CAC Member CHRIS TOSTE "Hammering Cancer"

CAC Member Spotlight: Chris Toste

The Cauliflower Alley Club, website and newsletter, aims to be about members, of interest to members and for members. With that in mind we'd like to shine the spotlight on you, our members, from time to time here on the CAC website. Would you like to, possibly, be spotlighted here on the site? We would love to introduce you to our members and worldwide CAC website visitors. It is a chance to introduce yourself to other members, just like you, who support our "Ring of Friendship" mission of supporting our brothers and sisters in need who might be going through some difficult times. It will be a feature that will remind our treasured members that they don't, necessarily, have to be a world-famous lifetime member like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson or Adam "Edge" Copeland to know that you are appreciated and valued here. We treasure all of our members equally and would love to shine the spotlight, so to speak, on our very deserving and supportive club members - like you!!

If this sounds like something you would be interested in, please write up a couple paragraph blurb (not more than 500 words, please) that will tell our members about you, perhaps your connection to the wrestling business (if you're involved in the business) and why the CAC is important to you. Please submit your blurb to awfaction@gmail.com. Please note that all submissions are subject to editing for coherence and grammar. 

Let's take a look at our first CAC Member Spotlight. Thanks to new annual member, CHRIS TOSTE for his submission.

***************

“The doctor told me that if I’d slept for two hours instead of getting help, I might have died in my sleep. Testing revealed that I had aggressive stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma.” - Chris Toste

My name is Chris Toste. Born in Toronto ON Canada, raised in Hamilton ON. I was trained by Ron Hutchison when I was 19 years old. During my young career in pro wrestling, I was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma stage 3. It put me out of action for a while and I wasn’t able to pursue my wrestling dream. I wasn’t supposed to beat cancer but I did. I was basically a vegetable in the hospital for a month going through blood transfusions until I was strong enough to handle the chemotherapy.

I’ve always wanted to go to Las Vegas and check out the CAC. At the time I wasn’t able to afford the trip. I have been blessed over the years working hard and starting my own business helping young adults with mental health. This year I was finally able to afford a trip to Las Vegas and be a part of the CAC. I had one heck of a good time thanks to Ron and the other club members. I’ve always wanted to bond with the man I look up to and who taught me professional wrestling. I was finally able to do that at the CAC.

It warms my heart to see how the CAC helps people who are in need. CAC is one special family. It was crazy to be sitting having dinner with all these wrestlers I grew up watching. I was like a little kid in a candy store trying to keep it together. It was such an amazing feeling to beat cancer and then finally being able to experience the CAC. I got to take pictures with a lot of great people and made new friends. I owe it to Ron Hutchison. He made me feel welcome and had me sit at his table. I still don’t know how that man can be up all-night partying and still function through the day though.

Thank you, CAC, for the warm welcome and the experience of a whole new wrestling family.

***************

Editor's note: I am proud to say that Chris is one of my former students and prouder yet to say that he is a cancer survivor!  It was equally as nice for me to get to spend some time and socialize with him at the 2023 reunion. Like any first-time reunion goer that I've ever heard from Chris had a great time and now believes that the CAC reunion experience was everything I always said it was, and then some! 

Not mentioned in his blurb but I think it would be as equally nice to mention here is that Chris is promoting his third annual charity show called Hammering Cancer 4, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on Saturday November 4th, with proceeds from that show going to the Juravinski Hospital and Cancer Centre Foundation. Chris is also the reigning Crossfire Wrestling Autism Awareness Champion.

Please check out the following link for a nice write-up on Chris from the Juravinski Hospital and Cancer Centre prior to his 2022 fundraising show. 

https://www.hamiltonhealth.ca/patients/wrestler-fights-to-fundraise?fbclid=IwAR2NJkzImvUu_Tlb9-fpqwGowFbg0yfiIEvHdf-4GUlSEXo9K2w48u1FcYI