Boston, MA – In room 6220 at Boston Children’s Hospital, sits eight-year-old wrestling fan Matthew Sharpe.
A boy who plays with Shawn Michaels, Kevin Owens, and Roman Reigns action figures creating finishing moves and exhibiting the innocence we all wish we still had.
“I really like the championships and the matches they make,” Sharpe said about the WWE. “I started making my own matches and started doing wrestling too, and then I started making my own theme songs, my own names.”
One of his names he made was his own he made for himself. Matt The Great. He also created ring names for the ones around him helping him in his fight.
“My other names are the nurses names,” Sharpe said with a laugh. “I’m like, ‘Let me give you your names’ and then I give my teachers names and stuff.”
Everyday, twice a day, Matt The Great is being treated via an experiment in biomedical research as his condition has never been seen before by his doctors.
A disease called multifocal inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor, his mother said they found out about on a normal summer day at the beach mere weeks ago on Sept 22.
“He had no symptoms, we had no idea that this was going on inside his body,” Ayers said. “He was saying that he didn’t feel good and he had to throw up so we went behind a building and he threw up and then he said he felt like he was blind, he couldn’t see, it was very blurry.”
Ayers thinking he may have been a little dehydrated, gave her son some water. However, it only got worse.
“I got him water and he literally just dropped in my arms, he was completely blue and stopped breathing for about 10 minutes,” Ayers said. “Thank God there were bystanders that just ran over and started giving him CPR and that’s when he finally started waking up.”
To this day, the identity of who gave Sharpe CPR is unknown. Ayers and Thorpe are grateful and wish they could put a names to the faces of who helped them.
“I wish we knew who that person was,” Ayers said. “There was two people that came over, there was a nurse and there was a guy that was there with his family. I remember his wife was blonde and she had a baby and he ran over and started giving [Sharpe] CPR and when the ambulance came, he started to wake up a little bit.”
Through the constant biopsies, procedures, and treatments, Sharpe has not had any anesthesia and has kept a wrestler’s like mentality in not giving up to earn that three-count against his cancer. A cancer that the doctors at first had no idea how to combat.
“They didn’t even know how to treat it,” Thorpe’s mother Krystle Ayers said. “We just said, ‘Ok, let’s be a part of this research study were there’s no guarantees to it going away. When we got here and they found out it was [also] in his brain, they didn’t want it getting bigger so they wanted to start chemotherapy right away. Once they found out it was IMT, that’s when said they only choice is to try this research.”
Sharpe’s interest in wrestling peaked when his stepfather Robert Valentin told him all about it.
“He’s the one who introduced him to all this wrestling,” Ayers said.
Since then, Sharpe is glued to the internet watching Youtube videos of wrestling highlights, tuning into shows Smackdown Live, Raw, and NXT, as well as attending the events with family.
When asked which wrestlers he wants to meet, two names immediately popped into his head.
“[I’d love to meet] Seth Rollins and Nikki Cross,” Sharpe said.
Sharpe said he would also love to meet WWE Hall of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
Superstar John Cena also sent him a video wishing the eight-year-old well in his wrestle with cancer.
“That was cool,” Sharpe said about the video.
When his mother first realized he had it, she reminded Sharpe about one wrestler who is beating cancer himself.
“That’s the first thing when I told Matt, I was afraid to use the c-word [cancer],” Ayers said. “The first thing he says is, ‘That’s ok Roman Reigns has cancer and he’s beating it’ and I go, ‘You know what, you’re right.’ Then I told him your nana had it and she beat it.”
The entire community is Sharpe’s corner. From his classmates, Ayers’ work, and more, over $9,000 has been raised on the MattyStrong Facebook fundraiser page.
“My work made these [t-shirts] and that was cool because I did not know that it was the way the Wrestlemania thing was,” Ayers said. “They were doing bracelets, my mother’s doing bracelets and stuff so it’s like we got a lot of support.”
Sharpe’s tumors are shrinking, but the areas of concern are the masses in his chest and brain that the pair are waiting to hear back on.
Through everything, Sharpe has wrestled his way into the hearts of many and he prays for all the other children suffering that they too can knock out cancer.
“We go up to the chapel, he prays for the other kids and I pray for him,” Ayers said.
Thorpe mentioned a girl from church that he has inspired that wants to meet him after inspiring her with his fighting attitude.
“[I heard] this girl wants to see me because she thinks I got a good heart or something,” Sharpe said.
3 Responses
Thank you so much. I am his Nana who also has cancer. Not nearly as severe as his. I’m so grateful for this article. It’s people like you that make dreams become reality. Thank you, a million times over. You made his day, as well as him family’s.
You are an amazing little man! I will pray for you to beat that cancer! You are very brave. And I have faith that that you will beat cancer.
Hi Matt i read your a big fan of wrestling I think it’s pretty cool too…. my name is Tammy and I’ma big fan of yours ! I read your story and I’m amazed on how strong and brave you are ! You get better sweetie so i can watch you wrestle 1 day on tv. God Bless you Mathew i will be paying for you every night .?xo. …