It’s just another working day...

Press, 7 September 1976, Page 21

It’s just another working day...

CLAY HASWELL visits the Town Hall to find out what makes professional wrestlers grunt and groan — and gets spat on for his pains. Pictures bv NIGEL TOD.

An hour before the first match is to begin, they arrive in the dressing room backstage at the Town Hall. They come in groups, but do not speak to each other. Slowly, sullenly, they begin to disrobe.

As the street clothes come off, a curious metamorphosis takes place. One I have been talking to, an easy-going Tongan who says he is a baker when he is not wrestling, suddenly becomes quiet end ill at ease.

From worn-out flight bags, the kind given away by the airlines, come the uniforms. One begins working his ageing legs into a pair of black tights. A salt-stained mask rests beside him on the bench. Another dons leotard, pectoral muscles drooping grotesquely beneath the baggy garment.

“I’m sorry,” says the manager, “but you’ll have to leave. These guys are getting ready to go to work. I’m sure you understand.” I make arrangements to talk to several of the fighters once the programme is underway. The auditorium is filling rapidly. Wrestling fans

defy definition: they are young and old, male and female. Most are well dressed. There are single men, groups of teen-age girls, whole families. As 8 p.m. approaches, the expensive, balcony seats are nearly full, while the seats on the main floor are virtually empty. ,

The wrestlers begin to congregate in the wings backstage. The ones who will appear in the first matches do calisthenics, flexing their muscles and bobbing about nervously. The better-known fighters who will appear later wear street clothes over their uniforms.

Zulu the Magnificent, a towering, 22-stone black man, stands alone in the darkness. The first fight is announced over the public address system. A young but paunchy automobile mechanic from the North Island enters the ring to face an ageing, tattoed Samoan whose wife and young daughter are seated in the first ringside row. “He's a good clean boy,” says the manager, referring to the younger fighter, eyes darting quickly between my face and the floor. “Give him a little more experience, and this kid is gonna be a draw. The fans like a good, clean kid.”

Clean, perhaps, but not particularly talented. The two move clumsily into their routine, drawing catcalls from the crowd. Zulu says he has a minute, let’s

more starving boxers than wrestlers. Wrestling allows me to travel. I’ve been to Los Angeles. I’ve even been to New Zealand.” Though reluctant to discuss his own financial position, Zulu said a good wrestler could make .$200,000, a year “it he hustled,” $15,000 would be the bottom line for a relative unknown. I made the mistake of asking what went through his mind when the act called for juvenalia: spitting on his opponent, being chased around the ring, and so forth. “Don’t call it an act, man” says Zulu, freezing up quickly. “I’ve been hurt too many times for that. I’ve had a dislocated shoulder, a knee thrown out of joint.” Up to a point, he is correct. To be sure, most of the punches are pulled, and most of the kicks don’t really drive home into the groin. But accidents will happen, and tempers will flare. Wrestlers are such high risk characters that insurance companies won’t have them.

Minutes before his match, Zulu left for the dressing room. He returned clad in emerald briefs and a glossy coat of mineral oil. Intentionally or not, he rippled his muscles whenever anyone,

say 18 or 19 years old. flashing blue eyes and fashionable clothes, begins chanting for Zulu to kick his opponent in the unmentionables. She chomps down a candy bar in three bites. She leans against the balcony railing, presses her lips against the dark wood, opens her mouth. “I suppose it's every schoolboy’s dream to become a wrestler,” says Steve Rickard, who promotes the fights at the Town Hall. “The fans like it because they get their money’s worth.' They don't come to watch, they come to take part in it.” For the most part, the fans take part emotionally rather than physically. They scream, stomp their feet. expectorate, and make obscene gestures, but for the most part they stay in their seats. A policeman said most fans

are content tc do nothing more than throw an ceca sional rock candy into the ring "I have been covering these fights for eight years, and 1 don't remember any violence.” says the policeman. I reminded him ot July, 1973. when fans stormed the ring and a special cordon of police were brought in to restore order “That was one of the first fights they had here," says the policeman. “That was an exception." Lucky Rivers summed up the violence this way “It's all a fraud. Not the violence, but the restraint What these guv-, really want to do is kill each other or they wouldn't be in the ring in the first place, 'he same goes double for the fans. It's all neatly packaged — like a Trans United tour through Dante's inferno.”

In the ring. Zulu work* himself into a frenzy Untwists his foe's arm. hurls him into the ropes H--crashes his hooted foot into his Kidneys, slashes at his neck with a forearm as straight and strong aa rung in Jacob's ladder When it is over, he exits the ring muttering curses under hi« breath His chest is heaving, hiback scratched and trick ing blood. A small boy « pushed forward by hi> father and asks for the champion's autograph. Zulu smiles and signs An hour later, showered and in street clothes. Zulu the Magnificent is sitting in the back row of the auditorium. an arm around a girlfriend, his flight bac on the cha r be-ide him Under the lights. an ageing Hawaiian is being dragged across the ring b\ the han.