Birthdays, Marks & More Wrestling Career Memories

My wife April took this recent photo of me with my long-time good friend and former Chicago-based pro wrestler/promoter/trainer Sonny Rogers. This picture features me & Sonny in front of the Oak Creek Diner in Oak Creek, Wisconsin (near where Sonny currently resides)...one of this diner's regulars is a peculiar old man whom Sonny calls "Terrytales" since this individual named Terry tells a lot of tall tales as a way to get everybody's attention.

Since Sonny already mentioned on the old school wrestling website Kayfabe Memories that he, yours truly and former wrestler Jonnie Stewart all have birthdays on March 4th (even though I regard every day the same as any other, per Romans 14:5), I thought I'd share this memory of mine involving the 3 of us birthday boys in a wrestling ring.

During my wrestling ring announcing days (before I began doing television & home video wrestling on-camera hosting & play-by-play), I was working at this Hammond (Indiana) Civic Center event promoted by the National Wrestling Alliance (the group that was then seen on Ted Turner's SuperStation TBS), and before the matches started, NWA promoter Gary Juster was running down the card with me, and he told me that Luke Williams & Butch Miller, The Sheepherders (aka The Bushwhackers) will be wrestling "2 of Sam Decero's guys (Sam was the promoter for Windy City Wrestling)...Sonny Rogers...and someone else...just say they're from Chicago". It turned out to be Sonny & (the future "Illustrious") Jonnie Stewart, and once they got into the ring, I said, "Sonny, you guys are from California, right?" (wink wink)...one of them replied, yeah, "from Marina Del Rey, California" (which was once the home of a good Jerry's Famous Deli, which in Sonny's mind probably wouldn't hold a candle to the legendary tales and ambiance at the infamous Oak Creek Diner), and then Jonnie told me to introduce them as "The Beach Boys" (these 2 suburban Chicago boys were West Coast surfer boys in Windy City Wrestling). 

I've joked that if this particular wrestling event was held on March 4th, Sonny, Jonnie & yours truly would have celebrated our birthdays with the crowd in attendance, with a big birthday cake in the ring, only to have Sheepherders Luke & Butch sneak up behind us and shove all 3 of our faces into that big birthday cake (Pro Wrestling 101: Whenever you see a birthday cake at a wrestling show, someone's face is gonna collide into it).

While we appreciate wrestling fans in general (including those who "mark out" or get excited in a positive way), sometimes Sonny & I share laughs and rolling of eyes when we see certain types of comments on different social media forums by certain types of "marks", aka certain types of wrestling fans who overestimate their wrestling "knowledge" and underestimate their potential to function properly in society outside of their parents' basements (Proverbs 23:9--"Don't speak in the ears of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words"). However, there is a certain type of "mark" that is no laughing matter and that must be avoided in the future...the future Antichrist's "mark of the beast". This is NOT some recent conspiracy theory, but rather a centuries-old admonition from God's infallible and prophetic word...per the Bible's Revelation 13:16-17, those who put their trust in the future one world government leader/beast/Antichrist (instead of the Lord Jesus Christ) will "be given marks on their right hands, or on their foreheads" and no one will "be able to buy or sell, unless he has that mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name (and his number is 666)". While some take this Bible passage symbolically (as life-threatening persecution of Christians in general, which is currently and increasingly taking place in Africa and Asia), the technology now exists to take this "mark" seriously in a literal way (if you're left behind after Jesus raptures all of His true followers from this earth, per 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, don't take this "mark", but accept unfathomable riches in Christ Jesus instead).

May we trust in Christ Jesus as the future eternal king (with no need for any more elections every 2 or 4 years, thank God) and obey the eternal truth of His Word (instead of fake news from any side in the  current world system or "Terrytales" from a certain diner in Oak Creek).