CASE STUDY 04

George Khosi & The Luchadores

Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerero, Angel Blanco and Dragon Lee what do these wrestlers have in common? Flair, attitude and showmanship. Growing up wrestling had had a special place for children all throughout South Africa. Monday Night Raw, Smackdown on Wednesday and the very important Wrestlemania. A sport where your word delivery mattered just as much as your athleticism. Your crowd control is arguably more important than the win. You became a champion off of your popularity. A real win was a win with the crowd and no one understood this quite as well as the Luchodores.

Effortlessly poetic in monologue, fluid in movement on stage, sweating, crying, bleeding and doing it all with a mask on. These were the special showman of the WWE world we had grown up with. It never felt strange to see a 5’6 Rey Mysterio take on a 7’0 Great Kali, in fact you were more than likely to believe he’d win those fights because when he entered the ring, it didn’t matter who you were, the fight was lost the moment he’s famous theme song ringed through the arena being answered with cheers from an adoring crowd. ‘Booyaka, Booyaka, 619’ it was over before it even started. Having recently watched The Iron Claw and seeing, albeit a secondary narrative, how important it was to carry a crowd as a wrestler you have to ask; does the long historical context and culture of luchadores naturally create wrestlers who are fluent in shit-talking and acrobatically gifted or is it a trained skill?

On a cold Winter’s morning in June we were location scouting for this case study, the focus was an old boxing club that carried the same energy from our references; a lived in space, old school, real iron man shit. I remember Khumo had showed me a documentary from the early 2000s, maybe ‘04 that focused on Hillbrow and it’s declining/declined state from late apartheid years up to 2004. He told me they had highlighted a guy named George Khosi who owned a boxing club in Hillbrow that had all the textures we needed to bring the concept of the Luchodores to life. The only issue was that the documentary was 20 years old and the likelihood that the gym would be still standing was low. So that morning, Ruaan, Hlengi, Jeff, Thuli and myself went to see if this holy grail of gyms was still there.

Hillbrow is very different from the rest of Jozi, you feel it immediately, it carries its infamy like a badge of honour. It’s almost as if you can hear Lucky Kunene reclaiming buildings, screaming egoli when the wind blows. A side of cbd even I’m not familiar with and as we make our way through the narrow brick roads, past suspicious eyes, the car gets quiet and the ouens reserved. I laugh when I see them get nervous but I’m quick to relate to their concerns cause that area makes me even byza. I say to Ruaan, ‘You’d swear that they shot that documentary yesterday’ in reference to the time capsule that Hillbrow is, notes of times before, colours I’m only familiar with, in imagery, splashed on buildings, that hold stories you couldn’t make up. As I sit passenger on this drive I wonder what Hillbrow was like, as one of the first diverse neighbourhoods during Apartheid South Africa, how vibrant it must’ve been; with artists, young professionals and seasoned Jozster that called this concrete jungle home. Now I stand in its remains like Adrien Brody in The Pianist, wondering how we got here.

Enter George Khosi, an enigmatic, reserved and considered figure. One of the pillars of Hillbrow, George has operated the Hillbrow Boxing Club for more than 20 years. One of the key protagonists in the original Al Jazeera documentary back in ‘04. When we met him he had just started a training session inside the gym. A seasoned boxer with the craziest testimony I’ve ever heard; George had been in 300+ amateur boxing matches before being attacked, shot in the eye and thrown off a building in Hillbrow. Somehow, he survived after being found by a group of children playing in the area. This incident forced him into retirement and George dedicated himself to turning others into boxing champions. You hear this and go ‘wow…’ I could feel this energy immediately from the very first time we met him. Although not the young man I met a week before on Youtube he is still full of energy and proud. We talk briefly about his time in Hillbrow, about the documentaries and stories they’ve written about him. A champion in every sense of the word, the great George Khosi.

Originally we intended for this case study to be strictly about Luchodores and the impact of Mexican wrestling on the WWE but after an intense conversation between Khumo, Ruaan and myself. It became impossible to not include George Khosi. The parallels between himself and Luchadores were clear. These wrestlers who were full of flair, attitude and showmanship mirrored the veteran uncle George. The Hillbrow Boxing Club has also become a well established and respected community centre to help young men and women stay off the streets and be part of something bigger than themselves, similarly Lucho Libre gained traction during the Mexican revolution in the early 1900s as a way to distract from the conflict around the people. Uncle George is deeply connected to the community and holds the traditions of boxing that he learnt early on highly, passing this knowledge on to the generations after him. In parallelity there is deep connective tissue between luchadores and their rich tapestry of traditions, things that are apparent in their costumes, fighting styles and mannerisms. In other worlds you could see uncle George being a main attraction on the WWE roster just like you could see Eddie Guerero training in the famous Hillbrow Boxing Club.

Rey Mysterio would fit in Hillbrow.

Credits:
CD: Ruaan Vos + Klein Muis
Photography: Hlengi Welela
Lighting: Lato Mahlatsi
Lighting Asst: Shaquille Smit
Creative Consultant: Khumo Morojele
Model: Thapelo Stylarjam
Styling Asst: Peyton Basson