When I was a kid, my mom would spend her rare time off from work volunteering at Taxiarchae/Archangels Greek Orthodox Church in Watertown every Saturday while my older siblings worked at the nearby Town Diner.  She would help clean the church and I would wander around and try to keep myself busy; seeing my occasional boredom, Father Emmanuel Metaxas would sometimes give me stuffed animals to play with and take home. The days when I was able to bring a stuffed animal home were the best Saturday’s because it meant that I had a new competitor. You see, stuffed animals were not just stuffed animals. They each had their own unique personality, but they all had only one goal.

That goal was to become the most dominant fighter in the world and get the coveted Teddy Bear Championship Belt. For instance, there was Quickie Koala. He was a small stuffed animal, but he had a very hard nose. He would often have a hard time against bigger stuffed animals in the fights, but he was a scrappy underdog who kept fighting back. He used his hard nose as a weapon and would fly across the wrestling ring and smack his appointed nose first, knocking out his competitors and go for the pin. There was Big Pink a larger Teddy Bear; you can’t get fooled by the friendly demeanor though. Big Pink was vicious and would defeat opponents by sitting on them; in a match that would live in infamy Big Pink so viciously beat up Snoopy, that Snoopy literally got the stuffing knocked out of him. This led to a large faction of the smaller Teddy Bears to join forces and attack Big Pink in order to avenge the horrible fate of Snoopy under the leadership of Spuds MacKenzie. Garfield The Cat was one of the least successful fighters. He played the role best described as a jobber and would quickly lose matches to the most competitive animals. The most successful was Dukie a large grey and white dog. Dukie defeated competitors with body slams and pile drivers and was frequently in main events matches for the world title against Big Pink. Every competitor had their own theme song which was chosen from the cassette singles that were available in my home at the time; Dukie’s song was The Heart of Rock N Roll by Huey Lewis and The News which went along with his affable energetic demeanor. Though that changed briefly when after losing a match to Big Pink when Mr. Brown interfered in the match; after, Dukie became more aggressive in his fighting style and started coming out to Night Train by Guns N Roses. The biggest event of the year was the annual Royal Rumble where the stuffed animals competed on my mom’s bed and would attempt to throw their opponents off the bed to eliminate them. The last stuffed animal standing would win. Before this annual match, the stuffed animals would gather in peace to take one promotional photo for the event. (pictured below is the last promotional photo ever taken). Eventually, the stuffed animal fighting league stopped running. The League Commissioner moved onto interests in The Simpsons, Rap Music, and The Red Sox and spent his days being obsessed with memorizing all the lyrics to Bart Simpson’s “Deep Deep Trouble” , Slam by Onyx  , and imitating the batting stance of Phil Plantier. Unfortunately, it has been reported that many of the stuffed animal wrestlers developed additions to alcohol, cocaine, and pain killers which combined with the massive amounts of steroids they had used to cause them to pass away before their time.

P.S. my mom, siblings, and Father Emmanuel Metaxas are all the best.