Clearly, I’ve got my favorites. I nurse long-standing infatuations with certain homoerotic wrestlers that never fail to get my engine running, time and time again. But regular readers are also aware that another favorite sport of mine is spotting the fresh newbie who instantly turns my crank. Wrestling debuts always excite me. All that potential, the promise, the possibilities of what a new hot hunk might be in the ring or on the mat is a little like wine tasting for me. They won’t all turn into fan favorites (or one of my favorites). The timing, the charisma, the look, the feel, the sound, the sell… any number of factors could be off. But with every fresh debut, all I can think as I settle in to sample the newbie is that it all could be on. This fresh face and hot bod that I’m just meeting for the first time could become a tried and true infatuation for many  matches to come.

 Meet Van Skyler. Debuting in BG East’s new release Ripped Rookies 2 (that title alone makes me hard), Van has a boatload of potential to get the time-tested Bard seal of approval. Those luscious lips! That ass. Those massive pecs! That ass. Those mountainous, square shoulders! That ass. Just watching him stretching out that sensational body, wearing nothing but boots and a hopelessly too brief pair of white trunks with blue trim, the possibility that I could be crushing on this dazzling newbie for years to come seems good.

 

 
And that name, Van Skyler. Fuck. What is it about the name that makes me want to see this dizzyingly beautiful boy get pounded viciously? Who names their child “Van” without fully intending for their genetically gifted baby boy to grow up and have men lining up to smack the shit out of him? There’s something transparently artistocratic, baldly contemptuous of the underclasses in the name Van Skyler. Of course, I know nothing about his back story, truth be told, so Van could be the child of a dock worker and a prostitute with a Ryan Reynolds fetish, for all I know.

 

 
Well, we are treated to a little back story, at least as far as this match goes. From the narraitve, it appears Biff Farrell first caught a glance of sensationally sexy Van at the gym. In a move that only cements my fantaticism for Biff, the big boy sees Van’s magnificent muscles pumping iron and he instantly thinks, “I want to wrestle that!” You know that both of these superhuman hunks get stares for days when they’re working up a sweat at the gym. I think if Van does dumbell bicep curls shirtless, he’s got even the straight boys sprouting wood. So the image of big Biff sidling up and starting to pump iron right next to him, the two of them staring at each other in the mirror, silently sizing one another up,that scene belongs at the start of a gay porn. But this isn’t vanilla gay porn, so Biff follows up some gratuitous compliments of Van’s lush bod with the most erotic come-on of all, “But are all those big muscles good for anything?” Oh, fuck Biff, you are a quick study and a skyrocketing commodity on the Bard  homoerotic wrestling stock exchange (BHWSE).  They have a posedown, then and there in the gym. Muscles swell; egos bristle. Tongues fall out of mouths, I’d be willing to bet my firstborn, because can you just picture the magnetism of seeing these two gorgeous, built for days, hot young hunks getting up in each other’s face and talking wrestling smack with every gym bunny, cardio bimbo and average Joe looking on? I’ll bet my second born that there were guys hightailing it to the locker room to drop a few ounces of liquid weight with the image of Biff and Van flexing at each other playing on loop in their heads.

 

 
Biff was also a first-glance crush not so long ago. I love his look. His blond hair and blue eyes, that superhero square jaw. He looks so much like a barely legal musclefreak babyface who grew into that phenomenal physique so fast that he’s still figuring out the capacity and limits of all that beautiful muscle. He’s so incredibly solid. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING bulges so beautifully on big Biff. And he possesses my favorite wrestling character trait for an ambitious babyface musclekid: he’s earnest. Biff wants to be a pro wrestling star so bad he can taste it, and all that pumped sincerity makes me think he could very easily realize those humungous dreams.

