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A local federation is going to the mat to reach people. Its founder believes the fans in the seats are the perfect audience to hear God's message.
By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 24, 2001
PINELLAS PARK -- The preferred colors were red and black -- for the fighting men who sported tattoos, bizarre costumes and faces transformed with paint or masks.
They talked trash, these wrestlers, as they crawled or were flung out of the ring, bounced on the ropes, crashed on the floor or slapped each other around. Onlookers, gathered for an evening of no-holds-barred professional wrestling, jeered, cheered and stomped their feet. Amid this mayhem, fans stopped to pray.
This sporting event, after all, had been billed as a quasi-religious affair. Some would call it an oxymoron -- professional wrestling with a Christian message.
By design, Saturday evening's matches at the Ronald P. Forbes Recreation Center, 6401 94th Ave. N, were decidedly tamer than is customary for the sport.
It was what Dave Tristani (Devin Nash to wrestling fans) wanted. He established that there would be no foul language, scantily clad women nor obscene gestures.
"We have to turn it down a notch," acknowledged Todd Shane, 33, who with his twin brother Mike ranked among the evening's top acts.
Tristani, 45, founded the Christian Wrestling Federation, which is based in St. Petersburg, a little more than a year ago. Wrestling, he says, is an ideal way to spread the word of God to those who would never dream of walking into a church or showing up at a religious function. Saturday night's show was sponsored by Tristani's church, Praise Cathedral Renewal Center, 4371 76th Ave. N.
"This is our third one for Praise Cathedral. We've not been able to get any other church to go along with it yet. They're all afraid of it," said Tristani, who owns the Florida WrestlePlex, 4055 35th St. N, in St. Petersburg, with business partner Ron Niemi.
Churches get a negative impression of wrestling from television, Tristani said.
"They think wrestling is of the devil," he said.
"You need a progressive church that's willing to try anything to reach people. I find a lot of Christians are afraid of going outside the building, outside the church and interacting with the people we say we want to get."
Christian Wrestling Federation matches have been an important evangelization tool for the church, said the Rev. Mike Thomas of Praise Cathedral.
"The majority of people who come are unchurched people, so that's a successful ministry experience for us," he said.
Saturday's crowd of about 300 included a number of families. Excited children and their parents yelled encouragement to the good guys and taunted the bad ones. The slate included wrestlers such as the aptly named Mr. Biggs, a lumbering giant in a red sleeveless T-shirt, black pants and shiny red boots. There was Justice, whose face was painted half black and half white, and the identical Shane brothers, at 300 pounds and 6-feet-3, who limited their outfits to tight shorts and boots.
Like other wrestlers participating in the event, the Shanes got no pay for the night's work.
"I do it like it's a fundraiser," said Mike Shane, who works in the credit department for Able Body Temporary Services in Palm Harbor.
"I have a good time wrestling in front of the kids," he said. "It's good to hear them respond. They look up to us. I remember when my grandpa used to take me to wrestling when I was young."
"I do it for the kids," agreed his brother Todd, a fitness specialist at Morton Plant Mease in Palm Harbor.
"I used to like it when I was a kid. Hopefully, they don't think we're real mean guys."
While the Shane brothers say they are not particularly religious, Chaos, a fellow wrestler, is.
"I am a born again Christian," he said Saturday as he stood outside the locker room.
Dressed in black, liberally covered in tattoos and sporting a silver ring in an eyebrow, his grin belied his forbidding masquerade.
Asked his real name, he leaned over and whispered, "It's Rob Bigby."
The evening began with prayer in the locker room, where wrestlers gathered to socialize, catch snatches of a ballgame on television and load up on pasta smothered in Ragu sauce.
Minutes before the bell rang for the first of the 10 matches, Pastor Jeffrey Brown of Praise Cathedral quieted the din to offer a few words to God.
"We thank you that we can bring you into the fun and excitement and everything related to it," he prayed.
"So we just bless everything and we ask that nobody is going to get really hurt, Lord."
"We have injuries almost every show," Tristani said later.
Saturday night, wrestler Concession Boy broke an ankle.
Many people do not understand or appreciate wrestling, said Niemi, Tristani's business partner.
"Before, it was almost like a taboo to say you're a wrestling fan," he said. Now ... it's hip and it's cool."
Vincent Goudy, 16, couldn't agree more. Several silver chains with crucifixes glittered against his black T-shirt Saturday. A Gibbs High School sophomore, he took every opportunity to grab autographs from his favorite wrestlers.
"I just want to finish high school so I can go on to professional wrestling," he said.
Saturday was his first Christian Wrestling Federation event, said Vincent, a member of Suncoast Cathedral Assemblies of God.
He understands why some Christians do not approve of the sport, he said.
"People can be very wary ... because wrestling before has not been such a Christian thing. I think it's pretty cool," he said.
Chris Ondrovich, 23, youth pastor at Praise Cathedral, said wrestling should be used to evangelize teenagers.
"There are thousands and millions of teens in the United States that are going to these things. I think it's an untapped place that the church has yet to go to, and I think this is an incredible vision and idea for someone to actually think of this," he said.
Tristani believes God wanted him to form the Christian Wrestling Federation.
"God put me here for this reason," he said.
"When I first moved here, I was 36 and I tried wrestling then and I broke my back and so then I said I was too old. When I was 40, I was talked into starting again. I've been doing it ever since. I've had numerous broken bones, teeth broken."
There is no thought of stopping now.
"I truly believe that God said, "I want you to do this so you can start the Christian Wrestling Federation,' " he said.
Jesus himself would not have scorned wrestling as an avenue to reach people.
"If he was walking the Earth right now," Tristani said, "he would be sitting in these arenas trying to get these people saved. He won't be just sitting in the church waiting for them."