Posted on 02/21/2017 10:26:56 AM PST by simpson96
Pro wrestler Sam Adonis is limping to a coffee shop in Mexico City when he answers the phone. He has just finished training for his next gig in the capital city, where for the past four months he has been one of the most in-demand performers in the pro wrestling.
Adonis, who grew up in Pittsburgh as Sam Polinsky, is one of the few Americans who has made a successful career in Mexico's competitive Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre, or World Boxing Council. The 27-year-old is tall and blond, which makes him stand out in the lucha libre community, but he didn't become a superstar until this November, when he began playing on Mexico's anger at President Donald Trump. (snip)
When deciding to cultivate his in-ring persona as Trump's biggest fan in the ring, Adonis said he drew inspiration from pro wrestling days of yore, and specifically of the Iron Sheik, the Iranian-American WWE Hall of Famer who used the Iranian flag to taunt audiences in the 1980s when he fought Hulk Hogan.
Hoping to re-create the passion and emotion wrestling audiences used to feel four decades ago when many still thought the competition was real and the Iron Sheik really was an enemy of the state, Adonis thought, "Why not? Let's play this up. Get a picture of Donald Trump instead of the Ayatollah and the people will be just as pissed off."
It worked.
"The energy in the arena is always great, but when I'm out there it's just absurd," Adonis said. "The hatred — it's almost a hostile environment. I'm sure there's places in Afghanistan more tranquil than this."
Adonis was only half kidding.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Hey, the man’s gotta make a living.
Good. He’s taking the idiots’ pesos and laughing all the way to the bank. He’s even smirking in that picture.
Mexicans are such simple creatures.He throws them some bait and rise to it like hungry trout.
Mexicans are such simple creatures.He throws them some bait and they rise to it like hungry trout.
They aren’t smart enough to not stab him.
The guy is probably safer in a Mexican wrestling ring, than if he did this in a major american city.
He’d get the exact same reaction from a very similar audience in Washington DC.
Oh look, Mexican peasant pro wrestling fans are more tolerant than the Berkeley progressive left.
American wrestling fans aren’t exactly sophisticated either.
The irony is that the Iron Sheik was a former bodyguard of the Shah and former member of the Iranian Olympic team who escaped from Iran during the Revolution. He probably hated the Ayatollah's Iran as much as those who were booing him -- maybe even more.
Never knew that.
I remember the favorite rant of the crowds was, “The sheik’s a freak!!”
I learn something new every day ... and you wasted today’s slot with 80s pro wrestling trivia. :-). Seriously, that was interesting. I never knew his history.
The Iron Sheik did the same thing during the Iran hostage crisis. The Iron Sheik in real life was an Iranian and had worked for the Shah of Iran. He played the heel as good as anybody and milked it for years.
Iron Shiek was great. Speaking of pro wrestling, I was sad to hear Russian Bear Ivan Koloff passed away. Oh so many memories from my childhood.
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