrestling federations. I see stuff from Calgary, St. Louis, Texas — the guy knows his wrestling.

The clips primarily capture the most brutal moment or two from each match being summarized — maybe a stiff Knee-Drop to a chin, maybe a Pile Driver. There is a lot of focus on boots and stomping and standing on throats, which is fine by me. I guess if your Tumblr name is “sockman”, it kind of makes sense.

And it’s not always the pretty-boys and muscle-men shown in these clips. Sometimes it’s fat dudes and chubs and wimpy pale jobbers. It’s the wrestling itself that is the turn-on — the brutality and suffering — not necessarily the aesthetic perfection of their bodies, and this Sockman guy gets it.

The video quality on these clips is pretty good — not perfect — but pretty good, especially given the age of the footage. Sockman does a good job capturing, not only some spectacular punishment and suffering, but also good audio commentary by the Talking Heads watching the match. We hear things like “This is SO BRUTAL!” and “How much MORE TORTURE can this young man possibly ENDURE!” You know the drill — the way they talk to rile us up.

I quoted the audio commentary in my captions attached to each clip, but it’s even better to hear the excitement and enthusiasm in the commentator’s voice. Be sure to turn on the audio by clicking the little speaker icon within each of his clips if you do decide to check out the Sockman Tumblr.

Its just a dude with good taste in Old School rasslin posting little video clips of what he enjoys and I love it. I enjoy knowing what moments from a match another wrestling fan gets into, and oftentimes, I would’ve chosen to capture the exact same scenes and imagery. Nick Bockwinkel’s Headscissor, for example, is objectively, universally, and undeniably HOT!