professional wrestling

Review: Colonial Combat reinvents colonisation as a level playing field

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Is there something to be learned from TVNZ’s Wild West-meets-WWE-meets-19th-century-New Zealand web series? After all, writes Sharon Mazer, colonisation, like professional wrestling, is a fixed match. The premise underlying TVNZ’s new web series Colonial Combat is anachronistic and preposterous, even by WWE standards. It’s also fascinating. Transported from American popular culture to New Zealand as … Read more

Māori versus settlers in the wrestling ring? Hell yes!

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TVNZ’s new online-only series Colonial Combat pits the the inhabitants of Kauri Bay – Māori, settlers, men, women, and many more besides – against each other in the ring. Dan Taipua reviews. The place is Kauri Bay, kind of. The year is 1836, sort of. The people are Māori, and All Other Comers. The stakes … Read more

Sixty-five kilos down, wrestler Irn Bruce faces the big show

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Five hundred or so days after a grossly unfit 42-year-old man weighing nearly 144kgs decided he wanted to become a pro-wrestler the moment of truth has finally arrived in part three of Mike Kilpatrick’s journey. Read part one here, and part two here.   No longer will I be able to hide behind self-deprecatory social-media posts, … Read more