The Presence Of Hegemonic Masculinity In Wrestling

In this essay, to look further into the presence of hegemonic masculinity in sport we focused on the sport of wrestling and collected data from a singular individual who is a student-athlete. We interviewed Kane Jajieh, a 4th-year student at the University of California, Los Angeles, who participates in the Wrestling Club at UCLA. We wanted to know where he comes from, his history with the sport, why he started to wrestle, why he chooses to remain wrestling, his feelings towards student-athletes and his thoughts on WrestleMania, which some consider being a dramatized version of wrestling that doesn’t contain any of the real aspects of the sport but heavily relies on the physical domination and violence of the sport. Our aim in this individual-based interview was to see the factors that lead a person to participate in sports dominated by hegemonic masculinity and how sports can be commercialized for this very factor.

Growing up with two brothers, Kane Jajieh had always experienced the masculinity, roughness, and competitive perspectives in his life whether it was from pretended physical fightings with his brothers or constantly being very engaged in sports like wrestling or track and field. During high school, he had noticed an advertisement for the wrestling team and decided give it a try considering his older brother had previously been on the wrestling team. When being on the team, or even before that, Jajieh was very enthusiastic about wrestling which he still does even now, in college. Jajieh started wrestling during his freshman year of high school when he had noticed the advertisement for the wrestling team and has continued wrestling throughout his college life. However, there was a tremendous opposition that he observed within the wrestling aspects of it from high school to college. While in high school he ought to practice five days a week which consisted of two to three hours long practices. In college, however, the team practices two times a week on the mat for two hours and along with that, they have to do condition training which is on the tracks for one hour, also two times a week.

Along with being an athlete, Jajieh is in a pre-dental club that assists the dentists at their clinics usually on Saturdays, which is very difficult for him to balance since his wrestling competitions are also on Saturdays. However, for him, one benefit of being in the wrestling club is that he is could choose which of the three Saturdays he would like to compete for the quarter. According to Jajieh practicing for wrestling is, “a lot more chill here at college, especially with weight-cutting, we don’t do that here anymore. ” Weight-cutting is a method that competitors in sports progress through to get beneath a specific weight to wrestle more petite people. During high school, Jajieh and his teammates were expected to exercise weight-cutting in order to compete in the matches however, in college it is not required which makes wrestling more fun for Jajieh. Though, in their time, some student-athletes do decide to participate in weight-cutting, while other student-athletes avoid it.

When asked about his viewpoints on the student-athletes at the school, Jajieh responded that they are extremely energetic and hardworking students who place their education before their sports. Jajieh emphasized that he acknowledges himself as a student-athletes because approximately fifty percent of his friend gathering is packed with student-athletes. He continues to state that, when being on a sports team, people manage to make several friends through their fellow teammates, which could be considered as snowball sampling. When further interviewing him, we questioned him about his perception on whether student-athletes should be paid to play and whether or not if he agrees with the recent law that was legislated. Recently, California Governor Gavin Newsom, approved SB 206 that will acknowledge student-athletes to be compensated for their work and they will be able to choose representatives and could benefit from their image. Jajieh’s response via this bill was that he seems to not approve the concept of student-athletes receiving paychecks for playing sports in college. His primary purpose behind this statement was that he admits that students should attend college to receive an education, not to play sports because only a few students, build a career from it and sign with professional teams. Another reason, he implies is that college tuition will increase for the student population considering that there is not a sufficient amount of money for colleges to pay student-athletes.

Lastly, his viewpoint for his disagreement towards the bill is that considering, several don’t obtain a position in professional sports, once they graduate college, various times their degree is not very profitable for them. He believes that the bill will be a negative feature in their college experience simply because student-athletes will concentrate extra on playing sports rather than their classes. Along with these and other circumstances, after college, Jajieh plans to proceed with his career in becoming a dentist and play sports during his free time.

