Pro Wrestling: Taunting Tiger

Veteran Indian wrestler Tiger Jeet Singh is still hitting the mats in Japan.

After 43 years in professional wrestling, Singh is still throwing chairs, delivering body blows and finishing opponents off with his trademark "Tiger claw." An impressive achievement for a man in his early 60s.

Characters like Abdullah the Butcher, Andre the Giant and The Sheik are all gone but Tiger fights on in a county that hasn’t lost its appetite for pro wrestling.

With a sprawling, 100-acre property north of his adopted home in Toronto, Singh could have retired long ago but continues to make regular visits to Japan, where he built a successful career in wrestling after getting his start in Canada.

"This is like a drug to me, I’m addicted," Singh said before a tag team match at Tokyo’s Korakuen Hall. "Sometimes, I want to say goodbye, but it’s in your blood."

Wooing Japan

While its popularity may be on the wane in North America, pro wrestling remains a big draw in Japan. Friday’s event, where a ringside seat sells for $100, was sold out.

"Japanese fans are very loyal," said Singh, who spends just as much time terrorising fans as he does his opponents. "When I wrestle, they believe it’s real."

For those willing to sit near the front, getting chased around by a 64-year-old Indian waving a sword is all part of the fun.

Pro wrestling became popular in Japan after World War II. Despite the scripted outcome, fans never got tired of seeing foreign wrestlers battered into submission by homegrown grapplers.

Cast in the role of the villain, foreigners like Singh could make huge amounts of money taking on Japan’s top wrestlers.

The pro wrestling boom began in 1954 when former sumo wrestler Rikidozan and his partner Masahiko Kimura took on American brothers Ben and Mike Sharpe in a tag team match.

The match was a draw but seeing the smaller Japanese wrestlers hold their own against the larger Americans touched off a pro wrestling craze.

As renowned author Robert Whiting wrote in his non-fiction work Tokyo Underworld, watching Americans and other foreigners lose to Japanese wrestlers helped "resuscitate the wounded national psyche, still smarting from the defeat in war and stung by the ongoing unofficial occupation of their country by the Americans".

When Singh first arrived in Japan in the 1970s, the wounds had only partially healed and the bad guy foreigner could find plenty of opportunities in the ring.

Singh recalls wrestling Japan’s Antonio Inoki in front of 62,000 fans back in 1979.

Singh would also fight former sumo wrestler Wajima and last year took on former Yomiuri Giants baseball player Warren Cromartie. "Fighting Inoki, Wajima and Cromartie were big events for me," said Singh. "They helped me make a name for myself in Japan."

Singh is still the guy Japanese fans love to hate. Using his sword to taunt fans and attack wrestlers, he is the perfect foil for Japan’s wrestling heroes. "I give them a good fight and that’s what they come to see," Singh said.