Asian American Empowerment - Cultural Adaptation in Wrestling

By The Shining Wizard
©2004 Rajah.com
June 16, 2004

The big news in the wrestling world over the past couple of weeks has undoubtedly been Bradshaw’s little Nazi demonstration in Germany and the subsequent fallout. While I’m sure it was shocking to the folks over at CNBC who recently hired Bradshaw as an on-air personality, anyone who watches WWE knows that cultural sensitivity has never been a high priority.

This situation in Germany is simply a symptom of a larger issue in WWE that often flies under the radar: foreign wrestlers tend to be stereotyped and vilified. Talent ends up being wasted because WWE doesn’t think that North Americans will want to cheer anyone who doesn’t look or sound like them.

That’s an odd view for a company that prides itself on being an amalgamation of professional sports and Hollywood, two industries that are full of successful non-English speakers. While talent and charisma have allowed guys like Sammy Sosa and Jackie Chan to become stars in North America despite their loose grip on the language, WWE seems to think that it takes more than that to be a star in the world of wrestling.

Background check

For most of pro-wrestling’s North American history, cultural differences have been exploited for the benefit of business. The record books are full of blonde-haired, blue-eyed champions like Bob Backlund, Hulk Hogan, and Sting continually turning away the challenges of foreign foes like Ivan Koloff, the Iron Sheik, and Yokozuna.

Thanks to technology, the world is a much smaller place today than it was just 30 years ago. As a result, people are generally more open-minded these days. But according to Vince McMahon, that’s not the case when it comes to wrestling. He made that clear earlier this month on the Canadian talk show “Off The Record” when he was asked why Chris Benoit’s hometown was switched from Edmonton to “now residing in Atlanta” as soon as his title push started.

“It’s about the popularity of the performer,” Vince explained. “There’s a bias in the United States in terms of Canadians, and I dare say there’s a bias in Canada in terms of those from the United States, but not as strong. In the image of the biased American, [changing Benoit’s hometown] helps Benoit’s image.”

If you look at the WWE roster, this kind of “cultural adaptation” isn’t an isolated case. Chris Jericho is “now residing in Manhattan” even though everyone knows he’s from Winnipeg. Eddie Guerrero is supposedly from El Paso, Texas, when he actually grew up in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Of course, if you’re a heel, then it’s fine to be foreign. Sean Morley is from Las Vegas when he’s good-guy Val Venis, but he’s from Toronto when he’s bad-guy Chief Morley. Christian and Test are both still “from Toronto” even though they actually “now reside” in the United States. Then there’s Gail Kim who’s actually from Toronto in real life, but since she’s Asian, she’s promoted as “from Korea.” (No city needed because apparently Korea’s just that small.)

My personal favorite instances of cultural adaptation, though, are Akio and Sakoda. Both men are promoted as “from Japan,” but Sakoda’s real name is actually Ryan and he’s from Los Angeles. Akio’s real name is Jimmy, and he’s not only from Georgia, but his family’s not even Japanese — they’re Korean. (Maybe they know Gail Kim’s folks.)

[Trivia for the week: Did you know that Lilian Garcia is from Madrid, Spain? Did you know that Kane is, too?]

This trend is certainly nothing new in WWE. Remember Kamala the Ugandan Giant? He was the wild savage brought in from the jungle by Kim Chee to take Hulk Hogan’s title in 1986. In real life, Kamala’s name is Jim and he’s from Tennessee. What about the late Yokozuna, the Japanese sumo who detested the United States? His name was Rodney and he was from Samoa. How about Ivan Koloff, the third WWE Champion ever and the guy who ended Bruno Sammartino’s seven-year run as champ? Jim from Quebec. Mr. Fuji? Harry from Hawaii.

If Vince thinks Americans have a bias against Canadians, he clearly believes that they have a huge bias against Europeans and Asians. However, I don’t think WWE does all of this to be insulting. On the contrary, I think they just believe that foreign wrestlers are not marketable in North America as good guys, no matter how talented they may be. If that’s true, it says a lot about the mindset of the North American audience. If it’s not, it says a lot about the mindset of WWE management.

Either way, foreign talent have a really steep hill to climb in North America, particularly if their English isn’t very good. In some ways cultural adaptation can help these wrestlers, but more often than not it proves to be detrimental.

Breaking out

In the past, the problem with playing a character like The Mountie or Ludvig Borga is that every storyline had to revolve around the fact that the character was from a different culture. That created a short shelf life for the character because eventually fans got tired of seeing the same feud over and over. There was the occasional exception with guys like Pedro Morales or Tito Santana, but for the most part foreign wrestlers were used as cliched parodies. Other than The Rock, just try and name a wrestling champion with cultural roots outside North America.

