RhodyRaybo's blog

The last few days, I got to spend some time with my wife's side of the family. They were up visiting from Florida to visit both us and my wife's sister's in-laws. It was a fun time as always. But during the last gathering with the family, something unusual happened. We were gathered with some of my wife's relatives at a picnic area on the Cape Cod Canal and at some point I noticed my nephew and my son wrestling. I went over to observe. Wrestling is nothing new to either one of them. I would "play wrestle" with both my son and nephew when they were children, but with my son being 26 and my nephew being 31, it was a different ball game. My nephew wrestled in high school and he took some martial arts, and my son has a black belt in karate, where they had frequent grappling sessions ( I always watched those and salivated). My son is very much out of shape, but my nephew is still very much in shape and fairly muscular, and HE'S the one I've been wanting to wrestle with for real for a very long time. But every time he came up for a visit, he would back away if I started getting playful with him.

Anyway, while the nephew was subduing my son, the nephew looks at me and asks if I wanted to go at it with him. I was like "are you serious???". I also have talked about him to other wrestlers and told them how much I wanted to seriously wrestle with him. I agreed to , and took my shoes off, got down on the grass and we started rolling. I was mostly doing BJJ no-gi style with him, which he was familiar with. He managed to pin me and grab me a couple times, but I managed to flip him over a couple times as well. It took a couple tries, but I managed to subdue him and get him in side control. Before I could nail him in an armbar, he tapped. He told me that I'm strong as a bull and that next time he was up, we'd roll again.

The reason this is particularly special to me, is that I have always loved this nephew and always enjoyed spending time with him during the family visits. I always wanted to take him down for real and he knew that. So this brief, 2 minute roll came very unexpectedly and meant the world to me. But also, wrestling on the grass outdoors is not a usual occurrence for me. So, I kept thanking him for the match. He kept saying "anytime". Hopefully next time I see him we can rumble some more. You just never know sometimes, you just never know.

Those of you who have wrestled with me in the last couple years know that I had a very nice 6 X 12 foot mat that had been given to me by a former wrestling opponent who had to quit wrestling because of health reasons. When he asked me if I wanted the mat, I told him "absolutely" and went to his place and brought it to my former "site B" in North Attleboro. It went perfectly in the living room and was the perfect setup. You can see many of my matches on that mat in the majority of videos I have posted in the last 2 years. Well, in April my wife listed the house in North Attleboro, and despite the fact that we still haven't closed on the house yet because of one issue after another, we had everything cleared out of the house including my wrestling mat. I brought the mat home to use in my basement. Surprisingly, the mat fit in the space in my basement. However, storage was a huge issue. The mat didn't roll up easily and getting it through the door from the storage room in the basement into game room the was a huge hassle. Putting back in the storage wasn't much easier. Recently, I decided to invest in an easier and slightly smaller option. I recently purchased a foldable mat from Amazon that is 4 X 10. It's a tad smaller than I would have liked, but it folds and stores very, very easily. After using the new mat with Wrestling Beast this past weekend, with some supplemental puzzle mats that Spiro45 had given to me a while back, I knew I could now get rid of the old mat. Seeing that the mat was given to me, I felt the need to give it away as well. I put an ad in Craig's list and got a few inquiries, but no followup. I then put an ad in Facebook Marketplace entitled "FREE Wrestling Mat". I got about a dozen inquiries in the first 10 minutes. To make a long story short I answered about 6 or 7 inquiries at the same time saying "the first one to get to my house tonight, takes it". The winner was this petite, attractive young woman probably in her early or mid 30's.

When she showed up and I loaded the awkwardly rolled up mat into her Chevy Tahoe, she explained it was for her 5 year old son. She kept thanking me and told me that her son had recently taken an interest in watching wrestling and MMA and very much wanted to do it and had been wrestling with his friends on his bed. As a parent who raised 2 sons, I can understand the type of catastrophe that can cause. She told me that she had told her husband they should set up a wrestling type of ring in the basement and that she would look for some sort of mat. So when she saw the ad, she quickly responded and happened to be just five minutes away. She drove away with my old mat, and now the mat will be used to help nurture a future wrestler, or martial arts expert, or mma fighter, or whatever road he goes down in relation to his interest. So I'm glad I could donate my old mat to help a child develop his interest in wrestling and maybe someday, he'll have a profile on Meetfighters.

Peace out and God bless!!!!

