RATOS PRO - Brazil, you're having a laugh.

"While the art of professional wrestling dominates audiences in much of the global north, providing entertainment unlike most things their inhabitants are used to, with companies like the WWE and AEW from the United States and NJPW from Japan proving themselves to be juggernauts in the cultural zeitgeist, things are far different in most of their southern counterparts. Often ignored by such companies, wrestling in places like South America, Africa and Southeast Asia remains distant and obscure. That's not to say some people aren't trying to challenge such a scenario. To observe such an effort, I've travelled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where I've met with Thun Fish, booker of the upstart Ratos Pro wrestling company."

The camera switches from a regular B-roll wrestling feed to a less common scene, a sunny day with clear skies in the Rio de Janeiro suburbs, away from the beach but covered by hills in the distance. A young caucasian man sits on a comfortable chair in the middle of a balcony, observing the cars moving outside while writing something in a notebook.

THUN FISH: Truth be told, I still find it all a bit too surreal. Like a dream of sorts but when I didn't wake up after crashing against a wall, I kinda realized it was probably the real deal.

"Thun Fish, age 27, is a Carioca, term for those who are natural to the city of Rio de Janeiro. A wrestling fan of swinging interest, he has been trusted with the job of booking the upstart federation's shows and handling talent affairs. To him, the job felt daunting but he soon noticed the circumstances he was working with and decided to take it in stride."

THUN FISH: See, Brazil on itself doesn't really care for wrestling all that much but we know for a fact that the populace loves a good fight and is still mostly keen on some drama, whether fabricated or not. I mean, Big Brother's still a popular thing down here after twenty years. If they can pull it off, I think so can we?

"With wrestling long since pushed into the less affordable cable TV and holding the stigma of fakehood, Brazil's scene had a moment of brightness in the 80s to 90s but such a moment was nothing but a solitary memory in the eyes of those who had long since aged out of it, albeit locals in São Paulo still waved the flag if only as an indie working hard against the tidal waves. Naturally, Rio de Janeiro has a rivalry with their brethren from the state that house clubs such as Corinthians and Palmeiras, which means that Mr. Fish's company aims to put themselves over their blood rivals."

THUN FISH: There's like an indie fed down at the other state and they're fine, I guess. But we're trying something new, something with more funds. Not to say there's no chance we'll ever work with them down the line but I think we gotta set a standard. No disrespect to their grit and guts but we're aiming to make a bigger impact.

The scene then switches to both the reporter and the person being interviewed walking down the streets of the same suburban neighbourhood, stopping at an ice cream shop. It cuts to them already having small pots of ice cream.

THUN FISH: The hardest bit at first was getting people that would look the part. Much as I like the work rate and all, wrestling is supposed to have good-looking folks. Now this being the home of the country's biggest media conglomerates, we were able to get some aspiring artists to put in the work and train. It was a bit expensive but we had plenty of funds. Still kinda do, to be honest. We actually went for all sorts of people, actual martial artists with the background to back it up, models of the Instagram variety, cosplayers... maybe an adult star or two but they weren't all that great at it. The rest of the people we got mostly managed to survive the training well enough to perform, there weren't many dropouts and with all due respect, I get why people dropped. The stuff looked really hard.

REPORTER: You're very open to talk about that process, aren't you?

THUN FISH: Well, mostly because I remember hearing about how hard it was to run a wrestling federation and all. Lots of hard work and it's not even that profitable unless you're some sort of major federation with all sorts of stuff to rake the money in from. So I figured that by telling you how it is, the people watching might understand what they have to do if they ever want to, say, start things off the ground from literal nothing. We had the luck of finding diamonds like it was nothing and the people we brought from overseas to help them get there were very easy to work with. Shame they didn't want me to call them by their names for some reason but I guess secrecy is an important thing to some folks.

REPORTER: Anyone with a particular reason not to want themselves known?

THUN FISH: I do think one or two were known for having angry outbursts but they're Japanese speakers, we usually had interpreters do the talking and they seemed very easy to work with all things considered. We didn't have any violent incidents, people just sort of played it off - it's kinda funny to see folks used to stiff environments dealing with our laissez-faire culture but it worked out well enough.

The feed then changes to a social club called Colégio Futebol Clube where one can see the staff setting up everything needed for the show, including mats, a ring and cameras for what's presumed to be their first show. Thun Fish is seen ordering people around in a relaxed manner though his tone of voice is loud enough that one can tell he's speaking in Portuguese as opposed to the English he's used so far.

THUN FISH: We're actually running a test show there. Nothing crazy, just giving the guys and gals a bit of mileage before we go into the real deal.

REPORTER: And what name do you have in mind?

THUN FISH: We were able to clear it up with the lawyers. It'll be the Art of Fighting. SNK was pretty popular down here in the 2000s and they didn't mind it at all, even said they were gonna send some banners down the line if we ever got big enough for that.

REPORTER: And they just let you do it?

THUN FISH: I'm as shocked as you are. Guess they just wanna get on our good graces, I welcome it. KoF XIV was pretty good.

It cuts to footage of the show, wrestlers in basic gear trading blows and moves to a rather excited audience. Possibly because of who's in the commentary team, an ageing man between two darker-skinned gentlemen wearing sports jerseys. The excitement is clearly there for everyone. It then cuts to the commentary trio talking from a dressing room with the reporter right there to get everything. Unlike the booker, they're talking in Portuguese and having their lines dubbed over though you can still clearly hear their native language easily.

YURI: Serving as the narrator for wrestling came in clutch to me. Of course, as a fan, I was keen on participating but I didn't know if I'd have the time. The guys really worked hard for us to be here so we gotta pay back in kind.

JGG: He's Yuri and I'm JGG, you should read that like I said, letter by letter. We're the actual people with wrestling know-how so our job's more or less to educate the people watching while playing to everyone's strengths and trying to make sure the weaknesses aren't too noticeable. To be fair, working with wrestling is good but the real plus was finding out we'd be with... well, y'know.

The aging man laughs, gesticulates... basically does a bunch of stuff at the same time. A bundle of energy.

SÉRGIO MALLANDRO: Yeah-Yeah, baby! The one and only living legend!

"A nostalgic figure from the 80s and 90s, former TV and movie star, Sérgio Mallandro was (and still is) a popular figure in the Brazilian cultural zeitgeist. He also knows absolutely nothing about wrestling but that naturally didn't keep him from the job of hyping up Ratos Pro as a larger-than-life event that people couldn't, or rather shouldn't, look away from."

SÉRGIO MALLANDRO: Yeah-Yeah, so. My agent called me one day saying they needed little Sérgio in this thing and I thought, why not, why yes, why not, why yes, so I went and did it. So far? Hella fun.

YURI: It's good that we have him around. Easily the one guy everyone here knows.

JGG: That and he's always eager to talk and learn. It's wild to have someone so eager with that sort of public standing, you know?

YURI: I don't think I've ever seen someone yell so much for two hours.

JGG: Really worth the hearing aid we're gonna have to pay for in a decade or so.

The footage returns to the wrestling show, showing wrestlers and staff bowing in the middle of the ring, taking in the applause and cheers from their large crowd.

"It's not much but wrestling breathes in South America. What is there on the horizon for wrestling in Brazil? What is there for Ratos Pro? It's difficult to tell but I'm sure it will not be a laughing matter."