When Wang Tao ran away from home aged 17 to become a professional wrestler he knew it would be a hard slog to succeed in China's passionate but underdeveloped scene. Years later, he has endured family disapproval, countless side gigs and thousands of hours of brutal training to become China's "Belt and Road Champion" -- but the struggle is far from over.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00泡沫
00:30I was obsessed with wrestling and I watched wrestling videos and competitions over and over again when I was in school.
00:37Later, when I was 17 years old, I went to the north alone to learn wrestling.
01:01I flew in about 10 hours just for this, just for those 10 minutes in the ring.
01:06And the fans' action and the energy, their love, their passion for it, makes all that time worth it.
01:12I used to do some part-time jobs in addition to training and competitions, including being a waiter and other jobs.
01:37Because in China, it's very difficult to make a living by wrestling.
02:07You can see a lot of people here, this is what they're good at.
02:12And I think they deserve to be able to make a living at what they're good at.