Busy-ness has been keeping me away from posting here, but not keeping me from enjoying a lot of new release wrestling. I saw a ton of fantastic matches in February, starring a deep, deep bench of outstanding wrestlers. So this is another month when picking a Homoerotic Wrestler of the Month poses a significant challenge for me. I’ve flipped back and forth a lot in mulling over my choice for which wrestler starring in a new release in February turned me on and entertained me most. But I keep coming back (in my thoughts and in my viewing) to one particular match, and one particular wrestler who holds my gaze riveted to his magnificent physique. So without further ado, I’m aroused to announce that my new homoerotic wrestler of the month is…

 

 

…Joshua Goodman (that’s Mr. Joshua to you!).

On the one hand, there’s a strong sense of righting a longstanding wrong in picking Mr. Joshua for this distinction. I’ve been naming HWsOTM for over 6 years now, and somehow, although I’ve spilled gallons of ink and cum musing over how much I enjoy his wrestling (and body), inexplicably, he has never held the title of HWOTM before now. He has secured the title of my overall favorite homoerotic wrestler in the past, but not for any one specific match, not qualifying him for the brutal month-to-month title. I don’t believe for a second that this is the first time he’s deserved it. No, I’m sure that this has been a ridiculous oversight on my part, entirely indicative of my own moral failings rather than a result of any deficiency or lack of merit on Mr. Joshua’s part.

So let me just start off by apologizing to Mr. Joshua. I have sorely neglected and unjustly passed you over in the past. Your beauty, grace, and prowess as a homoerotic wrestler are not only praiseworthy, but they elevate you into the stratosphere of industry luminaries. You are the epitome of a wrestling fantasy man, and your ascendency to the HWOTM throne is long overdue.

My adoring sidebar with Mr. Joshua aside, I will speculate that it’s entirely possible that Mr. Joshua is only now getting the laud he abundantly deserves because he has only now, in Ringwars 26, faced an opponent who bring out his full potential. I am also a HUGE Cole Cassidy fan. Give me Cole’s ripped muscles, dollar coin nipples, and a bottle of baby oil and I’ll be enraptured for hours. Even more at the heart of my fondest fantasies, Cole is a superb wrestler. More like a force of nature, he is a one man wrecking crew 99% of the time. Facing off against Mr. Joshua, Cole exposes nearly every succulent inch of him. He wrenches and pries him apart, muscle by muscle. It’s not as if Mr. Joshua’s legendarily gargantuan (and award-winning) package has not been targeted by opponents in the past, but Cole possesses an unselfconsciousness about his relish in manhandling Mr. J’s man-handle. Cole centers Mt. J in the frame in astonishing and innovate ways. He serves up Mr. Joshua’s meat on a platter, over and over again, in an obvious nod to pleasing their fans as well as a fighter’s instinct to exploit an opponent’s weaknesses. Mr. Joshua suffers at Cole’s hands in a way that I have very rarely seen before, and the depth of his agony, and the literal ball bashing brutality, milk out of Mr. Joshua an unmatched sincerity.

Another novel element in this Mr. Joshua match is his gear.  I cannot convey just how heartily I approve of his leopard print, supersheer, only marginally capable banana hammock. I think the “jungle boy” gimmick has been done so often that it’s a risky venture to gear up a wrestler, particularly a well-known one, into a Tarzan-esque patch of animal print cloth. However, not only does Mr. Joshua pull this off. He makes it his own.

I’m sure I say this every time, but I swear to the homoerotic wrestling gods, Mr. Joshua has never looked better. He’s not just fit. He’s a fucking work of art. That poor, overtaxed bit animal print somehow manages to polish off what is one of the most aesthetically beautiful physiques I’ve seen climb into the BG East ring, and that’s saying A LOT. Mr. J’s skin is silky smooth and bronzed all over to a perfect mocha latte hue. On the one hand, Mr. J’s working class Boston accent and sporty-Guido do, along with that wisp of a manicured soul patch between his chin and lower lip, provide stark dissonance with the wild man-of-the-jungle aesthetic of the gear. On the other hand, the overt sensuality and near-porn peekabo glimpses of baseball sized ball sac squeezing out the sides are spot on. It isn’t that Mr. J somehow comes across as a feral muscle beast raised by apes. But he nails like a mother fucker the part of the male stripper climbing off the pole and directly into the wrestling ring, bringing sensational taunting, tantalizing erotic cred to what turns out to be a legitimate heel-on-heel pro brawl.

There are about 30 distinct moments in the match when I’m aching to climb right into the ring and investigate with my tongue the erotic sculpture that Cole and Mr. Joshua create out of one another. The holds are just that provocative and long-held, like only two stellar pros with strong empathy for their audience could accomplish. And none of it feels gratuitous. It’s 100% brutal corporal punishment. It’s vicious and humiliating and veers full speed into open-faced sadism. They beat the living shit out of each other and, less like a performance than a documentary, the camera is simply there to witness the carnage.

Of course, Cole is lush and extravagantly muscled as always. But he’s the business end of the stick. He’s the one in relatively high-waisted MMA square cuts. He is (as he almost always is) humorless and calculating. The wild card is go-go boy turned pro ring badass Mr. Joshua. An ounce less intensity from Mr. J, even a shaving less vicious aggression on his part, and this could have been one of a hundred lopsided pretty boy massacres. But this time around, pretty’s got teeth. He takes the withering eye rolls and discounting by his opponent, and then throws every ounce of his gorgeousness whole heartedly into pounding the mats to make this legitimately suspenseful.

Mr. Joshua grabbed the title of HWOTM as commandingly as Cole grabbed Mr. J’s testicles, over and over again, and tried to rip them off his dazzlingly hot body. I still long for more Mr. Joshua matches in which his opponents acknowledge what we’re all seeing, that Mr. J is breathtakingly gorgeous. Right at the beginning of the match, I get the impression Cole is understandably impressed with stunning heft of Mr. J’s most prominent attribute, but other than that, Cole largely has little but rage and contempt directed at his sultry opponent. The chemistry works exactly the way a heel on heel brawl ought to, but I will always long to see more narrative in which the inspiration of Mr. J’s muscles (every one of them) is what drives the battle, where opponents overtly crave to conquer and possess this mythical beast. Without going full monty, Mr. J injects some of the most potent, undiluted erotic energy into his matches. Now that he’s faced arguably his most brutal test, I’m hoping that we get to see him face more opponents who will pick up on their side of the erotic narrative. Mr. Joshua is as dangerous and deliriously gorgeous as we have ever seen him. One of these days, a truly appreciative opponent is going to give every taunting flex and crotch adjustment and impeccably groomed and coiffed inch of him the erotic run for his money that he’s got coming to him.

In the mean time, on your knees, mere mortals. The king is setting his hot ass down where, by divine right, it should have been a long, long time ago, atop the throne as reigning homoerotic wrestler of the month.