It seems like it was just yesterday that self-described "basketball diplomat" Dennis Rodman was in Pyongyang shooting hoops and inciting international outrage. Such was the backlash against his recent trip that he's since vowed never to visit North Korea again--but the DPRK isn't ready to abandon its lofty hopes for sports diplomacy.
Later this year, Pyongyang will host an international pro-wrestling event bringing together American, Japanese and other wrestlers in the spirit of "independence, peace and friendship," according to the Wall Street Journal. The exact date and lineup of wrestlers haven't been finalized yet, but if it's anything like its 1995 predecessor--a massive, meticulously choreographed event titled Collision in Korea--it will be a spectacular display of political propaganda.
The event included American superstar Ric Flair.
While Rodman called Kim Jong Un his "best friend" during his visit to North Korea, the Americans wrestlers who participated in Collision in Korea were not quite so charmed by the hermit kingdom. Flair wrote about the rather unsettling experience in his 2010 memoir To Be the Man:
"The second we arrived in Pyongyang, our passports were confiscated. Then each of us was assigned a 'cultural attache' to follow us everywhere; these guys even sat in the dressing room while we went over our matches. In the dining room where the wrestlers ate, there was a camera in each corner, monitoring every movement. When Scott Norton called his wife and said, 'This place sucks,' his phone line suddenly went dead."
Editorial on 05/23/2014