The young men who make it up the ranks can look forward to winning up to $200,000 per fight. Where the average annual income is $980, this will make them part of the country’s financial elite and national heroes to the millions of men and women who follow the game.
Senegalese wrestling, or ‘Laamb’ in Wolof, began in the villages, when farmers who only worked during the fertile rainy season would pass the time with this sport that has been practised across the continent for hundreds of years.During the dry seasons, the farmers would come to the cities looking for work. There they found an audience of people keen to watch and bet on the matches.
As the sport gained in popularity, it began to take on elements of martial arts, incorporating boxing, judo and karate, as well as the traditional elements of African wrestling.
In the 1990s, Gaston Mbengue, a Senegalese sports promoter, started to stage matches that allowed bare-fisted fighting. This modern twist revolutionised the sport and turned it into a multi-million dollar game – one match can attract up to 80,000 people. It now attracts more fans than any other sport, including soccer.
While Senegal failed to qualify for both the World Cup and the African Cup of Nations in the last two years, the audiences have flocked to wrestling and left football out in the cold.
“Wrestling has been able to reduce crime and delinquency in the suburbs,” says Aboubacry Ba, one of the country’s best-known sports journalists.”Young people now train hard and they can earn money from their work. Before, they didn’t have any work, they were in the suburbs getting into drugs and fighting. But now, with wrestling, they have a healthy occupation. It’s a job which has really been able to turn the youth around, reduce unemployment and crime.”
Laamb is as much a spiritual activity as it is physical. Wrestlers engage in rites and rituals preparatory to fighting. No wrestler, regardless of his strength, physical, or technical abilities, will ever dare to enter the ring without his “marabout” or traditional healer, or without participating in his own pre-match ceremony. During the ceremony, the wrestler, accompanied by drummers and singers, dances around the arena. Around his arms, legs, and waist are amulets to protect him against evil spirits and the witchcraft of other fighters. It is this aspect of the sport which elevates a wrestling match beyond the level of ordinary spectator sport.