For those of you who know me, you know that I've had a "Site B" in North Attleboro, MA for wrestling for the past 7 years. It was an empty house that belonged to my wife's aunt who passed away in January 2015. This "aunt" technically wasn't an aunt, but my mother-in-law's cousin, who was an only child who lived alone, never married, no heirs., was handicapped with cerebral palsy..and NO WILL! This "aunt's" mother, who had passed away 30 years earlier, in her will it was written that in the event of the aunt's passing, everything in the aunt's estate would go to my mother-in-law. But because of the way the will was drafted, they couldn't honor it on anything that was in the aunt's name. Most of the real estate was in the aunt's mother's name. Anyway, we had to wait for probate court and finding living cousins. It was a pain and dragged on for a few years, but just as things were starting to move, covid hit, and the courts shut down. Now in the last 2 years things have progressed where we can finally sell this house and we have a realtor lined up.....which means no more wrestling for me at site B. I can still host in my basement, and from April to October can host at the summer cottage that was part of the aunt's estate in Wareham, MA. But the North Attleboro location was far more convenient for so many of my wrestling buddies from Massachusetts. But anyway, it would seem that I will have to make BJJ my main wrestling and limit one on one when someone is willing to make it out to either my house here in Cranston or the summer cottage, which is only open for half the year.

Looking back at the history of wrestling in that location, the first match in that house was with Pecs44 a couple months after the aunt's passing. Pecs was the one who most frequently came there to wrestle. Next one who was most frequent was Kevinj8664. And next was Spiro45. Ibearian also met me there a few times before he left the area. Txbigb would came all the way down from Nashua, NH at least once a month before he moved back to Texas. I also hosted there Adonisnick, Volkman80, MCIC, Average Joe, Wrestling Beast, Rassle4fun, Jrugbyguy53, NEjobberboy, Hymalayan Muscle, GansettBear, Onelastgrasp, MCGP27, DG Duffy, and a whole slew of out of town visitors. It was perfect. This was a big, empty house with a large living room. I began just by putting bed spreads down. Then later on, Spiro45 gave me a set of puzzle mats to use. Then after that, MA Wrestler (who is no longer on the site here), had to hang up his singlet and offered me his mat. What a mat that is! I just brought it home and found some space to store it, but using it in my space will prove to be a challenge. My final match in this space was with MCGP27 this past Sunday. I had a terrific time with him, and he offered to help me roll the mat up.

While most of my grappling will be limited to BJJ with or without a gi, I will still be willing to host when it's convenient for anyone who wants to wrestle. I will still go see anyone willing to host within a reasonable drive. I will still make an occasional wrestling overnight trip to Maine. But North Attleboro, that was so special. However, it was really the guys I wrestled there who MADE it special. Although there were a few guys who met me there that were a total waste of time, as I had to drive a half hour to get there, most of the guys have been sensational. Thank you everyone who came to North Attleboro and you're still more than welcome to meet me in Cranston throughout the year or in Wareham from April to October. Peace out Men!!!!

I recently had a reminder of the likelihood of a match actually transpiring that is set weeks in advance, by someone I've never met before. It has been my conviction that even talking about such matches are somewhat of a waste of time. Here's the latest. This guy from about 2 hours from my house requested a match on that mats at my North Attleboro temporary "Site B". That's where most of my videos have been recorded. But I should have seen 2 red flags in all this. First he wanted to invite someone he's wrestled with numerous times. And second, the other guy had no interest in wrestling me. It seemed the purpose of this guy was to get a space for him and his buddy. Now, I actually understand, but I've told other guys, I don't host if I can't participate. This guy setting it up said he would come before the other guy and the two of us could get some wrestling time in before his buddy shows up. Okay, I was willing to go along with that. However, there was still the gnawing feeling about setting it up 3 weeks in advance. His reasoning was that was the soonest he could get away. Against my better judgement, I agreed to it.

Anyway, during that time between initial setup and the date, we communicated several times. He seemed excited. He even made a voice call to me and we talked for quite a while. Although he still stressed about the other guy not wanting to wrestle me, it still appeared like it was going to happen. But at one point, my wrestling buddy Kevinj8664 requested that we meet that same night. I told him I had something else set up. Kevinj8664 is one of my semiregulars and a good friend, plus with his work and his homelife, it's not easy for him to travel my way seeing he's an hour from me. Anyway, 2 days before our scheduled match I texted the guy I had scheduled with and asked if it was still a go for Thursday. He didn't answer right away, which was unusual, but I figured, he wasn't able to. Several hours later, he does respond and his first words were to the effect of "Uh well, the thing is....." and here came the excuse. He wasn't cancelling, but he was preparing me for cancellation. He gave me the excuse of another friend coming from out of town a day early and he was waiting to hear back. I initially said, "okay, let me know". But then I decided to text Kevinj8664 to see if he was still able to do that night. Before I heard back from him, I just said regarding the other guy.."screw it". I texted him to tell him forget the whole thing. I never heard back

I wound up having my match that night with Kevinj8664 and had a fantastic time. He's a great guy and a lot of fun to beat up. Plus I've been wrestling him on average of once every other month for almost 7 years (not counting during the lockdowns). So it all worked out in mine and Kevinj's favor. And to be perfectly honest, I had a much better time with him than I would have with the other guy.

So from here on, I'm sticking to my policy. No matches scheduled more than a week in advance unless it's someone I've known for years and is reliable like Pecs44, Wrestling Beast, JRugbyguy53 or Kevinj8664. I also make exception for guys already planning a visit from out of town, and I know them fairly well, like Rassle4fun (whom I know VERY well) or Want-to-Wrestle.