Cameron Matthews invites you, the consumer, to explain why incredibly hot pro Maverick and rising rookie Zach Reno are going at it in their new release match, Pro Wrestlers: Up Close. It implies an interesting confessional: this is a match in need of a narrative. The pace and intensity of both bearded beauties is fantastic. Zach is clearly in way, way over his head, but pro Maverick sells a solid plot, letting the hirsute rookie hang with the back and forth battle of punishing holds until Mav snarls, “I’ve had enough of this,” and opens up an industrial size can of whoop ass. He fucks Zach up relentlessly in the corner.  He wraps his fingers up viciously in that manic tangle of long locks and drags the slack-jawed rookie all over the mat by his hair. Whatever Maverick’s motivation at the start of this match, he soon demonstrates dastardly delight in driving his drowning opponent to the brink of terror, threatening to break his back, snap him in half, drag out the torture a good 15 minutes past the point that the consummate pro could count the burned rookie out. I’m gasping at Maverick’s bounce off the rope moonsault, after which he crows about how brutal it must be for Zach to feel the pro’s steel clad six pack abs pounding down on him. By far the highlight for me is a flat-footed standing dropkick in which all of those bulging muscles on Maverick leap ridiculously high into the air, coil like a spring, and then explode, driving his boot heels squarely into Zach’s chin. Takes me back to being driven crazy watching Kevin von Erich defy gravity with that sort of grace and power.

So I guess I do have my theory about why it is these two stunning fantasy men are “going at it” from the start.  I think impeccably groomed and perfectly appointed Maverick is seriously pissed to share the ring with Zach Reno’s trunks. The rookie’s washed out lavender pro style trunks completely distract me, so I’m going to project (a lot) here and say they drive Maverick past the breaking point.

Since Zach’s appearance in BG East’s Gazebo Grappler’s 17, we’ve seen him with an increasingly unkempt mass of panhandler rats nest on his head, hairy torso, and a thickening, full beard disguising his handsome face. My reigning favorite homoerotic wrestler, Kid Karisma chuckled and called Zach “Cave Man” when he first saw this primal look on the rook. Other than the fact that the beard is covering up way too much handsomeness (Zach, please take a cue from Maverick and clean that shit up!), I’m solidly sold on a feral, primal, diamond in the rough persona, particularly on a dazzling beauty like we know Zach to be. I think it’ll be a crime if he ever cuts his hair short again, because that mass of tangles makes opponents irresistibly drawn to drag his gorgeous ass all over the place by them, which is value added in my book. Hell, I’ll lose it for a smooth chested muscleman like Maverick 4 out of 5 times over a hairy torso, but I’m entirely sold on Zach’s tastefully clippered coat of fur.  The ragged and raw edges, the arms length from a comb or scissors, the slightly uncivilized grittiness of Zach is golden as far as I’m concerned.  But those trunks…

I’d like to consult with everyone’s favorite wrestling fashionista, Ty Alexander about this, but Ty appears to be giving me the cold shoulder for failing to include a photo of him in my recent post on the asses turning me on in new releases. For the record, I didn’t think there was a promo shot for Ring Release 2 that did Ty’s ass justice. I’d bend him across my knee any day, mind you.  But without Ty’s expert eye, I’ll venture to argue that Zach’s trunks in Up Close fail on several points, the most egregious, I think, being that they’re a half size too big.

Take a look at Maverick’s standard black and green pro trunks. They could easily be painted on.  They aren’t so tight as to give the zero body fat hunk a Michelin Man look.  Just right, suction packed to his gorgeous, muscled ass. Personally, I’d like to see them with about 3 inches lower rise.  Ah hell, let’s be honest, I’d give a kidney to see them ripped off his fantastic physique entirely.  But to my point, they fit. Perfectly. They accentuate everything right. They are seamlessly part of the wrestler Maverick, framing his gorgeous proportions and complementing every bulge to perfection.

Zach’s trunks, by comparison, bunch up, too much fabric left hanging.  We’ve seen how phenomenal his ass looks in the right trunks, so just look how these panties make those gorgeous glutes of his flatten out and disappear. If he squeezed into tights at this point, he’d be a late 80’s commercial for the social faux pas of panty lines. Maverick, on the other hand, could slide his trunked body into tights and be as smooth as… well, a muscleman’s bottom.

The coloring is wrong for Zach as well, I’d say.  Washed out, the blotchy lavender makes Zach’s pale skin contrasted with his dark hair all over seem anemic.  By comparison, Maverick looks vibrant, 3-dimensional, in full technicolor as the shading and shadows of his mountainous muscles pop. I know for a fact Zach can pop. It’s those fucking trunks.

Maverick delivers three (because he likes doing things in threes) awesomely intimate piledrivers to put the feral rookie down for good at the end of this match. The sight of both of their faces inches away from each other’s crotches, repeated again, and again, is what makes sense of the title of this match for me. What doesn’t make sense to me is those terrible, terrible trunks. Someone, please, rip those travesties off his body… pause…. and then give diamond in the rough Zach Reno a homoerotic wrestling fashion makeover. Please.