NEWS FEATURE: Church takes a fall in wrestling event

c. 1999 Religion News Service CLEVELAND _ At Puritas Lutheran Church, a man fell to his knees, pleading for deliverance. From a headlock. In church, you might expect to hear about the biblical Jacob’s wrestling exploits. You might even expect a person to wrestle with his conscience. What you probably would not expect is neck-biting, […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ At Puritas Lutheran Church, a man fell to his knees, pleading for deliverance.

From a headlock.


In church, you might expect to hear about the biblical Jacob’s wrestling exploits. You might even expect a person to wrestle with his conscience.

What you probably would not expect is neck-biting, chair-bludgeoning wrestling: six bruising matches culminating with”Extreme Superstar”RWB vs.”Big Daddy of Destruction”J-Rocc in the North Coast Wrestling Alliance world heavyweight championship.

This in a church whose members voted”no”recently when presented with a plan to raise money by hosting bingo.”We got shot down on that one real quick: not appropriate,”said Tom Coughlin, a church council member.

But the church, whose membership has dwindled over the years from well over a thousand to just a few hundred, is in need of money.

So Coughlin, charged with renting out the church hall/gymnasium for such things as birthday parties and wedding receptions, agreed to allow the nascent Cleveland wrestling league to use the place the night of Nov. 26 for its $8-per-adult, $6-per-child wrestling matches.

The crowd of 50 was a money-losing disappointment, though, promoters said. And, in part because it got entangled in a feud in the local wrestling community, the event drew unwelcome publicity. The experiment won’t be repeated, Coughlin said this week.”Things just didn’t work out the way I thought it was going to work out.” Those who attended seemed to enjoy the antics: intermission music peppered with the coarsest of language; taunting dialogue; a wrestler getting whacked twice, hard, on the head with a metal folding chair; and”Lucifer”(who had a bad back and therefore agreed only to a short bout) biting the throat of a wrestler called”Twitch.” Not on the scheduled program was a confrontation that began when James Haase, a.k.a T.J. Lightning, who runs a competing league called Cleveland All Pro Wrestling, claimed some of his former students who were on the NCWA card owed him money and demanded they pay. Tempers flared, police were called, and when they arrived Haase was persuaded to leave.

There was also this comical scene: The microphone cord reached barely to the edge of the ring, forcing the tough talkers to lean over the ropes to be heard. “I wouldn’t be surprised if people (from the church) aren’t too thrilled with it,” said 22-year-old NCWA co-owner Jerry Mires, a.k.a J-Rocc. Unlike the “hard-core” shows he might put on at VFW halls, Mires said, he”really toned it down”at Puritas Lutheran, ratcheting back the usual furniture breaking, blood and cussing.

A recent addition to the NCWA promotional team is an enthusiastic auto mechanic and wrestling fan, David Dale, whose father-in-law happens to be the interim pastor of Puritas Lutheran. “My wife wants to kill me,”Dale said. She senses negative reaction that could taint her devout dad.


“I want it known _ her dad’s got nothing to do with anything,” Dale said. “I’m not saying the church condones what we’re doing. They just rented us a hall at a good price.”

Maybe too good. The church charged $200, which is less than the usual $300 to $500 fee for receptions and similar events.

“He’s related to the pastor so I quoted him the hourly rate and he jumped on it. I guess it was too low,” Coughlin said.

The Rev. John Klein, the interim pastor, was firm in saying the wrestling deal was between the church board and his son-in-law.

“Personally,” Klein said, “I wouldn’t have any fund-raising schemes. None at all.”

DEA END McINTYRE

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