Saturday, June 18, 2011

Battle of the Sexes on the Wrestling Mat in Japan

After my experience photographing women wrestlers in China taking apart a men's team, I decided to go to Japan, whose women's wrestling team was one of the best in the world. My photos from China got me a lot of interest, and with interest came money, so I thought I would see how far I could go with this.


I arrived at the wrestling room of a university in Tokyo to find 72kg wrestler Satoko training with a male wrestler. The two were on their feet just grabbing at each other. Satoko went in for a double-leg takedown, lifted her shirtless male opponent off his feet and slammed his sweaty back to the mat with a loud slap. He tried to twist around, but she was already on top of him with her hips pressed down against his belly. I zoomed in with my camera to catch his expression of desperation mixed with resignation. He was fighting, but he knew it was futile. His face disappeared as Satoko pressed her upper body down on him and she held him there for a few seconds until he stopped struggling.
Then she leapt to her feet and her coach called her over to talk to me.
She told me that tomorrow she was competing in a tournament. What got me really interested, though, was when she said that so far she was the only 72kg wrestler in the women's division and that if no one else showed up she was going to see if she could wrestle in the 74kg men's class.
I said that I would be there and went back to my hotel to make sure all my photography gear was charged up.
I got to the gym where the tournament was being held a little late. I was hoping I hadn't missed any of Satoko's matches, but it turned out that my timing was perfect. As expected, there were no other women for her to wrestle and the organizers had just agreed to let her compete against the men.
This was pretty unusual in Japan. While women's wrestling was quite popular, they almost never competed against men. Japan is pretty male dominated and I suspected that any guy who got beat by a female wrestler would feel totally humiliated.
I sat down on the edge of the mat where the 74kg matches had already started. As I brought my camera out, two wrestlers nearly plowed right into me after one guy threw the other on his back. I snapped a few shots as the winning wrestler pinned his opponent. As they cleared off the mat, I saw another guy warming up in the far corner. He was lean but very muscular and was wearing a wrestling singlet from a university in Tokyo. As he jumped up and down and stretched, one of the mat judges ran over to him and started talking. I figured out right away what he was telling him because he had a shocked look on his face and immediately turned over to the opposite corner where Satoko was warming up.
The male wrestler chuckled and nodded his head and his teammates in his corner laughed. I got a few pics of them all laughing because I didn't think he was going to be laughing when he got on the mat with Satoko.
The two shook hands in the center of the mat and the ref blew the whistle. The male wrestler shot a takedown, but Satoko sprawled and pushed his head down, and wrapped her arms tight around his upper body. She was being really aggressive and drove all her weight onto him so he collapsed onto his belly with his face in the mat. I think he was kind of stunned because before he knew what hit him, she had jumped on his back and was trying to get her arm under his to turn him on his back. It looked painful and almost illegal as she wrenched his arm up and fought to turn him. I zoomed in on what you could see of his face. It was all contorted as she mopped the mat with his forehead. He was definitely in some pain judging from the loud groans I was hearing. He looked up at the referee hoping for some mercy, but she had relaxed her grip on his arm so it wasn't dangerous anymore. The action slowed and the ref blew the whistle to bring them up to their feet.
It took him a minute to get up after the beating he just took. He slowly got to his feet and swung his arm around a few times to make sure it still worked. His teammates looked worried. I think they were afraid that she was going to actually hurt him.
Satoko looked confident, but not cocky. All she cared about was beating this guy. She knew she was better than him. And she was going to make sure he didn't forget it. The ref blew the whistle and the male wrestler shot low, wrapped his arms around her hips and lifted her off her feet. Satoko fought to get away and in the scuffle she rammed her elbow right into his eye.
"Awhhhhh!!" he cried and released his hold, calling a time out. A nurse came over to him to look at his eye. He was definitely going to have a shiner, bit there was no blood, so they sent him back to the mat for more punishment.
He looked mad now. Not only was he probably going to get beat by a girl wrestler, he was going to have a huge black eye that everyone was going to ask him about.
AS they started wrestling again, he tried the same throw, but she was ready for him and the two collided, chest to chest, struggling to get the upper hand for a throw. But Satoko managed to get some leverage and in one explosive moved lifted the guy up, letting out a scream as she did. The spectators around the mat, who were mostly male wrestlers gasped as Satoko slammed the guy to the mat. He let out a cry of agony as his body fell. His female rival climbed on top of him. He tried to bridge. His cock bulged out of his singlet as he pumped his pelvis in the air. But Satoko slammed her hips right down on him, pinning his penis as she pinned his shoulders. One of her breasts was smothering his face, as if to remind him that he was being defeated by a woman.
Finally the ref put an end to the beating and slapped the mat, calling the pin. Satoko jumped to her feet and screamed, punching her fist in the air. Her beaten male opponent clutched his head with his hands and curled up in the fetal position on the mat.


