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The Gris-Gris Wrestlers of Senegal
- soneca 11y agoThis article is very well written and gives a great notion on the sport. At least from another foreigner point of view who lived there for only about 2 months. One interesting thing I noticed is that the very big role of magic at the fights doesn't fundamentally change how the sport is perceived and followed as social and cultural phenomenom. I would assume it would be followed with some trace of religious approach, but no. It is the same of how other sports are followed on other countries and particularly similar to fight sports with long preparations and relatively short matches.
- uniclaude 11y agoVery impressive photography work in this article. I would really like to see how this type of wrestling evolves in the next few years, and if we'll see champions try to join international MMA leagues like UFC.
- soneca 11y agoThis kind of wrestling, as all wrestling I can think of, has nothing to do with MMA. This fights are much more similar to olympic wrestling than any martial arts. It is actually less physical or violent (not sure what word to use here) than olympic wrestling. Is all about getting the opponent to the floor under some rules and then the fight is over. Very different sports.
- eru 11y agoIt perhaps closer to Judo, if anything?
- bane 11y agoHere's what it looks like in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHWw9UKzHAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHWw9UKzHAo Surprisingly similar to games like Swiss Wrestling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRJQpXMAm3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRJQpXMAm3E And Korean Ssireum:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5eyvFYjxgA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5eyvFYjxgA And Mongolian Wrestling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry-OuWGhjVg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry-OuWGhjVg And to a point even Sumo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyA4kW-Y5rE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyA4kW-Y5rE And Igbo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYkarWIhTDg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYkarWIhTDg Turns out it just seems to be a pretty human kind of thing to do.
- uniclaude 11y agoOh this is absolutely true, but there is a non trivial proportion of MMA fighters with a serious wrestling background, even in UFC. A good amount of skills are transferable between those two sports, as different as they are.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Nicholas_C 11y agoYes, but many American college wrestlers take their skills to MMA. I think he was referring to the possibility of Senegalese wrestlers doing that.
- sanoli 11y agoIt will probably happen in the future (assuming mma money is still there), but locally at first. To get to something close to the UFC they'll need to get much more competitive, meaning learning more disciplines and training harder.
- pimlottc 11y agoFantastic article! Vice also did an segment on Senegalese wrestling in their HBO series, which included one of their reporters going through training and competing in an actual match: https://youtu.be/2QtfxYOkXIA https://youtu.be/2QtfxYOkXIA