Mixing sport and entertainment
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The crowd gasps and cheers as a bare-chested man grabs a chair and smashes it over the head of his opponent on the ground.
A referee in a black-and-white striped jersey rushes to his aid but the prone man is not really hurt 鈥 this is WWE-style wrestling in China, where the sport is attempting to take off.
鈥淚t鈥檚 been barbarous yet fun,鈥 said Su San, who is watching professional wrestling for the first time and is among an audience of about 200 at the Middle Kingdom Wrestling event in the southern city of Shenzhen.
Alberto Curry, an American wrestler better known as 鈥淶ombie Dragon,鈥 is doing his bit to grow this genre of wrestling 鈥 which is part sport, part entertainment 鈥 in the world鈥檚 most populous country.
鈥淏ack in the States there is a lot of pro wrestling, but it鈥檚 kind of an over-saturated market ... there鈥檚 just too much of it, it鈥檚 hard to consume all that wrestling,鈥 said the 31-year-old.
鈥淏ut in China, it鈥檚 very fresh, it鈥檚 very new, and a lot of people don鈥檛 know what it is.
鈥淥nce they see the characters and the costumes and everything, they really get into it.鈥
Back in the ring, two Chinese fighters 鈥 one with the name 鈥淏lack Mamba鈥 scrawled in gold on his outfit 鈥 are exchanging kicks and punches.
Black Mamba, whose real name is Zhang Wendong, strikes his opponent in the face with a clenched fist wrapped in a metal chain.
Whoops go up from the audience as the tattooed 25-year-old reaches under the ring for a chair and then slams it over the head of his rival.
Adrian Gomez, founder and president of MKW, which started in 2015, admitted that wrestling remains a niche sport in China.
But it has 鈥渧ery vocal and passionate鈥 followers, he said, and Gomez believes infusing wrestling with traditional Chinese martial arts can gain traction.
鈥淚 do think that Chinese culture lends itself so easily into professional wrestling to make it eventually a style in its own,鈥 said the American, who hopes to send fighters one day to the United States, home to standard-bearer the WWE.
For now, it is about trying to spread the sport鈥檚 reputation in China beyond its current limited supporter base.
鈥淯nfortunately at this moment, we鈥檙e just in that little pond,鈥 said Gomez.
鈥淏ut with every effort of pro wrestling, we鈥檙e going to keep growing that until wrestling is like an ocean in China.鈥
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