Undagear 38 is my first glimpse at Tanner Ripley in action. Well, I’ve seen pics of the pretty boy all over the place, but this was the first time I’d seen him in motion. He’s ridiculously pretty. There’s a Hollywood badboy look about him, like TMZ should be trailing him to catch him inevitably starting a fight with Colin Farrel outside an exclusive celebrity LA bar. He’s an example of this curious phenomenon where a super hot wrestler suddenly seems to be everywhere, as if he isn’t a rookie, but a fixture. I know, Tanner has been heating things up at Muscleboy and Weekend Wrestling for more than a blink, and he’s got an extensive catalog of videos on WatchFighters. Weekend’s bio claim that Tanner is “a ten year veteran of various forms of combat, including Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, professional and submission wrestling,” but he comes across to me as a roughhousing fratboy bully. And he looks too young to be a ten year veteran of anything, but I know, we all wear age differently.

Tanner’s opponent in Undagear 38 is definitely a known quantity. Zach Ramos continues to impress and titillate me. His body is luxuriously muscled. His long, curly locks and playfully sinister van dyke give off a maverick vibe. But it’s his personality that really grabs me. I always get the impression that Zach genuinely fucking LOVES to wrestle. He’s out for fun, and by fun, I mean testing that rocking body of his in hard, sweaty, mean competition against a closely matched opponent. He sucks on his own moments of suffering pretty compellingly, but Zach in the driver’s seat is riveting. He has this breathy, nearly giddy laugh that busts out of him just at those moments when he’s grabbed the steering wheel out of his opponent’s hands and he hears the grunt of shock, pain, and frustration coming from his rival. He definitely gives the impression that he loves that moment hard.

I’m dialed into the chemistry between Zach and Tanner from the moment that they’re checking each other out before the match. I love a pair of hot, sexy, powerful wrestlers who seem to genuinely admire each other’s bodies. Zach likes the sight of Tanner’s meaty biceps, but the blond pretty boy boasts that it’s his legs that are his strong suit. He flexes them for his impressed opponent’s inspection, and fuck, yeah, they look strong. “Want to get tested by these?,” he asks in a way that could read as bro-y bravado or super sexy wrestling kink. They agree to trade scissors, and both big powerful muscle boys give us a taster of how they roll, giving and taking punishment. When it’s Zach’s turn, he does that sadistic chuckle, as he makes Tanner wriggle and writhe red-faced.

The carefully negotiated trading of holds to open Undeagear 38 up is a stark contrast to the sensational spontaneity of the rest of the battle. “Spontaneous” could be a euphemism for messy, like blown holds and lack of momentum, and sure, there are a few blown holds here, but the momentum chugs along relentlessly like a steam engine. There’s nothing clumsy about the back-and-forth battle. Both boys have legitimate arsenals. They give the impression that even they don’t exactly know what’s going to happen next from moment to moment, but there’s nothing indecisive about the relentless ebb and flow of testing offenses. They both look hungry and turned on when they’re in control, and someone is convincingly in control almost every split second, as counters and reversals keep them and us guessing.

They have beautifully matched horny bro energy. Like, when Zach muscles Tanner into a foldover pin and sits on his ass, he treats himself to some hot, indulgent strokes of Tanner’s straining hamstrings. When it’s Tanner’s turn to pitch, he muscles big Zach into an abdominal stretch and alternates between pounding a fist into the trapped hunk’s gut and tauntingly pinching Zach’s nipples. And holy fuck, the look of triumphant pride on Tanner’s baby face as wrings whimpers and grunts of helpless pain from his opponent is fucking HOT!

Tanner suffers harder and hotter than Zach, which could be testimony to Zach’s superior offense or to Tanner’s full throttle sell (probably both). You can see Zach wring buckets of sweat and tears out of blond badboy with combinations of high impact pounding and long, slow submission torture. About 2/3rds of the way through the match, Zach is parading Tanner around in a fireman’s carry, before planting him into the floor with a seriously sick slam. You can pretty much see the stars circling the prettyboy’s head, even as Zach is driving elbows into Tanner’s pride-and-joy legs and throttling the blond hunk’s crotch. Zach hooks a leg and rips apart Tanner’s thick thighs so hard you can basically hear the battered boy’s groin shredding. And Tanner screams bloody murder like a trapped animal! Holy fuck, the intensity! And then, with that blazingly hot horny bro vibe, Zach massages the blond muscle boy’s hole and balls, smiling and chuckling like a Bond villain.

Tanner sells cocky bro badboy as compellingly as he suffers, though. He executes an opportunistic escape with a violent yank on Zach’s long, curly locks and, without a break, snaps big Zach into a dragon sleeper. The look of satisfied delight on his face is just fucking adorable. He samples liberally from this tasty buffet laid out in front of him in the dragon sleeper, pounding Zach’s gut, wrenching on his neck, twisting viciously on the trapped hunk’s nipples. He hungrily strokes his palm down Zack’s torso, stretching slowly and seductively down his writhing opponent’s torso and then clawing the fuck out of Zach’s balls. Tanner’s pumped pecs glisten majestically as he tortures his captured prey, and that little boy face of his shines with undisguised glee. Finally, he’s wringing a compellingly suffering sell from Zach, whose panicked screams are muffled deep up Tanner’s pit.

A horny bro battle that careens into shattered egos and abject suffering grabs me right where homoerotic wrestling turns me on hardest. And then, when one hot, cocky muscle boy is reduced to begging for mercy… fuuuuuuuck, that’s tasty. “Please, no more,” one of these mighty muscle men cries. Crying, weeping, whimpering, bested and conquered… fuck, now that’s a fucking climax to a sensationally told homoerotic wrestling story! The crowing winner slaps the hunky loser’s ass possessively. He grabs a couple handfuls of crotch like a trophy. It’s mean and sadistic, milked long and luxuriously.

I remain a huge, huge fan of Zach. I particularly love seeing him seriously tested by an opponent with the meanness to really wring that desperate edge out of Zach’s suffering. But, yeah, that gleeful, nearly maniacal, chuckling glee of his when he’s playing an opponent like a musical instrument is gorgeous. And now I’m officially a Tanner Ripley fan. Yes, he’s as ridiculously pretty in motion as he is in still frame. He can dish it out, and he can take it in a way that feels like he’s genuinely ready to slap his big, well earned ego down on the table and legitimately see who’s got the strength, skills, and will to conquer. Sometimes, I really get off on contrasts, but Tanner and Zach are just so fucking well matched in attitude and energy, I’d really, really love to see them tag team. One way or another, I want to see more of both of these horny bros.