Wrestling is a combat sport in which the main goal is to attain physical domination over your opponent. It has all the features essential to hegemonic masculinity, which Katie Rodgers in her article “‘I was a Gladiator’: pain, injury, and masculinity in the NFL” describes as domination, physicality, and exerting control over both self and others. These values and features are internalized often with being a successful man and the better you are at exhibiting and possessing these qualities the more validity you have as to being a successful man. Rodgers, in her article, quotes Michael Messner who states, “the hegemonic conception of masculinity. . . bonds men, at least symbolically as a separate and superior group to women. ” These ideas can be seen by some of the answers given by Kane Jajieh. As stated above, when asked why he started wrestling he responded with because his older brother was involved in the sport, he had always been active and often would get into physical play fights with his brothers growing up, and wrestling was a good match for him because of his slender build. These answers suggest that wrestling gives him the area to exhibit values of masculinity as well as let him gain access to the sphere of male dominance and pecking order, especially with his brothers. We can also see that values of dominance and physicality started at a young age with his frequent wrestling with his brothers.

Jajieh also stated that he chose to do wrestling because it fit well with his body’s natural build. He went on to explain that in wrestling body size and weight does not matter because you will be placed in your own weight class and that the main proponent in wrestling is discipline and having a determined mindset. James H. Frey and D. Stanley Eitzen, in their journal, “Sport and Society,” discuss how children will withdraw from sports when they are not succeeding in order to maintain self-esteem. From the data, one can conclude that people will choose sports they can achieve the most in and for males, sports that will allow them to display their masculinity successfully, which is very much wrapped in their self-esteem, will be chosen over sports they cannot exhibit the valued traits of masculinity.

Jajieh states in the interview when asked if he had ever sustained injuries related to the sport, that he has indeed been injured and tells a story about a time where he was overtaken by his opponent and injured in the process. He describes this as being part of the game but also describes the experience as being embarrassing to be “beaten down” in front of friends and family. This embarrassment could have stemmed from his inability to exert control, dominance, and physicality against his opponent publicly and that led to feelings of inadequacy and perhaps he even felt as if his masculinity was in jeopardy or threatened. As described above Jajieh describes the injury as “just part of the game. ” This is important, as it relates to hegemonic masculinity present in games where physical domination is the main proponent of the game. To properly describe what occurs with sports that are dominated by hegemonic masculinity, Rodgers states that, “players learn to use their bodies as instruments, creating a disconnect between the emotional and physical self. . . many athletes, particularly men, are aware of their bodies only to the extent that they serve a particular purpose in their athletic endeavors. ” This perfectly describes the creation of a disciplined body, which manifests itself in sports like wrestling and football. Disciplined bodies follow a regimented order and regime and the body becomes routinized into being a weapon used against other bodies. Jajieh exemplifies this idea by his normalization of pain and injury that comes with the participation of the sport. We can also see the presence of a disciplined body by his description of how discipline is necessary to be successful in the sport and how a normal practice in wrestling is weight cutting, which involves players losing weight to get to a lower weight class. He states that in club wrestling this is not a common occurrence but there are a few who still do it. Here we can see that the body will be regimented in a way so that it becomes a tool to better serve its purpose. In this case, the purpose is to be able to overpower and exert physical dominance over ones’ opponent.

A final concept we wanted Jajieh’s thoughts on was the culture of WWE and Wrestle Mania-type sporting events. We were curious to know if this culture influenced him in any way or created any misconceptions about the wrestling that he took part in. According to Frey and Eitzen, in their article ​Sport and Society, ​“The ethics of the business and corporate world tend to guide sport, not the principles of play and enjoyment”. We see that this is very telling of the commercialized wrestling world. Whether it be high school students on the school wrestling team or college students on a club team, wrestling at the non-mainstream media level is nothing in comparison to the wrestling that people see on television. He did not even consider WWE and Wrestle Mania-type wrestling to be related to the type of wrestling he does in college. The elongated “well” in line one and high pitched intonation in line 3 demonstrate his apprehensiveness about the comparison. While wrestling at the college level focuses on technique and skill, corporations like WWE and Wrestle Mania idolize violence and destruction. He went on to describe WWE more of a show than actual wrestling.

The difference between traditional wrestling and profit-oriented WWE wrestling is seen in the rules and regulations. While WWE and Wrestle Mania events display glamourized chair-throwing and intense body slams, classic American wrestling, as Jajieh would describe as folkstyle wrestling, consists of back steps and hip heists. Jajieh also informed us that the few moves that are adapted into WWE are wrestling throws; he mentions that although they are not too common in folkstyle wrestling, throws can happen. In addition, they are glorified in professional wrestling and are seen as a dramatized spectacle instead of a strategic wrestling move.

