Did you know that Dear Leader Kim Jong-il won a Battle Royal against all of the major superstars of WWE in a mere 3 minutes?
That he then went on to win all major titles in individual matches over the course of the night, with no match going beyond 2 minutes before his opponents submitted?
Just another tale of the Dear Leader’s superior and undefeatable nature.
I’m always glad to see a wrestling thread show up on these forums. I don’t really follow storylines week to week anymore, but I still catch the big PPVs from WWE, even though I still call it WWF.
Fascinating!
I rather think, though, that this is a case of the exception proving the rule. North Korea was probably selected for the event as a publicity stunt precisely because it’s an isolated, xenophobic, highly regimented society with absolutely no professional wrestling presence. I would be very surprised if there were any evidence of professional wrestling in the DPRK before or since that event.
Of course, in the event that I’m wrong, I’ll put forth a second suggestion: the Vatican City. 
Nope. Everything in pro wrestling boils down to money. This show happened because Inoki’s New Japan and WCW thought they could make a buck. Politics had little to do with it…other than wrestling politics, with Inoki going over Flair in the main event largely because the match was held on his side of the wrestling world.
But I didn’t mention politics. I said the main draw of the event would be that it’s in such an unusual place not known for wrestling.
Americans might have elected a former pro wrestler as governor of Minnesota, but in Japan they elected a MASKED wrestler to one of their legislative bodies, and he actually served wearing his mask.
I don’t really follow sports at all, but I wouldn’t think we have much pro wrestling here in France. There’s *actual *competitive wrestling (you know, Greek style, tumbling and armlocks and such) but not what we call “catch”, that is to say WWF-style keyfabe live action theater.
According to the French Wikipedia there’s actually a small but growing community since the early 2000s. I did not know that.
There has been pro wrestling in France over the years. The 8th Wonder of the World, Andre the Giant trained and wrestled in France early in his career. And of course, he was born there.
Yeah, the Wiki page states it was pretty popular between WW2 and the 70s, but died out almost entirely around the early 80s (which is when I was born). FWIW, I had always believed André had been an actual wrestler until he moved to the US, but tis apparently not so.