I continue to find Zip Zarella one of the most reliably entertaining and arousing wrestlers turning my crank in new releases these days. I love his body about 85% as enthusiastically as Zip does (which says A LOT). He has that kind of face that makes me unconsciously devoted to doing anything it takes to make him flash his boyish smile (seriously, anything, Zip). I love his combination of playfulness, dangerousness, and his unflinching nod to the gay gaze of a homoerotic wrestling audience.

I was also an early adopter for Zip’s tag team partner Cap Landon as well. Charlie Evans’ new releases are just too far and few between to fully satiate my sexy, skinny boy moods, and Cap fills that empty space nicely. Zip and Cap seem to bring out the best in each other in Zip’s Spotlight. They’re posing their contrasting bodies, flexing their mouthwatering muscles and practically licking their lips with hungry excitement upon learning that they get to sink their teeth into a solo Austin Cooper. “Oh yeah, easy night to night, brother, two on one,” Cap purrs, flashing his compelling, superlean double bicep side-by-side with his partner. Astonishingly, Zip shares the mirror, perhaps seeing what I see, which is some awesome complementary aesthetics, with his pale partner making Zip’s beefy, tanned double-bicep that much more stunningly sexy. “We’re green, and we’re mean, baby!” Zip crows, turning to the side and checking out his meaty ass in the mirror (me too, Zip).

Austin refers to their simpatico as a “bromance” when he struts his legendary physique into the ring and snarls at the earnest twosome determined to pick him apart. “What do we got, a couple of leprechauns here,” Austin asks rhetorically, critiquing their matching, shiny green trunks. “Here are some real muscles come up in here,” Coop smirks, pumping his own fitness model double bicep intending to swipe away all memory of Zip and Cap’s gun show.  “Moderate, at best,” Cap spontaneously disparages Coop’s legendarily hot muscles, not because Cap thinks his own muscles measure up, but as an almost intimate compliment to his partner’s heavy artillery. “You’ve got this,” Cap murmurs from the ring apron, with a little hero worship enthusiasm toward Double Z as Austin and Zip start to circle one another. “Your partner is fucking dead,” Austin growls at Zip as they crash their beautifully built physiques into one another.

Coop is a fucking beast in this match. I wouldn’t say he’s full-on channeling his heel master alter ego Dr. Cooper, but the seasoned veteran muscleman gets a solid grip on the initiative and wrings a whole lot of anguish out of aspiring “body guy” Zip. Now, I have more than a passing familiarity with Zip’s work, so I’m not too worried that the ring savvy pro can weather the storm and come back strong. But Cap seems a little worried. When Coop shoves Zip’s lower back violently into a turnbuckle, Cap bitches from the ring apron, “Get him out of the corner!” When Coop scoops Zip up into about the third of an infinite string of near coital rear bearhugs, there’s a twinge of desperation in Cap’s voice as he pleads with his partner, “You’ve got to stop letting him do that to you!” Zip’s jaw hangs open, struggling to endure the crushing embrace. “It’s so hard,” Zip gasps, which is lovely double entendre considering Coop has hoisted him off his feet and Zip’s muscled ass cheeks are pinned against Coop’s crotch. “He’s so strong,” Zip concedes with more than a little bit of awe for his opponent’s power.

If this were a straight up singles competition between Coop and Zip, it would be a great muscleman vs. muscleman contest. The wild card here is Cap, whose cheerleading for his partner and insults flung at their opponent is stirring the pot. “I”m showing him who Austin Cooper is,” Coop narrates his dominating performance for Cap. “Who’s that,” Cap snaps back with a lot of frustrated contempt. In a rage, Coop abruptly hoists Zip’s 205 pounds across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry in a stunning display of power. “Your partner is questioning me,” Coop says to Zip by way of explaining his growing motivation to break Zip hard. The more Cap spouts off from outside the ring, the worse conditions grow for Zip inside the ring. The 2-on-1 advantage suddenly seems to be backfiring.