Everyone started applauding what she had just done to this guy. It must have been hard for him, but he managed to compose himself and get up as the ref raised Satoko's arm in victory.
But it wasn't over yet. Having beat this guy, she advanced to the next bracket. Everyone was wondering if she could actually win the weight class and become the champion.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Female Grappler Chokes Out 220-Pound Male Wrestler

Me and my buddies used to always meet up in the mat room of our old high school on Saturday afternoons to do some wrestling. Usually we did submission matches. It was a lot of fun. We would all try to prove how tough we were - testing our strength against each other. Jose, a 220 lb. Mexican dude was the unofficial coach. He was the most experienced and usually was able to kick all our asses.
We had just started practicing one day, when these this girl walks in. We figured she was lost, but she was wearing wrestling shoes and lycra shorts and a lycra rash guard. So basically she looked like she was ready to rumble.






"Hey, my jiu-jitsu class got cancelled. Do you guys mind if I roll with you?"
We all stared for a minute and kind of chuckled and then Jose said "Uhh... yeah, sure."
She sat down on the edge of the mat and started stretching as Mike and Shane battled it out in the center.
Mark got a triangle on Shane and he tapped out. As they made there way back to the edge to rest, the girl looked at Jose and asked he wanted to wrestle. Jose seemed shocked. The girl was pretty big - maybe 170 lbs. but Jose was a beast. "You want to wrestle me? I'm about 60 lbs. heavier than you. Maybe you should take on one of the smaller guys."
"I like a challenge. C'mon, are you scared a girl is gonna beat you?"
"I'm more scared that I'm gonna hurt you."
"Look, dude, I've taken apart guys your size before and I can do it again. Let's go!"
"Awright, it's your funeral little girl."
The two of them walked to the center of the mat and shook hands.
Jose took her down quickly. He went down into her guard as she wrapped her legs around his big torso.
He tried to pass her guard, but she caught one of his arms and pulled him back. Then she moved her legs up around his head and started to squeeze. She had one foot locked behind her knee and Jose's head was in the middle. Then she swung her hips and brought him down so he was lying on his side.
We all watched in awe. She was really beating on him.
Jose managed to get to his knees and used the strength in his legs to stand up. But she kept hold of him. Her legs were wrapped around his waist but she worked her way down and kicked the back of his knees until he fell backwards.
"Awhhhh!" Jose grunted as he collapsed under her.
She was on top of him. If this had been regular wrestling it would have been all over because she had him pinned. Jose tried to bridge and knock her off. He rolled onto his side, but then she caught him in a viscious headlock.
"Ughhhh!" Jose let out another painful groan.
Before he even knew what was happening to him, the female grappler turned her headlock into a choke hold. Jose was on his belly as she planted herself on his back and wrapped her arm around his throat while locking onto her other arm.
We all sat there with out mouths hanging open.
How could this be happening?
"So you still think you're gonna hurt me? Huh?" she taunted, as Jose's face grew redder.
"You ready to give up? In front of all your friends?"
She loosened her grip long enough for Jose to gulp some air.
"This isn't over yet, bitch!" He said defiantly.
"Your goin' down, big boy!" she replied.
And then she tightened up her chokehold.
But Jose wasn't tapping. His face got almost purple and then his body went all limp.
The girl let go and he flopped motionless onto the mat.
"Oh shit!" I screamed.
"Relax!" the female champ shot back. She got on top of her defeated opponent and pumped his chest a couple times and all of the sudden, Jose convulsed a little bit and opened his eyes - totally confused as to what had happened.
Then she got up,  said "Thanks for the workout, guys," and left.
Jose glared at her as she went. A girl had never beaten him before, much less humiliated him so much.
But he was never going to make the mistake of wrestling a woman again.