New Taiwan Wrestling is trying to attract new fans with an athletic spectacle that has a distinct Taiwanese flavor. For the pro wrestlers that make it happen, this small promotion is the perfect place to make big dreams come true.
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00:00These pro wrestlers can all tell you when the dream began.
00:30I watched WWE with my dad and he interviewed who wrestled John Cena and Randy Orton.
00:42Oh, it's interesting.
00:46Sky discovered New Taiwan Wrestling, the NTW, a small but committed promotion operating just outside Taiwan's capital, Taipei.
00:55We're here in Neili District, this part of northern rural Taiwan, to check out one of Taiwan's newest wrestling promotions, the NTW.
01:03Now, it's a small promotion, but they've got big dreams.
01:06And if you look at this facility right here, you can see that they're making it work.
01:10On the surface, NTW looks like most other small wrestling promotions.
01:15Larger than life, hyper-masculine characters engage in endless melodrama and endless brawls,
01:21with their struggles of good against evil playing out in the ring,
01:28and sometimes in the stands,
01:32staging their performances for an audience made up of mostly family members and young men,
01:45who, with varying degrees of willingness, take part in the action.
01:50Fans cheer for the face or hero character and boo the villain or heel.
01:55Lucifer! Lucifer! Lucifer!
02:17These characters, dreamed up by the wrestlers, each have their own signature finishing move,
02:22and they often embody the athlete's real-life personality and reflect deep-seated personal fantasies.
02:38Lucifer loves rapping in real life, and fellow wrestler Sky was a hell-raiser as a schoolboy.
02:53My character is like a king of schoolboy.
02:58So I will do something like cheating.
03:01I will put my door on my right hand and grab someone.
03:07Can I say this word?
03:09They're part of NTW's K-Fabe, the practice of portraying staged events as if they were real.
03:16It's a wrestling term that refers to its fictional universe,
03:20its characters, planned rivalries, and scripted outcomes.
03:23Keeping K-Fabe means wrestlers stay in character both inside and outside the ring,
03:28and it often involves dramatizing their real-life relationships within the storyline.
03:34For example, when a young student of senior wrestling coach Ayunga starts getting too big for his boots in real life,
03:44it's a safe bet that a humbling encounter in the ring will cut him back down to size.
03:50Come on!
03:55In terms of style and moves, NTW takes its inspiration from Japanese and American traditions.
04:01But as a Taiwan-based promotion, its K-Fabe is uniquely Taiwanese.
04:07What we're doing is actually something that belongs to Taiwanese people.
04:10For example, my wrestling name, Ayunga, is actually Taiwanese.
04:13My own song is also in Taiwanese.
04:16I've always hoped that Taiwanese people would have their own Taiwanese wrestling culture.
04:23Ayunga hopes NTW will grow in popularity and attract new audiences to its Taiwanese-flavored spectacle.
04:29But mostly, he and his crew are content to have a place to perform,
04:33one where they can follow their childhood dreams and maybe inspire them and others.
04:38Every match is exciting.
04:40I feel happy watching it.
04:43The joy of winning brings us joy, too.