{"id":22820,"date":"2025-04-06T12:47:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-06T18:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/blood-sweat-and-tears\/"},"modified":"2025-04-06T18:47:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T18:47:30","slug":"blood-sweat-and-tears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/blood-sweat-and-tears\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood, sweat and tears"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Billy
Billy O'Keefe celebrates victory in a six-man-scramble at a Kingdom Wrestling show at St Peter's Church in Shipley on March 29. (Jon Super\/The Associated Press)<\/span>Jon Super<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

SHIPLEY, England \u2013 Sitting around a wrestling ring, churchgoers roared as local hero Billy O\u2019Keeffe body-slammed a fighter named Disciple. Beneath stained-glass windows, they whooped and cheered as burly, tattooed wrestlers tumbled into the aisle during a six-man tag-team battle.<\/p>\n

This is Wrestling Church, which brings blood, sweat and tears \u2013 mostly sweat \u2013 to St. Peter\u2019s Anglican church in the northern England town of Shipley. It\u2019s the creation of Gareth Thompson, a charismatic 37-year-old who says he was saved by pro wrestling and Jesus \u2013 and wants others to have the same experience.<\/p>\n

Thompson says the outsized characters and scripted morality battles of pro wrestling fit naturally with a Christian message.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoil it down to the basics, it\u2019s good versus evil,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I became Christian, I started seeing the wrestling world through a Christian lens. I started seeing David and Goliath. I started seeing Cain and Abel. I started seeing Esau having his heritage stolen from him. And I\u2019m like, \u2018We could tell these stories.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

A match made in heaven<\/div>\n

Church attendance in the U.K. has been declining for decades, and the 2021 census found that less than half of people in England and Wales now consider themselves Christian. Those who say they have no religion rose from 25% to 37% in a decade.<\/p>\n

That has led churches to get creative in order to survive.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to take a few risks,\u201d said the Rev. Natasha Thomas, the priest in charge at St. Peter\u2019s. She acknowledged that she \u201cwasn\u2019t entirely sure what it was I was letting myself in for\u201d when she agreed to host wrestling events.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not church as you would know it. It\u2019s certainly not for everyone,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it\u2019s bringing in a different group of people, a different community, than we would normally get.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a recent Wrestling Church evening, almost 200 people \u2013 older couples, teenagers, pierced and tattooed wrestling fans, parents with excited young children \u2013 packed into chairs around a ring erected under the vaulted ceiling of the century-old church.<\/p>\n

After a short homily and prayer from Thomas, it was time for two hours of smackdowns, body slams and flying headbutts. The atmosphere grew cheerfully raucous, as fans waved giant foam fingers and hollered \u201cknock him out!\u201d at participants.<\/p>\n

Some longtime churchgoers have welcomed the infusion of energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s absolutely wonderful,\u201d said Chris Moss, who married her husband Mike in St. Peter\u2019s almost 50 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can look at some of the wrestlers and think\u201d \u2013 she scrunched her face in distaste. But talking to them made her realize \u201cyou shouldn\u2019t judge a book by its cover.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wrestling was a lifeline<\/div>\n

Thompson, whose wrestling moniker is Gareth Angel, both wrestles and presides over the organized mayhem. He\u2019s a mix of preacher and ringmaster, wearing a T-shirt that says \u201cPray, eat, wrestle, repeat.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s loved wrestling since it provided solace and release during a troubled upbringing that saw him survive childhood sexual abuse and a period of homelessness as a teenager.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could watch Shawn Michaels and the Rock and Stone Cold (Steve Austin) and I could be like, I want to be like them,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it\u2019s always been an escape for me, and a release and a way to get away from stuff. But then God has obviously turned that around now and it\u2019s become this passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

He found Christianity in 2011, ran his first Wrestling Church event in a former nightclub-turned-church in 2022, and moved to St. Peter\u2019s last year.<\/p>\n

As well as the monthly Saturday night shows, his charity Kingdom Wrestling runs training sessions for adults and children in a back room of the church, along with women\u2019s self-defense classes, a men\u2019s mental health group and coaching for children who have been expelled from school.<\/p>\n

For many in the close-knit community of U.K. wrestlers and fans, religion is a new ingredient, but not an unwelcome one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m mainly here for the wrestling,\u201d said 33-year-old Liam Ledger, who wrestles as Flamin\u2019 Daemon Crowe. Sitting in a pungent changing room as wrestlers discussed fight plans, donned knee pads and laced up their many-holed boots, he said it\u2019s a bit \u201csurreal\u201d when baptisms are held between bouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt works both ways,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s people that come here that are big on religion, and they\u2019re here for all of that sort of stuff. And then they go, \u2018Oh, actually this wrestling is sort of fun.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Kiara, Kingdom Wrestling\u2019s reigning women\u2019s champion, said the organization has helped her bring her Catholic faith into her wrestling life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s thanks to Kingdom Wrestling that I\u2019ve had the confidence to pray in the locker room now before matches,\u201d said Kiara, 26, known outside the ring as Stephanie Sid. \u201cI invite my opponent to pray with me, pray that we have a safe match, pray that there\u2019s no injuries and pray that we entertain everybody here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going for growth<\/div>\n

Only a handful of people have gone from watching the wrestling to attending Sunday-morning services at St. Peter\u2019s, but Wrestling Church baptized 30 people in its first year. Thompson, whose brand of born-again Christianity is more muscular than many traditional Anglicans\u2019, plans to expand to other British cities. One day, he says, he may start his own church.<\/p>\n

There has long been overlap between Christianity and wrestling in the U.S., where figures like Thompson\u2019s hero Shawn Michaels proudly proclaim their faith. But Britain is a less religious place, and Shipley, a former mill town 175 miles north of London, is a long way from the Bible Belt.<\/p>\n

Thompson, though, is unfazed by doubters.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople say, \u2018Oh, wrestling and Christianity, they\u2019re two fake things in a fake world of their own existence,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t believe in it, of course you will think that of it. But my own personal experience of my Christian faith is that it is alive and living, and it is true. The wrestling world, if you really believe in it, you believe that it\u2019s true and you can suspend your disbelief.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou suspend it because you want to get lost in it. You want to believe in it. You want to hope for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP\u2019s collaboration with The Conversation U.S., with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this conten<\/em>t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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