Park / Kato

Aric Park vs Jeremy Kato (Movimus)

This is an elegant match. Elegant in the symmetry between Park and Kato, near in weight and height and will power. Elegant in the wrestlers' concentration, assertiveness, and resolve. It's an equal battle between strength (Park) and prowess (Kato), and I find the struggle absolutely absorbing. I've compared wrestling to the arts before, but I can't immediately recall seeing another match so gracefully and strongly a work of art in itself.

Park (in orange trunks) is and has been one of the premier wrestlers at Movimus, though relatively new to the company. He has had three previous matches, against Salvatore Landow, Julio Vargas, and Ivan Karamazoff, wrestlers who are astute mat strategists, like Park, but very different in build and attitude. In Kato, Park finds his best antagonist yet, because the balance they achieve on the mat is both a draw and a frustration.

This is one of the longest matches Movimus has released in no small part because no sooner does one wrestler gain an advantage than the other rises to the same level. I like mat wrestlers to entangle themselves in each other so closely that it's possible to forget for several minutes that they are separate beings. Maybe there is no point in making the distinction until one has submitted to the other. The contrasts in character and attitude required in pro wrestling are not a requirement on the mat. There's nothing affected about these wrestlers or the wrestling. Elegant is the right word. So is sensuous.