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Luchadores


May 9th

The past few Sunday evenings I’ve watched the luchadores (WWE professional “wrestling”) with a group a 50+ yr. old men.  The men really get into the program. They usually start yelling at the television when one of the wrestlers they don’t like appears on the screen, when someone inevitably breaks the “rules,” or when a move looks especially painful.  This past Sunday after a match that the men found particularly exciting I was about to ask them if they knew that the whole program was a well-planned act.  I stopped myself after I thought back on how a similar conversation had gone with a group of men in Uganda.

When I was in Kampala, Uganda, a group of my coworkers started looking through a Sports Illustrated I had brought from the US.  When they got to an article on WWE wrestling they told me that it was one of their favorite programs.  I replied that although they liked the program I didn’t think Sports Illustrated should have an article on WWE, because in my opinion the WWE “wrestlers” were actors more than they were athletes.  The men asked me what I meant, and I explained to them that the whole program was an act and that everything that occurred had been planned out ahead of time.  The men didn’t believe me at first, but I was very persistent and kept pointing out tricks that were used to make the “wrestling” appear real.  At the end of our conversation the men looked very upset and disappointed, and I realized that I had just destroyed something that they truly enjoyed.

The men that I watch luchadores with may know that the wrestling is fake or they may not, but if they don’t I’m not going to be the one to break the news to them.

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