A young Ugandan is drowning in mud. They dream of becoming professional wrestlers

MUKONO, Uganda (AP) — In a wooded area outside Uganda's capital, several dozen young men gathered around a makeshift ring to watch two amateur wrestlers tangle in the mud.

Complete with an announcer and referee, the training sessions mimic the professional wrestling matches that teenagers regularly watch on television. Ugandan enthusiast Daniel Bumba, popularly known as Bumbash in the wrestling community, hopes that some of these wrestlers, many of whom are orphans, can do well and long to become professionals.

This is the light of a dream, nothing else. The ring is made of bamboo, held together by a rope. However, young people pay 100,000 shillings ($26) as a commitment fee for the chance to escape the poverty of this agricultural area. That's roughly the equivalent of 10 days of work for the average construction worker, a significant amount.

35-year-old Bumba said that he loved wrestling since childhood. After college, he became popular as a video jockey, providing live commentary and translating WWE matches into the local Luganda language for other viewers.

Now he is a pioneer, known only to a small group of fans in Uganda who watch pro-wrestling on TV, but are looking to make it more popular.

A community created by Bumba, called Soft Ground Wrestling, has attracted the attention of some professional wrestlers with a YouTube channel showing some of their fights.

In February, an American wrestler known by her ring name Jordyn Grace shared a video of herself slamming her opponent into bamboo poles. “What are the chances we can contact them and find out if they want a real ring?” he wrote on the X social platform.

Some Americans started a GoFundMe appeal on behalf of Soft Ground Wrestling earlier this year. The playground raised just over $10,000 and says Uganda's amateur wrestlers “deserve the opportunity to showcase their talents to the world.”

In addition to the purchase of the wrestling ring, any cash raised will help Soft Ground Wrestling “continue to rent out their venues for the foreseeable future,” the release said.

Soft Ground Wrestling pays $250 per month to use the four acres.

“The dream of this place is first and foremost awareness of the game,” Bamba told The Associated Press recently. “I want to be a brand ambassador for wrestling in East Africa.”

The first step is a planned wrestling academy, which he believes will benefit many children who might otherwise be idle or caught up in crime. Many young people in or around the ring in this village, 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Uganda's capital Kampala, have long dropped out of school.

Ugandan authorities were initially suspicious.

Soft Ground Wrestling founder Arthur Asiimwe said security officials visited the community in March and asked him and Bumba about their goals. Army officers wanted to know if the group was engaging in “suspicious activities” and left after witnessing some fighting, he said.

While most of the 100 coaches hope to represent Uganda on the global stage, they have no clear idea of ​​where the fight will take them. For now, some live in dorms with access to weightlifting equipment. Others come from their homes to fight or watch.

Among them are female wrestlers. They said that they did not see any obstacles to the struggle. There is a sense of camaraderie with young men. In a fundraising video posted on YouTube this year, a young woman calls for support for a “wrestling ring for perfect, perfect matches” as her male counterparts watch in the background.

Daphine Kisaakye, a young woman who recently wrestled in the morning, said she was first exposed to it in 2019 as a housekeeper watching WWE televised fights.

“It was very surprising,” he said.

Bumba has yet to find suitable educational institutions and health insurance for the participants. Trauma is anxiety. According to him, all those who want to fight receive months of training from him before they are allowed to enter the ring.

One of the wrestlers, Jordan Ainemukama, said serious injuries are rare, but some members have had minor incidents.

“Until now, I've never been injured, never seriously injured… You go into shock and then you go to the clinic and then they prepare you for two or three weeks,” he said. – Then you will come back.

Ainemukama said he now knows how to land in the interim ring: “Our coach always tells us 'safety first'.”

Patrick Onen, Associated Press