 

 
Biff has also had his fantasyman dream ass handed to him by some of the nastiest heels in the homoerotic wrestling business.  Whatever the assests (admittedly impressive) that come with the body of a comic book superhero and the aspirations of a pro wrestling newbie, Biff learned the hard way that experience counts for a lot in the ring. A blatant disregard for human decency doesn’t hurt either. Earnest-as-fuck Biff got those big bulging muscles crushed and manhandled by the smarts and ring savvy of guys arguably nowhere near as massively put together as he is. So I’m digging Biff picking out his own next opponent, scanning the gym bunnies for just the right combo of mouthwatering muscle, overinflated ego, and no apparent wrestling credentials whatsoever. Yeah, I see you working it, Biff.

 

 
The mat action in back of the BG East compound outside of Boston catches me (and, clearly, Biff) by complete surprise. Not only does hotty Van know how to wrestle, but he’s aggressive, putting his foot on the gas pedal and taking the offensive convincincly from the start. If Biff honestly wanted to know if all of Van’s “big muscles are good for anything,” the unequivocal answer 3 seconds into their match is, “Fuck, and Yes!” Van slams all that beef to the mat with authority. He snaps those lightly hairy muscle thighs around Biff’s torso and makes the hunk suffer instantly. He’s rolling big Biff around the mat like a total chump, and then suddenly, smoothly, he takes the comic book superhero’s back and locks on a sexy, sexy, sexy rear naked choke, pressing that massively peaked bicep hard across Biff’s throat. Holy fuck, holy fuck, gym bunny Van can wrestle, and he’s OWNING Biff’s beautiful butt!

 

 
Happily for all parties involved (well, you and me, mainly) the action is hotly contested, and with so much massive muscle hanging off the bone, nobody  is going to count this as a cake walk. Biff flips the script with his own bodyscissors, really making Van’s groans jump an octave when he adds a hammerlock, pinning a massively muscled arm hard and high up Van’s gorgeous, sweaty back. Thank the homoerotic wrestling gods that Biff enjoys exploiting his advantage by locking down a long, luxurious full nelson that stretches Van’s phenomenally muscled bod out seductively for the camera. Van’s big, low slung pouch bounces and quivers as he’s hung out to dry. It’s not like we’ve never seen offense from Biff before, but damn, when he’s got momentum, all that muscle looks unstoppable.

 

 
It’s probably testimony to my shallowness, but there’s one particular moment in this match that makes me gasp, push rewind, and watch again and again. Van’s fought back for riding time. He’s put big Biff on his back and slowly, but surely, slid into place to lord over the sophomore hunk in a sensationally sexy schoolboy pin. Van’s dangling participle rests heavily on Biff’s square chin as Van hoists his incredibly meaty arms in the air and flexes his biceps domineeringly. “Who’s the champ now, buddy?” the ripped rookie demands to know. As the camera slowly circles the men, we can see that the top  of Van’s incredibly muscled ass cheeks have popped out over the top of his sweat soaked trunks. The cocky schoolboy pin, the newbie trash talk, Biff getting an up close look at the meat market and you and me taking a long, lingering look at those exposed cheeks and crack… what a fucking perfect moment.

 

 
Gym bunny versus pro wrestling hopeful is a fantastic set-up for a match, and I’m so thrilled to see a second chapter in the Ripped Rookies genre. Van and Biff are ideal competitors to take the house-burning hotness generated by the inagural ripped rookies, Jake Jenkins and Austin Cooper, and make it all their own. And you know for a fact that JJ and Dr. Coop own hours and hours of ongoing wrestling adoration from me, years running. Biff has the instincts and the ambition to make me sit up and take notice anytime, and as of now, I’m certain that I will be first in line to watch any match in which Van Skyler sweats through his miniscule trunks and gets that gym bunny muscle butt beat viciously.

 

 
I don’t know if I’ll be obsessing about Biff and Van a few years from now, if they will have taken up residence in my roster of persistent infatuations that draw me back time and time again to replay the oldies and break a sweat over their new releases. But, so far, count me as an enthusiastic fan of both. Particularly of Van’s bare ass. Have I mentioned that?