With kung fu kicks and dragon masks, professional wrestlers discover new followers at combat evening in China

BEIJING — The music blared and the group whooped as Alexis Lee strutted throughout the stage towards the ring. At simply 5 toes tall, the wispy skilled wrestler was dwarfed by heftier contenders, so to make her level, she pushed a spectator over in his chair and growled via her skeleton face paint.

The group cherished it.

“It’s just like the circus however with athletics,” Lee, a 30-year-old Singaporean, informed NBC Information. “So it’s entertaining, and stay drama too. It’s simply enjoyable.”

Whereas martial arts have a deep historical past in China, skilled wrestling — with its raucous theatrics, shiny tights and physique slams — continues to be preventing for recognition right here. However on a latest Saturday evening at a stay occasions venue in Beijing, a particular six-match bout billed because the “Battle of the Decade” confirmed how far professional wrestling has come and its potential within the huge Chinese language leisure market.

“Individuals are actually beginning to take professional wrestling — Chinese language professional wrestling — significantly,” mentioned Adrian Gomez, the American founding father of Center Kingdom Wrestling, one of many few professional wrestling organizations in China, and the person of the evening.

“I really feel that is the top of 10 years of actually exhausting work,” mentioned Gomez, 37, whose first-ever wrestling occasion in 2015 failed to attract a single paying spectator.