After I swooned over every captured still of Gio Benitez muscling his way through the surf on Good Morning America on Tuesday, several of you let me know you’re with me.  Turns out, a random Twitterer’s mind went to the exact same place mine did: evaluating how pumped Gio compares with Italian Stallion Chris Cuomo:

Fuck and yes!  I love that Cuomo, who is a notorious muscle stud, gets called out publicly on behalf of the young pup Gio.  Of course, when I read, “the competition is heating up,” I’m picturing muscles soaked in oil, gym bodies stripped to speedos, and a brutal beefcake beach battle of balls out homoerotic wrestling.  Now that Chris is on a competing morning show at CNN, I wasn’t sure if he’d even be allowed by corporate to acknowledge that Gio exists.  Well, apparently he is, and he did:

See what he did there? Chris feints with self-depracating praise, then slips in that Gio is a novice compared to the veteran newsboy.  And just to drive home the point of who would win the “competition,” Cuomo points out emphatically that Gio is a fucking lightweight compared to him.  Competition?  I’d squash that anklebiter like a fucking bug! Sweet, I thought.  But no way Gio’s handlers would let him dip his toes into the newsboy trash talk pool, right?  Wrong:

Baby beefcake Benitez climbs into the ring like an upright, earnest babyface, giving his props to the well-known muscle monster Cuomo.  Aw, shucks, I’m just honored to be in the same Tweet.

Let’s recap.  43 year old, 6’2″ dynasty spare Chris Cuomo not only periodically and cruelly teases muscle fans with his shirtless fishing exploits, he also writes a column for Men’s Health and is currently video documenting a provocatively named kick ass workout regime with multiple clips of him pumped, sweaty, and working his giant body with a hot, handsome stud trainer barking in his ear.  Cuomo says his ideal weight is 210 pounds of rock hard mountainous muscle.  He says that he isn’t an MMA boy, but he’ll “try a 5-minute fighting circuit to disturb my metabolism.”  I know of a lot of opponents who’d give a left nut to be on that circuit!

I haven’t uncovered any guesses about Gio Benitez’ height or weight, so I’m totally making this shit up when I say he’s 5’10” and a ripped 185 pounds. He turned 28 about 7 months ago. His official ABC bio says that he’s fluent in English and Spanish, and was the first journalist to shoot a segment entirely on iPhone, which is pretty much crap info when you consider that they’ve left out his vital statistics like chest and bicep measurements.  His Instagram suggests that the boy wonder likes muscle tees and completely unbuttoned polos, form-fitted to his mammoth pecs and struggling to contain his bulging biceps. He’s not nearly as smooth and confident on camera as Cuomo, but he’s come a long way since his GMA debut about a year ago.  Unlike Cuomo’s omnipresent naked torso, and despite his most obvious assets, ABC has yet to unleash full-on Gio shirtlessness.  I assume they’re waiting for a desperate sweeps week.

I say liberally baby oiled beach wrestling in South Beach, Chris in a speedo and Gio wearing a posing strap. Entirely televised by both CNN and ABC, with special referee weatherman-turned-celebrity gossip monger Rob Marciano.  What are the highlights of that action and who wins?  You make the call in the comments.