Always an interesting topic. Sports Review Wrestling was the predecessor to most of what we have today in this area. It has literally been a half century since the magazine began to publish these stories in 1973, but they still represent an entertaining body of stories and pictures for this genre. While the stories were OK to good (mostly just OK), the critical element was the great photography that accompanied the stories. A great round of applause goes to Theo Ehret, the photographer who brought these stories to life with his wonderful work with the models involved.
Along those lines, I will do my top three, which includes one match that technically was not in SRW but in a sister magazine published by the same company. The chief element to my choices is the photos themselves, with the story providing the backdrop for our imaginations.
Ben Strong Wrestling, June 1975, Eloise vs. Kathy—not technically in SRW but part of the lineage of matches and it was later reprinted in one of the anthology Battling Girls magazines they published later. The accompanying story about two women competing for a job is pretty good, but the women’s expressions and the positions shown are captivating to me. It’s my favorite picture set from all of these magazines.
SRW, November 1977, Karen vs. Diane—one of the better stories as two sisters go at it, with a very good picture set accompanying it.
SRW, September 1977, Irene vs. Natalie—the story of a disk jockey vs. a pin-up model is OK, but the picture set is strikingly beautiful. The brunette Irene is one of the most gorgeous models they ever used for these stories (IMHO).
An honorable mention goes to SRW, March 1975, Cynara vs. Denise II—the rematch of their first championship battle turns nude. SRW puts black bars over the breast and crotch areas while showing the models nude otherwise, and it has a very titillating effect on the picture set. The story is OK, but the pictures are what makes this so arousing.
Also, another honorable mention goes out to Tiffany vs Desdemona that shotgun555 mentioned above. Triumph Studios, a mail order company which specialized in this genre, put out several picture sets of Gretchen vs. Helen in various matches at that time. (Count me as Team Gretchen all the way). They clearly were presented as big rivals of each other. They were evenly matched (as portrayed) and you felt every fight between them was going to be long and very even to the end. The SRW picture set was typical of the great work and the chemistry these two seemed to have with each other on film.
While SRW continued to churn out these stories and photo sets into the 1980s, the best work of the series was done in the earlier years from 1973 to 1978 or so.
