Editors' Prize Winner | May 02, 2025

Golden Boy  

Justin Thurman 

Nobody that night in the Evans Middle School gymnasium liked Juicy John Bishop. Wrestling out of Vegas, Juicy John called himself the “Legend Stopper.” He was well over six feet, tilted the scales at over two-fifty. His whole getup was jet black: the tights, the boots, the singlet. He shaved his head bald except for a patch at the top, which he had braided into a ponytail.  

Juicy John evoked memories of the fuller-bodied wrestlers of my youth, guys like Big Boss Man and Bam Bam Bigelow, villains who gouged eyes and slammed opponents with folding chairs when the referee wasn’t looking. We booed, and Juicy John reveled in our “heat,” the wrestling term for the house’s audible contempt.  

He was the heel, the match’s bad guy. Taking the heat was his job.  

As he approached the ring, he stopped to draw his thumb across his throat, pantomiming the fate of anyone who dared challenge him. Security held back one attendee willing to try, an old man in a wrinkled polo shirt and a wrist brace.  

Once in the ring, Juicy John ripped the microphone from the announcer. He proclaimed his opponent’s best days long gone, assured us that this so-called legend was but a speedbump on Juicy John’s quest to the top of the Georgia Christian Wrestling Federation. He dropped the microphone to the mat. Our jeering torrent soundtracked his stroll back to the Evans Middle School home locker room.