"Interview with a Vamp" from DT Wrestling

This bare-fisted brawl has an impressive triumvirate of performers in Diana Knight, JC Marie, and Tylene Buck, who I think are among DT's best right now. The plot, as usual, is not too complicated. Diana is the office boss and makes a pass at JC Marie during an interview; when JC Marie rebuffs her, Diana beats the blond senseless with a combination of belly and face punches. Then Diana calls in JC Marie's lover, Tylene, and beats her senseless in similar fashion. Eventually, while Diana is getting frisky with her victims, JC Marie finds an opportunity to turn the tide, and the video switches gears to a 2-on-1 beatdown of Diana Knight, which contains a decent dose of belly punches mixed in with low blows, face punches, and a few breast punches, plus some bearhugs and other non-punching tactics.

For a scripted slugging match, this video has a lot going for it. The office attire is really hot, with JC Marie and Tylene in particular wearing scandalously sexy "business outfits" that barely contain their bountiful bods, as if tempting Diana to check out what's underneath and giving her cause for frustration when her advances are denied. Over the course of the video, most of the clothes come off, but it's not very common to see slugging action in business attire, so it was interesting to watch the ladies brawling in their office best even before more skin was bared. The DT set in which the video was shot also passes very nicely for an interview room in a corporate setting.

All three performers are credible sluggers and generally get really into their roles and sell the action well, as I think they did here. There was sufficient variety in the beatdown tactics to keep things from getting too monotonous, but enough focus was spent on punching to legitimately call this a slugging match. And the fact that it was a 3-girl script also kept the pacing lively, as things progressed smoothly from a 1-on-1 beatdown of JC Marie to a 1-on-1 beatdown of Tylene Buck to a 2-on-1 beatdown of Diana Knight.

But in spite of all this going for it, I ultimately would characterize this match as good, but not quite great (as it easily could have and should have been). The main reason the video missed a higher mark is something I've spoken of before--bad camera angles. As you can see in the images above and below, there is a heavy focus on punching against the wall in the 1-on-1 beatdown segments, but the spot chosen for the wall punching forced the camera to shoot primarily from Diana's left side while she pounded her upright victims. However, Diana mostly punches with her right hand (presumably because that's her dominant hand), and when you try to shoot right-handed punching from the puncher's left side, the puncher's body predictably spends a lot of time blocking the camera's view of the victim. So instead of seeing Diana's fist plowing into JC Marie's and Tylene's midsections, you mostly just see Diana's back at the moment of impact. As a result, you are given the overall impression of solid gut slugs happening, but at the critical moments you are denied actually seeing the punches land.

Others may feel differently, but to me, watching a puncher's back is not nearly so interesting as watching the victim's belly actually receiving the fist. So it's frustrating to have what appears to be great slugging action unfolding on the screen, but to have the camera stuck in a vantage point that robs the viewer of the most important visuals.

That said, what saves the video from an even lower mark ("good" is still, well, good!) is the generally great performers and the fact that not ALL the punching is against the wall, so there are at least some sequences where you do get to see the fists hitting home, primarily in the 2-on-1 segment where Diana is on the receiving end.

My favorite sequence is when the blonds have Diana pinned on the floor with her arms stretched up over her head, and JC Marie straddles Diana and delivers some truly first-class punches straight down into Diana's open gut. Being a scripted match, the punches are of course fake, but JC Marie is a master in the art of credible pulled punches. JC Marie has a great, full-body wind-up as she cocks her fist back, and she launches her fist forward with vicious speed, carrying the motion all the way through to the point of impact. JC Marie's slugging technique is picture-perfect, which makes for some great action when she has Diana on her back and the camera is actually viewing from a good angle to see the full punch sequence from start to finish.

It's in this same segment that JC Marie throws pretty much the only breast punches of the match--she does this with both fists at once, which is not so much my thing, but that's normally because the puncher just looks awkward and unconvincing trying to depict a credible double-punch when she often hasn't even mastered a credible single-punch. But JC Marie is so good that she can even punch convincingly with both fists at once, and it works. JC Marie also does a great job of lavishly grinding her fists around in Diana's bosoms at the end of her punches to add insult to the injury. JC Marie further ratchets up the heat by pausing to rub her sculpted torso up and down Diana's in between punches, as if teasing Diana with the same sex appeal that got Diana's juices flowing in the first place, but now instead of getting JC Marie's hot body, Diana is only getting the blond's cruel fists. The sexy teasing is a nice little psychological twist to the retribution beatdown.

