How have I not done one of these before? What are my favorite matches I’ve done is a question I get asked a lot, so buckle up. I think out of fairness, I’m going to do at least two different top 10 lists, this one will be for my BG East matches. The majority of all my wrestling work has been produced by BG East so any list I make would be mostly BGE matches anyways. They are the undisputed best in wrestling kink, so this way they can get theirs, and I can focus on us small time productions in a separate list. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Did you favorite match make the list? Or do you think a match was unjustly snubbed? I’ll try to reply to each comment!
10) Wrestling With Pride: Jonny Firestorm vs. Ty Alexander
This is a bittersweet match for me to remember. Mostly because I do not remember it at all. I had always wanted to do a live BG East show, so I was happy to accept whatever match the Boss proposed for me for their first ever live show. It was further sweetened by learning I’d be wrestling Ty, in his first pro match in front of a live audience. Unfortunately I wasn’t in a great place personally, and even though the lights were on, I wasn’t home. I wrestled this totally on autopilot. I wish I could go back and have a better match with Ty, but I was happy to be able to cross live BGE match off my list of career goals. I was a huge fan of the old “Live at…” series they used to do and was grateful to be part of the first installment in the Wrestling With Pride series.
9) WrestleFest 4: Jonny Firestorm vs. Dio Characi
I had a lot of fun filming this. Again, the live audience aspect is a blast. Dio’s a stud. It was fun. It makes the list because it’s one of the last matches I did before trying to get back in shape. BG East did a great job with their photo selection and gear choice for me, but I was at my heaviest. This was a match that even though I had a great time doing it, I never expected to be critically acclaimed. But to my surprise it won “Best Submission” and “Best Overall Match” of 2022 for BG East. I’m not sure what the submission was the earned the award, but I know theres a few good ones. I remember at one point during the match thinking “I haven’t done a split legged moonsalt in about 10 years, I wonder if I still can?”, so I slammed the stud down and busted one out. I’m not sure if it looked pretty, but I’m still alive to write about it, so thats a win in my book!
8) Demolition 12: Jonny Firestorm vs. Rico Rave
What? A match where I’m getting demolished? It happens from time to time. But I’m in fantastic shape, it was one hell of a beating, and Rico worked me over so good that BGE needed to stop the match to make sure I wasn’t being harmed to the point it would cause permanent injury instead of just a win for Rico. I’ve only seen that happen one other time in my nearly 20 years with the company. So hooray for me getting my ass kicked! Also, why didn’t they put me in more matches with those blue speedos on?!
7) BG’s Bad Boys 2: Jonny Firestorm vs. Bobby Horton
Bobby was a cocky, arrogant, full of himself and happy to let you know it heel. I loved watching him be an asshole while wrestling other people, I wanted to kill him because of it when we squared off. He had the size and strength advantage, I had experience and quickness. It’s a very back and forth hard fought battle between two of BG’s best heels at the time. It’s not often heels collide, but there were definitely fireworks during this match because of it.
6) Ball Bash 2: Jonny Firestorm vs. Reese Wells
It’s the match that kick started my reign as “King of the Ball Bash”. Reese was a cute young hunk who was on his first ever BG East shoot. The Boss came to me and said “this kid wants to wrestle you…in a ball busting themed match” and I don’t think a second went by before I said yes. I had done a match with Jobe where I sort of explored punishing my opponents nuts more than a typical low blow, but this is the match that pushed me into being a full blow ball bag basher. The bullseye jock strap only made it easier to hit my target, which was very excited at times. Poor, poor, Reese.
5) The Contract 6: Jonny Firestorm vs. Brad Rochelle
It felt like I was being called up to the main event of BG East wrestling with Brad Rochelle, even if it was being orchestrated nefariously. Brad was THE guy at BGE at the time. 19 year old Jonny had no clue what he was getting into at the time. It was a brutal back and forth battle, but I finally felt like I earned my stripes on the BG East roster after finishing the match.
4) Jonny in Montreal: Jonny Firestorm vs. Denny Cartier
I grew up wrestling collegiately, it’s not a style that is often on display in my matches. I enjoy competing immensely, Denny and I were as close to a perfect match as you could find. Similar skill sets, even stats, and the same desire to win. We start in singlets and the action is all on the up and up, but things escalate (as they tend to do), and singlets get ripped and stripped. The wrestling goes from regulation to anything goes. We’re sweaty, it’s intense, and it’s real. My favorite mat match of mine thats ever happened.
3) Backyard Brawls 4: Jonny Firestorm vs. Alexi Adamov
I could begin and end this entry with just the following, “Alexi Adamov”. That should be enough to crack any top 10, the fact that this was wild and fun match places it in my top 3. It’s not fair, some people are good looking. Others are great wrestlers. Some are natural athletes. Alexi has it all, and it makes me want to punch him in his perfect face. Leave something for the rest of us you prick. But it was even more fun for me because Alexi’s my buddy. We’d have these crazy intense workout sessions, in which he’d totally do better than me in. So it was nice to be able to get a little revenge. You can sprint further than me with a parachute strapped to your back, but I’m whooping that perfect ass of yours Alexi!
2) Custom Combat 2: Jonny Firestorm vs. Lane Hartley
This was a toss up between this, and Custom Combat 1 vs. Drake Marcos. Drake ranks high up there amongst my favorite jobbers, or maybe he is my favorite jobber? Thats a different top 10 list for a different day. But the second installment of Custom Combat just had more options to chose from, more twists and turns to it than the original. Custom Combat was an idea I had wanted to do for years, but for one reason or another it was rejected or pushed to the back burner. We happened to have some free time at the end of a shoot because of a cancelation so I bitched… errrrr I mean asked the Boss nicely if Drake and I could do the first Custom Combat match. After the success of the first, it seemed like a natural fit to pit Lane Hartley against me for the second. We’re both in peak physical form, we’re both skilled pros, and we both hate losing. Luckily for the viewer, reality can be whatever you make of it. So choose how you want this match to go and you won’t be disappointed! There is an ending to this match which has me getting power bombed, and to this day it’s absolutely the worst feeling slam I’ve ever been on the receiving end of. Keep in mind by this point we’ve filmed nearly two hours of wrestling content to make this match, and we’re exhausted. My bones rattled when I hit the canvas on that one. Ouch.
1) Last Man Standing 3: Jonny Firestorm vs. Zach Reno
So admiringly, I’ve never seen this match. But it’s only because I remember finishing the match and thinking, “this was it, I had so much fun doing this I don’t want to watch it back and find a reason to nitpick it and ruin my memory of the match”. As we were wrestling it was just about as real as pro wrestling could get. We were competing. Trying to one up each other at every chance. There were strikes, slams and submissions galore. It was a hard fought wresting war, the sweat was pouring, and neither of us wanted to lose to the other. It’s one of the few times I’ve finished a BGE match and thought, “damn, I wish we did this on a pro show”. It had a little of everything for everybody. Somehow I think it’s one of the Firestorm deep cuts and doesn’t get the attention I think it should. So hopefully this helps it get out there a little more, and you guys can enjoy it as much as I did participating in it.