We see this trend of admiring thrilling, masculine sports competition amongst the commercialization of many different sports in America. As consumers start to demand physically threatening sports, the market for it continues to grow and influence surrounding cultures. The claim that “the commercialization of sport is strongly influenced by the role of the media, particularly television, in programming the sports product and in the monies paid to sports organizations for broadcasting rights” to be very present in WWE professional wrestling.

Jajieh also informed us that he predicts the style of wrestling in communities outside of America follows the intense model of professional WWE wrestling; in these different styles, we are more likely to see the body slams and the overpowering throws. Here we see that the immense market of professionals in the United States not only affects the way that folkstyle wrestling is thought of as a sport, but it also has an influence on the gameplay of wrestling in economic markets outside of America. Jajieh informs us that he is not bothered much by professional wrestling, but rather the misconceptions that people have about wrestling are less likely to hurt his personal image. The admiration and excitement for professional wrestling stem from this heroic orientation that Frey and Eitzen claim “emphasizes danger and excitement, style, and a short-term commitment to victory”. These professional wrestlers are idolized by many wrestling fanatics due to the heroic persona that they deliver to consumers. These idolizations take form from an aesthetic orientation. We can categorize these athletic bodies as mirroring bodies.

The main focus of working out for these athletes is for a purely aesthetic and commercial purpose. While an ideal body type for traditional wrestling might be muscular and fit, they are much more slender than the typical body shape that we see in professional WWE wrestling. Jajieh informed us that part of his training regimen in high school included running in track and field. In addition, he mentioned that people often tried to weight cut; that is, drop in weight in order to compete in a different weight class. This strategy is immensely different in comparison to the technique that we see in professional wrestling. In contrast, the weight of a wrestler at Wrestle Mania events usually ranges from 250-300 pounds. In addition to the difference in physical shape, the attention that WWE-type sports dedicate to an aesthetic image is far more immense than the folkstyle wrestling that Jajieh takes part in. As Sparkes describes it in his article ​Bodies, Narrative, Selves, and Autobiography, ​“For the mirroring body, the medium is consumption, and the model is the department store or shopping mall. This kind of body, similar to the disciplined body, remains predictable, but it does so through reflecting the predictability of the objects made available to it to be consumed”. We often see wrestlers in professional American wrestling with an extreme definition in their chest muscles and legs. They display perfect symmetry and an idealized version of a bodybuilding stature. The body is aesthetically pleasing for viewers and is not really intended for the folkstyle wrestling that Jajieh is a part of; these bodies are perfect for destructive throwing and smashing.

In addition, we also see that WWE culture is very related to aesthetics in what they wear. They often have some sort of body adornments: face paint, colorful leotards, or even decorative chains. While folkstyle wrestling is based on technique, we find that the commercialization of professional wrestling in the United States is driven by the consumer’s demand for flashy costumes and intense pain.

In conclusion, the data that was collected from this singular individual, Kane Jajieh, a college student-athlete, explicates his enthusiasm for joining the wrestling team was due to his masculinity of growing up with brothers, his perception about the student-athletes, along with his disagreement and reasoning towards the Fair pay to play SB 206 bill. From the interview, we further expanded on the presence of hegemonic masculinity through his slender body type and wrestling injuries. And lastly, concluding to inspect if his passion for wrestling happened because of the commercialization of the WWE and Wrestle Mania-type.

Works Cited

1. Boum, Aomar. “Bodies in Sport. ” Anthropology 130 Study of Culture, 14 October 2019, University of California, Los Angeles, Lecture.
2. Frey, James H. , and D. Stanley Eitzen. “Sport and Society. ” Vol. 17, 1991, pp. 503–522. ​JSTOR​, www. jstor. org/stable/2083352. Accessed 10 Dec. 2019.
3. Rodgers, Katie. “‘I Was a Gladiator’: Pain, Injury, and Masculinity in the NFL. ” The NFL: Critical and Cultural Perspectives​, edited by Thomas P. Oates and Zack Furness, by Michael Oriard, Temple University Press, 2014, pp. 142–159. JSTOR, www. jstor. org/stable/j. ctt14bsvzs.