JC Marie is definitely near the very top of my personal list of primo punchers, and I would give an A+ to her sequence pounding Diana on the floor in this video. It's just too bad the rest of the video wasn't more of the same. This one excellent sequence with JC Marie on top definitely helps make the overall video worthwhile, but despite the superlative performance from JC Marie and solid work from both of the other ladies as well, the bad camera angles for so much of the action holds the video back and ultimately leaves it in the category of "almost great, but instead just good." On the whole, though, I do think most fans of scripted slugging would enjoy this video, and for those who don't actually need to see the punch landing for full enjoyment, they might just love it. So check it out!

Grade: B

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"Touché Tasha" from DT Wrestling

Tasha Welsh and Francesca Lé are veteran fantasy fighters with rare pugilistic skills. Each has put on many great slugging performances for DT Wrestling (and other producers) over the years, and having them together in the same video is an almost sure recipe for success. This scripted match is an excellent example of why these two gritty grapplers are a cut above most of their peers when it comes to high-energy fantasy punching.

The secret to their punching excellence? Simply put: They CONNECT with their target!!

Yes, the punches are pulled, of course, but these two are tough enough and skilled enough that they don't have to totally pull their punches. You can actually hear the smacking sound of fist on flesh without any audio enhancement, because the punches really do land with some force, but are artfully pulled just at the point of impact to avoid actual injury.

This is in contrast to many fantasy performers whose punches look so lame that disbelief simply cannot be suspended, because the performers visibly slow down their punching motion to a snail's pace well before any contact is made with the victim's body. Indeed, sometimes they may never touch the victim at all with their fist, having stopped all forward motion an inch or more away from their target and then pulling back. Such "air punches" are the worst and most extreme version of fakeness so blatant that it destroys any illusion of watching real combat. But "snail punches" aren't much better--by the time contact is made, there is barely any forward motion of the fist left at all, and it just looks silly when the victim reacts as if she's been walloped by a sledgehammer since the viewer can clearly see that the fist only landed with the speed of a dandelion seed drifting to the ground.

But the true art of fantasy punching is to throw fake punches that look real, and Fran and Tasha have perfected this technique by letting their fists land with full speed but then instantly stopping their forward motion right at the surface of the victim's skin (or just millimeters into it) so that the contact is real, even though not enough momentum is transferred to do actual damage to the victim.

At the same time, both ladies have figured out how to use their whole body to sell each punch.  Rather than just punching from the shoulder (or worse yet, from the elbow), Fran and Tasha twist their entire body when they are cocking their fist back, and likewise they pivot and lunge with their whole body when they gun their fist forward. By using the totality of their body language to help sell the amount of power being wielded with each punch, they effectively distract the viewer from whatever telltale signs there might be of slowing down their fist at the moment of impact.

I imagine that Fran and Tasha need an opponent with a bit of grit to receive such convincing slugs, but fortunately both of these ladies can take punches just as well as they can dish them out. And the result is excellent fantasy slugging action that is obviously staged but nevertheless comes off as genuinely hard-hitting, high-energy combat that you can believe is doing some damage, even though you know it's not.

The plot behind this particular video is by no means involved, but it provides just enough context to avoid being a naked brawl with no purpose whatsoever. The script summary at DT's website is plenty adequate for telling the tale, so I won't bother trying to reword it:

"We find espionage agent Tasha confronting Francesca in her home and demanding a secret file disc. Francesca demands that Tasha leave but Tasha begins punching the Latina in the belly, determined to get the disc at all costs. The belly punches come hard and fast as Tasha tries to punch the truth out of Francesca. A right cross to the head sends Francesca to the floor and Tasha stomps her for added punishment. More punches and kicks follow and Tasha removes Francesca's shorts and bra as the battering continues. Francesca's body is draped on the arm of the sofa as Tasha chokes the brunette with her own bikini top. After finding the disc, Tasha decides that Francesca should be further punished and continues hammering away at her hapless prey. Tasha finally exits, leaving Francesca unconscious on the floor. When a bloodied Francesca revives to find the disc gone, she vows to retrieve it—and get some payback against her blonde attacker. Sneaking into Tasha's home, Francesca uses a flashlight to ram Tasha in the stomach—the opening salvo in a vicious barrage of violent vengeance."