To be fair, these kinds of gimmicks were successful in the short term. WWE was able to produce big-money programs with guys like The Iron Sheik and The Quebecers, but they had no staying power because they were very one dimensional. They couldn’t even get over in their home countries because their gimmicks were so absurd and stereotypical.

The role of the foreign heel finally changed, though, when WWE made Bret Hart the leader of a faction of wrestlers called the Hart Foundation back in the late ’90s. The Hart Foundation despised the United States and made it clear that they only set foot in the country when they had to. Americans, of course, quickly grew to hate the Hart Foundation. But unlike most foreign heels, they were treated like heroes in their home country.

I think the reason was that they didn’t come out and bash America the way a stereotypical character like The Mountie did. They laid out real reasons why real Canadians prefer their country to America. There’s the free health care, the affordable education, the lack of gun violence. And when that was met with opposition from a guy calling himself a “Texas redneck,” of course Canadians chose to side with their own countrymen. The Hart Foundation proved that foreign wrestlers could be more than just disposable heels, and that proved to be very good for business.

Of course, the Hart Foundation’s success didn’t stop WWE from marketing more bad stereotypes. Who can forget The Nation of Domination, Los Boricuas, or Kaientai? Other than The Rock, a whole plethora of talent was wasted in those gimmicks. And this year we may see the same thing with Japanese phenom Kenzo Suzuki.

The terror from the East

Suzuki is an amazing young talent from Japan. His professional athletic career began with rugby, but he seemed really to hit his stride with pro-wrestling. He took home the New Japan 2000 Young Lions Cup in his rookie year, and won a one-night Young Lions Tournament in 2002. All that and he’s still just 29 years old.

So when WWE was able to sign this guy, what kind of fresh exciting gimmick were they able to come up with? They wanted to call him “Hirohito.” Now just so everyone has a clear idea of what WWE had in mind, let’s take a second to remember the real-life Hirohito.

Hirohito was the emperor of Japan during the nation’s alliance with fellow Axis Power leaders Hitler and Mussolini. The three had a deal during World War II to help each other defeat the Allies so that ultimately Hitler and Mussolini could control Europe and Japan could take over all of Asia and the Pacific. Some believe Hirohito was a hapless pawn of the Japanese military during all this, while others believe that he was one of the central masterminds. No matter what, though, the Japanese today aren’t particularly proud of his reign, which included the deaths of 2.3 million soldiers and 800,000 civilians during the war. Many Asians still regard Hirohito as their own version of Hitler. And Americans haven’t exactly forgotten about that Pearl Harbor incident yet either.

But somehow WWE seemed surprised that Suzuki and his wife shot down the idea of a Hirohito gimmick, even though, as the rumor mill has reported, the angle was supposed to be one of the top story lines on RAW this summer. Personally, I’m surprised they even had the guts to ask him to do it. Would you feel safe asking a 6′5″ 265-lb Russian guy to play a new character called “Stalin”?

So the story is that the whole angle, which was supposed to include feuds with Benoit and Jericho, has been scrapped. Suzuki is now just going by his own name and appears to be simply playing a pissed-off Japanese guy on Smackdown. It’ll be really interesting to see if WWE puts any effort into pushing Suzuki now that he has refused to do a controversial gimmick based on his nationality, or if they’ll just waste another great talent as they have Ultimo Dragon based on their assumptions of the audience’s inclinations.

It all comes around

I thought about all of this when I first read about the Bradshaw incident, and I couldn’t help but wonder how this kind of thing hasn’t happened before. I really don’t think Bradshaw is the one to blame here. WWE has clearly established a history of drawing cheap heat from cultural differences. If WWE had a German wrestler on the roster, their first thought would be to give him a neo-Nazi gimmick. So when they want to get Bradshaw over as a monster heel in Germany, what’s going to be the first thought that pops into their heads?

For that reason, I really wouldn’t be surprised if Bradshaw was just following company orders when he did what he did. That would certainly explain why Bradshaw hasn’t been punished.

Or maybe Bradshaw launched into his little Nazi tribute on his own in the heat of the moment. It’s certainly possible that he didn’t realize such an act was actually illegal over there, 60 years after the end of the war. Does that make it OK? Of course not. But I can see how the warning lights might not go off in Bradshaw’s head when the company he works for doesn’t see a problem with introducing a new wrestler named Hirohito. And that’s a problem.