The boys and girls are back in town! WWP at the Splash Festival

Abdul Kader could be seen as THE gurus of South African wrestling.

But having a successful wrestling series does not come without problems and after several years of negotiations, the World Wrestling Professionals brand is once again about to explode on the TV screens world wide.

Wrestling is well established in South Africa (unlike MMA or EFC which are both relatively new)

 and has a fan base where some of  the wrestlers  have attained rock-star status!

The tournament held recently in PE during the Splash festival was different from the usual events as it took place in day light and outdoors.

Last year it poured with rain and only a handful of die-hard fans stayed to watch.

This year the weather played along and the audience stayed for the entire event.

 Not even the wind or the sound from the main music stage could lure them away!

There were 15 bouts that involved both new( Johnny Ice) and experienced (Xterminator)athletes…and love them or hate them, they are athletes.

Training for many hours a day in order to attain fitness levels that will allow their bodies to take the sort of beatings that are dished out in the square circle.

Some of the fighters come from PE, which gives them “home town” advantage.

(Like father and son tag team champions, Blacksmith and Schoolboy)

And Roland Caspar alongside, mike in hand.

Others, Like Tornado and Ryan Cage, are from Johannesburg and the crowd seemed to ‘tolerate’ them…HOWEVER…

It always fascinates me how quickly an audience can take sides…a Mexican wrestler called Angelico was the first “audience casualty” as they boo-ed him during all of his bouts.

Kilimanjaro was another who seemed to bring out the worst in the crowd

 and for no apparent reason other than the fact that he was from north of our borders!

If the women had come to look at hot men in tight pants, then there had to be eye-candy for the men as well…and Akilah and Carla Croft provided that in spades…

as did their ringside assistant who seemed to be working for both wrestlers simultaneously

To keep the crowd entertained and to introduce the contestants the Makro man,Roland, was on hand to keep the event moving smoothly along. This despite some audio issues…which were quickly sorted out by the tech crew.(Considering that the event was held on the beach and that there were large numbers of people attending the other attractions, there were few,if any, technical problems…congrats to the Andre and Chris of ECLB!

 This WWP event will be screened on television stations in 26 countries internationally.

Now that this branded tournament is operational again, watch out for it in a city near you soon…

The behind the scenes images can be found at:

 http://picasaweb.google.com/david.batzofin