Coop hobbles Zip like a boss and then sends him scurrying to the corner to tag in his partner. You can tell his vicarious torture of Zip isn’t going to be nearly as satisfying for Coop as it will be to bear down on 140 pound Cap directly. While Zip is licking his wounds outside the ring (I volunteer to help you with that, too, Zip), Coop unleashes a clinic of power moves on the lightweight smart ass. Cap’s feet don’t touch the ground for many minutes at a time. Coop hoists him up across his chest with absolutely zero effort and, with a flourish, pounds him down into a violent OTK. Cap screams and squirms helplessly as his opponent impales his lower abdomen with deep elbow strikes. When Coop scoops him back up off his knee, standing back up with Cap cradled helplessly across his chest, he asks, “You want to see how strong I am?” Now, in the moment, I’m thinking that it’s a rhetorical question. But Zip is so entranced by Coop’s power (perhaps still lingering on the memory of just how “hard” that rear bearhug was a few minutes ago), Double Z can’t help himself but blurt out the answer, “Sure!”

“No, no, don’t say that,” Cap protests in a panic. Coop fulfill’s Zip’s wish by gorilla pressing Cap straight-armed overhead, and then draping the skinny boy’s body around his neck like a scarf. Zip is visibly impressed with the move. Abruptly, Coop flings Cap around his neck and, in one motion, violently drops him into a tailbone-trashing atomic drop. Fuck, it’s such a high impact move I sort of wonder if Cap’s prostrate got a little thrill from Coop’s knee impaling him. “Are you okay,” Zip asks his bromantic partner with sincere concern in his voice. Cap literally can’t answer, clutching his ass and writhing on the mat breathlessly. Coop rolls on relentlessly, yanking the skinny boy into a kneeling surfboard, positioning the hold deliberately for Zip to watch the torture play across his partner’s face. “Oh, this is embarrassing,” Zip confesses.

Look at me, turning myself on just trying to narrate this sexy, sexy bit of this match. Before I get further carried away, let me pan back and just say that I stand up and cheer when Coop basically insists on taking the both of them on at the same time. It’s a great bit of hubris-meets-instant-karma when team leprechaun starts to beat the shit out of him in tandem. Personally, I would have been profoundly satisfied to just watch Zip and Cap rip apart the legendary Austin Cooper and enact a perfectly synchronized muscle mauling. Coop has the elusive power to make me lust to see him dominate as Dr. Cooper, and yet crush like hell on seeing him plowed under as the babyfaced golden boy.  “You’ve got nothing, big man,” Zip crows, kicking him to the mat so the two of them can make Coop’s juicy ass jiggle as they stomp him from head to toe and back again. Zip snaps his gargantuan thighs around Coop’s gut, forcing the air out of his lungs, a second before Cap zip ties his legs scissored tight around Coop’s throat, refusing to allow the muscleman any chance of replenishing the oxygen in his lungs. “Come on, tap out, bitch,” Cap snarls in his face.

That, in and of itself, is worth the price of admission. 140 pounder Cap Landon calling 170 pound fitness phenom Austin Cooper a bitch and, successfully, demanding that he tap out is all I need. It is not all we get in this match, though. Hubris-turned-instant-karma strikes again as team leprechaun celebrates a little too much, giving Coop the chance to rally. Coop demonstrates why he’s a legendary fan-favorite, starting to handle the both of them with power and precision. He isolates them in turn, seemingly feeding off of the reserves that he’s siphoning off of each of them.

You know from the DVD menu that Cap and Zip finish off this collection with a grudge match, so it shouldn’t be too much of a spoiler to reveal that all of that tag team partner love and mutual admiration comes crashing down around them as Coop manages to single-handedly dish out heaping helpings of humiliation. Blame rains down on everyone except for the man who rightfully deserves the credit for the undoing of team leprechaun.

This could so have gone a totally different direction. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but honestly, the chemistry between Cap and Zip was a thing of beauty. I seriously wanted to see their post-victory love fest, Cap leaping into Zip’s big arms, hugging it out, slapping each other’s asses appreciatively. Cap as the Bruce Wayne’s ward and apprentice, hero worshipping the muscleman in this dynamic duo, could have been so right. Fuck, Cap being unable to restrain himself from treating Zip to an enthusiastic muscle massage as thanks for saving his bacon and captaining a successful campaign to fuck over a legend would have made such perfect sense.

But alas, bitter betrayal as a set-up for a mismatched grudge match comes in a close second.