CWF Celebrates 10 years

Saturday night I had the privilege to take part in the Christian Wrestling Federation’s 10 year anniversary show.

It was a great night with some great matches from CWF Alumni as well as the CWF future — including a 12 man Battle Royal.

For those who are new to the blog, I first found out about the CWF only a few months after it began (in May 2000).

And I went to my first CWF show in Georgetown, Texas in the Fall of 2000 after hearing about it from a fellow journalism student, Chris Allman (aka Chris Idol/Angel).

Several years later, I joined up with the CWF and served as the ring announcer and commissioner from 2005-2007.

It was a great time in my life, full of great memories and great relationships that I made while travelling from place to place with the guys — even more so with the late night trips Chris and I made from Belton to Rockwall (and back) that first year.

Blundell
Working the mic at a CWF show in Iowa

So Saturday night was a great time to remember some of those memories and a chance to see the work continue.

Rob (Jesus Freak) asked me to put together a slide show and highlight video to show Saturday night, so here they are in all their glory ::

You can find out more about the CWF through my archives, or visit www.christianwrestling.com (which I still manage). I also chatted with Chris a month or so back for the podcast and he talks about his history with the CWF along the way.

Wrestling, Faith & Science

Double head lock

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about the squared-circle.

But Tripp posted a great find over at Homebrewed Christianity in which “Wofford college professors Byron R. McCane and Dan Mathewson reveal how the equally toothless performances of New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and creationists like Ken Ham share more with the garish world of Hulk Hogan and the Iron Sheik than with serious scholarship.”

It’s a great paper piece that compares the one-sided, over stereotypical and simplified views of Ham (Creation Science Museum) and Dawkins to Hulk Hogan and Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Lots of fun. I give it five Ric Flair “WOOOOOOOO’s”

What do you think? Do Dawkins and Ham respresent over stereotypical and simplified views or science and religion at it’s best?

What we war against

As part of the encounter 9 and our Wednesday morning What-A-Study, Brian’s been focusing on the battles/wars men face and wrestle with in our daily lives.

Last week we discussed the idea that we can’t battle our wars alone – we need other soldiers to come along side us and fight with us – side by side.

Today we discussed some of the things we as a church fight against. We came up with our own collective list and then Brian shared some of the things he sees us, as encounter waring against.

Here’s the list of what we war against:

  • the idea that you can’t have a great marriage because your spouse is unwilling or unresponsive.
  • the idea that I am a prisoner of my addictions, failures, pains and the seemingly impossible solutions of my life.
  • the idea that the church is a building, a location, a program.
  • the idea that walking with Christ is about rules, guilt and lifeless religion.
  • the idea that life is destined to be mundane and meaningless.
  • the idea that church is about membership, bureaucracy, internal introspection, exclusivity and it exists for itself.
  • the idea that the gospel is a singular event to experience and separate from the very real and relevant areas of my life.
  • the idea that the church is to be against the non-Christ followers: looking to remove itself from them, condemn them and blame them and compete to overtake them politically, socially and economically.
  • the idea that the gospel and church are irrelevant to the everyday issues of life.
  • the idea that the problems are too big and nothing can be done.

We added a couple more things to the list, like waring against “private faith” and the idea of “picture perfect families and lives.”

I think looking at the list, it comes down to one thing – we war against ME… not just me as in Jonathan Blundell, but as you, your ideals, my ideals, my wants, your desires, my selfishness, your selfishness. We battle against the idea of ME and battle for idea of WE and us and the community of believers.

At the risk of sounding cliche or trite, I want to be the standard bearer for this battle. I want to raise the flag high. Sure I’m gonna trip and fall and I may have trouble getting back up again – but that’s why we need our fellow brothers and sisters to join us in battle, who pick us up and will be willing to carry the standard when the standard bearer struggles.

What do you war against? What role do you want to play in this war?

The Bussey Bunch

Looks like I found a new TV show I might get to watch with Laurie.
She says, “i’ll watch it but i’m not promising anything.”
At least it’s on TLC – that might help.
It’s The Bussey Bunch – based on the folks that run PCW Wrestling in Arlington.
It’s the same federation Tim and Dennis wrestle for – in fact Dennis (Apoc) is in the trailer a couple times (look for the guy breathing fire).

Should be interesting to see. I’ve never been a huge fan of PCW from what I’ve seen – but they’re running a wrestling federation and I’m not – so they do have that going for them ;-).

See the schedule on TLC
.

Tim and Dennis on WWE

Tim Storm and Apocalypse were on WWE TV progamming this past week a couple different times.
Both were on RAW Monday night as security guards to break up a fight between John Cena and Bobby Lashley.

Tim Apoc
tim apoc 2

The next night on ECW, Storm was in a squash match with Big Daddy V (Viscera). Incidentally, Viscera was Storm’s third wrestling match ever when he got started in the business.

Tim Vic
Tim Vic 2
Tim Vic 3

Apoc also showed up on Smackdown as a “sad clown” who got punched in the face by Kane during a Mardi Gras segment with Edge.
There was a photo of Apoc on the front page of WWE.com last week but it’s since been taken down and I haven’t been able to find it again.
Doh.