As you can tell from this summary, the video is basically two separate beat-down scenarios performed back-to-back, so that each girl gets the chance to be on both the winning side and the losing side. But within each half of the script, there is no back-and-forth to speak of, just one girl in a totally dominant posture bashing the other girl's mostly unprotected belly to bits. Tops come off fairly early on for the losing girl in each segment of the video, but the punching action is almost exclusively directed at the belly, with some occasional (and nicely done!) face punches thrown in for extra spice, but almost no breast assaults.

The apartment settings are simple but give ample options for punching in different positions: reclining on the sofa, bent backward over the arm of the sofa, lying on the floor, standing in the middle of the room, standing up against a wall, or up against a door.

The camera angles were generally good, although I have a pet peeve with viewing right-handed punchers from their left side when they have their victim stood up against a wall.  If the puncher uses her right hand for slugging, then her body tends to be in the way so you can't see the fist when it actually hits its target--instead, you just see the puncher's back.  To preserve the camera's view of her fist hitting home, a right-handed puncher being filmed from her left side has to adopt a very awkward stance that basically mimics the way she would stand to punch with her left hand, even though she's using her right.  Even a naturally good puncher would have trouble throwing powerful-looking punches from such a awkward orientation.

Alternatively, to fix the problem of the camera shooting from the wrong side, the puncher may simply resort to actually using almost all left-handed slugs so she can keep her body out of the camera's way (see, for example, the images below where both Tasha and Fran have to use left-handed punches because the camera is shooting from their left side).  The problem is that punches thrown with the dominant hand tend to be the best executed, so it's a bit of a shame to force a right-handed performer to throw all her punches with her left hand for an extended segment of the video just because the camera is shooting from the wrong side.  So I would have preferred that the camera had been viewing from the opposite side when the victim was being punched against the wall or against the door in this video, but in both cases there was something obstructing the camera from being able to use the correct vantage. For that reason, it might have been better to pick different locations besides the front door and the particular segment of wall that were used for the stand-up portions of the punching action.  Nevertheless, Fran and Tasha still sell their punching work so well that it's only a minor quibble in this particular video.

But in general, I think producers should keep the camera angle in mind when they pick the locations where the punching will take place, so they don't handicap a puncher's performance by forcing her to use her non-dominant hand for a big chunk of the video.

I also must confess that I'm not a huge fan of foreign objects (such as the long-handled flashlight in this video) being used in the belly bashing. But foreign objects might actually be an enhancement of the action for some people. As with everything else, Fran and Tasha sell the flashlight ramming well, and it was not a huge focus of the video, so it didn't really detract for me.

Overall, I'd say this video was very well-done and is likely to be enjoyed by most fans of scripted, fantasy belly punching. Tasha and Fran put on a veritable fantasy punching clinic in this video, and it would be great if other fem-fight performers took note of their techniques and tried to implement similar styles when they do slugging matches themselves.

For as long as they've each been in the business, both Fran and Tasha still look amazingly sexy, and they both have hot bellies. Fran is not quite as svelte as she once was, but she carries her minimal paunch well and still remains as pretty as ever. Tasha is perhaps the reverse, with her taut body remarkably unchanged over time, but with the years showing slightly in her face. I still think both of these ladies have the looks to carry their roles in these fantasy body-bashing matches, and frankly, I'll easily take veteran skill and artistry in the punching action over more youthful physiques that are wasted in slugging videos because the girls just don't know how to sell good-looking punches.

That said, I'm also on the look-out for the next generation of fem-fighters who have the looks, vitality, and pugilistic prowess to be the next Frans and Tashas of this niche genre. Future video reviews will no doubt reveal which girls I think are the up-and-comers in fantasy punching fame!

Grade: A-

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