MUKONO, Uganda (AP) — In a forested area outside Uganda’s capital, a few dozen youth gather around a makeshift ring to watch two amateur wrestlers tangle in the mud.
The training sessions, complete with an announcer and referee, imitate the pro wrestling contests the teens regularly see on television. Ugandan enthusiast Daniel Bumba, known in the wrestling community as Bumbash, hopes that some of these wrestlers, many of them orphans, can do well and long enough to go professional.
It is the glimmer of a dream, with little else in place. The ring is made of bamboo poles lashed together with rope. And yet the youth pay 100,000 shillings ($26) as a commitment fee for a chance to leave the poverty of this farming region. That’s the rough equivalent of 10 days’ work by an average construction laborer, a significant amount.
The 35-year-old Bumba said he has been a wrestling fan since childhood. He became what’s known as a video jockey after college, offering lively commentary and translating WWE matches into the local Luganda language for fellow viewers.