And it's today.
I've been maintaining this blog for ten years now and - on this date every year - I like to leave a post remembering my uncle who passed away. It has been quite a few years since he died, but I find doing these annual posts help along the way.
This year's post is more about me, though.
Sort of.
You see - one of the final few memories I have of my uncle is from 2001-2 when I had placed a bet on Triple H to win the Royal Rumble of 2002. I was telling my uncle about having placed £100 on him to win the battle royal and was telling him he should join along with me.
This was in the early days of Internet betting. In hindsight, I should have helped out by telling him where to find the bet. The story here is he didn't place the bet, I did. So - he had to deal with me going on about it for months until the match itself.
If you're a wrestling fan, you'll know that I did end up winning the wager. The following day was great as I was on top of the world. I made a lot of tips at work that day and recall heading over to my uncle's work following my shift to tell him about the victory.
The thing that makes me smile the most is I was telling him about how good the shift was as well. I came to the conclusion that what may have helped was the aftershave he and my aunt had given me for Christmas.
In the years that followed, I have saved that aftershave to wear whenever I have won big in betting. More as a tribute and acknowledgement to the Royal Rumble 2002 bet. Obviously, my uncle played a part in that so I it's a good excuse to remember him that way.
Okay, so let's catch up to 2015 and 2016..
In the latter part of 2015, I started talking myself into betting on Triple H to win the 2016 edition of the Royal Rumble. Things were making sense to me, so I placed a number of bets on him when he was 50/1.
I didn't end there, I placed a few more on other things like him coming out at number 30.
To put it bluntly, I was going all-in on a Triple H win.
Fast forward (or is it going back now?) to a fortnight ago and my instinct turned out to be correct. Triple H did end up winning the match.
As soon as I knew my bet had cashed, the first thought was 'I'm going to write about this on the February 13th post' because the similarities to 2016 and 2002 are there.
There's also the thing that wasn't there like being able to tell my uncle about the bet and potentially having a better chance of telling him how to have a punt on it himself.
However, the aftershave is still going. It's running low, so I have been rationing its use lately. It's now only used for BIG wins.
And this year's Royal Rumble bet is a big win. It turned out to be the most I have ever won in gambling. Period.
There was no doubt in my mind, I wore that aftershave the following day proudly.
It would have been even better to head back to that shop, sit down and tell my uncle about the win. But that's impossible. Writing about the punt wouldn't have felt right without my uncle around to tell just like I did in 2002, so today was the right day to chronicle the win here on the blog.
He may not be here to read or listen, but he's right at the top of my mind right now. And he will be for the rest of the day.
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