By Tony Martin
Editor
TAYLORSVILLE, Miss. — First Church in Taylorsville hosted a unique fundraiser on July 29 to support the First Baptist Church of Taylorsville Christian School — an evening of professional wrestling.
The private Christian school, which uses the Abeka curriculum, was founded five years ago and currently enrolls about 45 students in grades one through 10.
“Last year we tried wrestling as a fundraiser and it was successful,” said Gwen Creel, a teacher and assistant administrator at the school. “There are people who follow wrestling, just like people that follow baseball, beauty pageants or horse shows. This is part of the wrestling circuit. It’s a ministry — they call it LAW, the Lost Art of Wrestling.”
Ragan Anderson, a facilitator at the school and the sister of one of the owners of LAW, added, “Their goal is to reach the lost through wrestling. They’ve been in business since maybe before 2019. They took a little break during COVID, but are back at it in full swing again.”
“This is something kind of new and different,” Creel said. “I’m not fond of it, and some of the folks in the church aren’t either. But one of the local pastors will do a devotional.”
Despite the skepticism from some, Creel acknowledged the financial impact.
“People pay good money for this,” she said. “It makes good money for the school. The wrestlers come in and do everything. And Skinner Wrecker Service is a good sponsor. We also sell refreshments and ask people to donate.”
The Lost Art of Wrestling is owned by Paul Rials, Micah Thomas and Samuel Rials.
“I’ll start from the very beginning,” said Paul Rials. “When I was six years old, I was in a car wreck, broke my leg, and crushed my femur bone. I told my mom that when I grew up I wanted to learn to walk again, and I wanted to be a professional wrestler. And I wanted to wrestle for Jesus. That’s where it all really started.”
Rials began wrestling at age 16. At 18, he attempted to start a faith-based wrestling organization, but it didn’t work out. “That was in 2012,” he said. “I broke my ankle the next year and didn’t know if I would ever wrestle again, but I wanted to.”
Later, while living in Magee, Rials connected with Thomas, whose mother was close friends with Rials’ mom.
“We would always talk about wrestling. We were all Christians, and we were like, ‘We need to tie all this together some way.’ It took until 2019 when we put it all together.”
Thomas admitted he had no wrestling experience at the time. “I was just a fan,” he said.
“I did everything I needed to do to get it started,” Rials added. “I had Micah as my backup for everything we would do. If I couldn’t cash a check or if I couldn’t do this or that, Micah was my go-to.”
“It all started there,” said Thomas. “Just two guys, one wrestler. We started LAW, the Lost Art of Wrestling, because we are reaching the lost through the art of professional wrestling.”
COVID-19 and other circumstances put LAW on pause for three years, with Rials unsure if they would be able to continue.
“We never thought we’d do this again,” Rials said. “Then Sammy [Samuel] bullied Micah back into it. Sammy kept saying, ‘We need to start this back up.’ He wasn’t in it before, but once we decided to come back to it, I told him we needed help. I’m married and I have kids now. Micah can’t do it on his own. So Sammy has really helped out everywhere, like with sponsors. He’s a ringer when it comes to sponsorships — he brings them in. He’s like the ring general out there. He puts the ring together. I couldn’t do it without him.”
LAW continues to operate on faith in all aspects of its operation — from procuring equipment to paying the wrestlers.
“We don’t have our own trailer,” Rials said. “We have to borrow a trailer. We have to rent a building to put the ring in. The ring is being paid for, but the only way I can explain it is God. Somehow we’ve met our goal for sponsors for every show. Somehow we’ve been able to pay those wrestlers out there. Even if there’s 60 people in the audience, we pay them. Some of these wrestlers are traveling eight and 10 hours away. Some are local, some are traveling from three states over.”
Not all the wrestlers are Christians.
“That’s the whole point,” Rials said. “I want the ones who aren’t believers in the locker room. We’re not just reaching fans. We want to love on these wrestlers. We have a devotional. Even tonight, two of the wrestlers indicated that they were interested in being saved.”
On the night of the fundraiser, 22 wrestlers participated.
“We do fundraisers for mission trips or whatever,” Rials said. “We can be found on Facebook and Instagram — just look for Lost Art of Wrestling. We don’t profit anything. We are completely nonprofit, with half of what comes in the door going straight to a donation point, which tonight is the school. Whatever is left over goes to our next show. Micah, Samuel and myself — we don’t put anything into our own pockets. We don’t take pay from our sponsor. This is strictly our time.”
