{"id":71970,"date":"2025-05-26T14:56:32","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T05:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/may\/26\/china-sport-pro-wrestling-wang-tao"},"modified":"2025-05-26T14:56:32","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T05:56:32","slug":"chinas-pro-wrestlers-search-for-a-star-to-bring-the-sport-out-of-the-shadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=71970","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s pro-wrestlers search for a star to bring the sport out of the shadows"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As a child, Wang Tao was inspired by the American film The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke. Now 25, he is China\u2019s poster boy for the sport<\/p>\n<p>Rising from the ground with 73kg of writhing muscle on his shoulders, Wang Tao grimaced. The man whose legs were wrapped around his head was not giving up, pulling at Wang\u2019s silver-tipped hair, dyed especially for the occasion.<\/p>\n<p>But Wang knew what he had to do. Reaching up with one arm, he grasped his opponent\u2019s neck, and pulled forwards, flinging him to the ground. Seconds later, Wang had him pinned to the floor for a three-count, and had successfully defended his title as Middle Kingdom Wrestling\u2019s \u201cBelt and Road\u201d champion.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/may\/26\/china-sport-pro-wrestling-wang-tao\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a child, Wang Tao was inspired by the American film The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke. Now 25, he is China\u2019s poster boy for the sportRising from the ground with 73kg of writhing muscle on his shoulders, Wang Tao grimaced. The man whose legs were &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4154,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,71,203,42,562],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-culture","category-sport","category-world-news","category-wrestling"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4154"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71971,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71970\/revisions\/71971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}