Oh!
She's using mites.
Oh yeah, there, she used it.
Yeah, she's evoking the juju.
- Oh, look! - Yeah!
My god.
What's she gonna do with a... fucking knife?
What's she gonna do?
Kinshasa, the capital city of
the Democratic Republic of Congo,
is Africa's third-largest city,
with a population of 11 million.
It also happens to be home
to more French-speaking people than Paris.
It might be hard to believe,
but pro wrestling is incredibly popular here.
The WWE is broadcast every night,
and there's nearly 50 local independent wrestling clubs.
Here, they have their own form of wrestling,
called catch, or witch catch.
Outside of the Congo, it's almost totally unknown.
One thing we do know is that many wrestlers
use fetish and ba koko
which are objects and rituals drawing upon
magical ancestral powers,
to assist them in the ring,
and the fans here still seem to believe
that wrestling isn't staged.
We're meeting with the Champion Jaribu,
who has recently converted to Christianity
after 20 years of practicing black magic.
He's gonna show us around and help us learn
about witch catch wrestling and how it's practiced today.
The champ!
So there are two types of wrestling, right?
There's the witch catch,
and then there's the technical catch.
Do the people that you used to wrestle with witch catch
understand why you had to do what you did?
- Tshilobo? Jesus!
Tshilobo.
Tshilobo!
Agh!
Where are we going?
Pastor Claude Kabundi Walesa
is an influential pastor and faith healer in Kinshasa.
His televised sermons reach an audience in the millions,
and Jaribu claims he's responsible for converting him
from witchcraft and guiding him to Christ.
Why is there this relationship between
the fetishes and the wrestling?
So what is the actual process
of freeing someone from the mites?
Like, how do you remove the Satanic mites from them?
Watching the church's video made me wonder if
Pastor Walesa actually believes that Jaribu
was possessed by demons,
or if he's just creating content for his followers that
has all the excitement and mythical drama
found in witch catch.
To be honest, I'm not sure which is worse.
Knowing that Pastor Walesa was a faith healer,
I expected things to be a little strange...
But I didn't expect the situation to be
this bat-shit crazy.
Jaribu has insisted that we visit Queen Shakira,
a well-known wrestler and practitioner of witch catch,
for a demonstration of her powers.
This seems a bit strange considering his recent
conversion to Christianity.
But regardless, we're curious to learn
about the world Jaribu left behind.
Okay.
Thank you very much for having us.
I guess, it's something we've kind of found
in talking to people here,
especially to people that identify as Christian,
is that there's a real fear of people
that practice ba koko, people that identify
with the older faith.
Why do you think people here are so fearful
of you and your power?
It was a white egg.
Okay.
Wow.
Okay.
One thing that I find particularly interesting
is Jaribu's coming back and wrestling,
but this time, he's left behind fetish catch.
What are your thoughts on him converting to Christianity?
And how long have you been practicing, as far as
being a priestess?
And what are some of these ways that you demonstrate this power?
I'm astonished by the level of theatrics and story lines
that are being played out for our benefit.
What Shakira performed was quite obviously sleight of hand,
but both her and Jaribu treated it as though it was real.
What did he say?
I can't tell if this is the Congo's version of a
wrestling promo, or if there's something
weirder going on here.
Regardless, everyone is so deadly serious
that I can't help but feel obliged to play along.
- You're okay? - Yeah.
This is Club Zamba, which is another
wrestling training facility here in Kinshasa.
Jaribu is the one who brought us here.
Jaribu has been kind of taking us around this whole time,
introducing us to various people that kind of
are former friends, at least how he's explained it to us.
These are people that still practice the fetish catch,
still practice ba koko, and of course,
he's converted to Christianity, but he somehow
still has friendships and ties with these people.
Okay... okay.
Hot angle.
Ready for battle?
"Bo"! Tshilobo!
And-- what?
- Tshilobo! - Yeah!
Tshilobo!
This is a roadshow.
Wrestlers parade themselves through the streets,
gathering fans as they make their way to the ring.
There seems to be so much riding on Jaribu and
Yalala's match that I don't know if what we're gonna see
is gonna be wrestling, or if it's gonna escalate
into a legitimate brawl.
We've been walking for about 20 minutes,
just amassing more people behind us.
Everyone's dancing, celebrating,
but that's not to undermine the real stakes here.
For Jaribu, there's some real stakes.
He said if he doesn't win today,
he may revert back to the fetish catch,
and may leave behind his conversion. So...
Pretty, pretty heavy stakes in this one.
So he's evoking his juju at the same time,
as in the other corner,
Jaribu was praying to Jesus, praying to God, I guess,
and invoking his ba koko in the form of Jesus.
- No-sold it. - Tshilobo, yes.
Trying to use his mites.
Every time Yalala tries to use his juju on Jaribu,
he's, he's no-selling it.
But you can tell they're both wrestling.
Like, this isn't a shoot.
This is definitely a wrestling match that we're seeing there.
Yes!
Yeah!
- He win. - He won?
And now, Jaribu win. Jaribu win.
Kayfabe is the wrestling term for presenting
staged performances as authentic athletic competition.
This illusion used to be how things were everywhere,
but starting in the 1980s,
the walls of secrecy began crumbling and
wrestling fans saw behind the curtain.
However, kayfabe is still
alive and well in the Congo,
and fans seem unaware that the fights are predetermined.
Tshilobo!
One of the hardest things a wrestler has to do
in their career is lose to someone they know
they surpass in every way.
Yalala has been as open as he can
without breaking kayfabe,
but it's obvious by his demeanour that
this loss cuts deeper than just the match.
Oh, that's heavy! Very heavy!
When we arrived at the pastor's house, we were gonna
sit outside and just, we thought we were just gonna pick him up
and go to the church with him, but at that point,
we were told that we were supposed to come inside.
We were also told that we're to leave our cameras in the van
and not record any of what was going on.
And once we got into the room, he sat us down,
introduced us to his two very large security personnel,
who stood in front of the door, and then
it was explained to me that I was going to be giving
a speech today. We went over the content of the speech.
He then edited my content, and put in some things that
he thought that I should include.
This is one of the more unusual situations I've ever
been in, in my entire life, but off we go
to a Congolese mega church
to help him convert more disciples.
So, we're always involved in someone's game here,
we're finding out.
It just depends who's game it is at any given time.
- Amen. Amen.
Tshilobo!
It's hard to put into words exactly how I felt
in this moment.
The church was making a documentary on
us making a documentary
as part of their promotional material
to convert more people.
But since they want me to give a speech,
I'll give 'em one they won't forget.
We've come from very far away in Toronto, Canada.
And I heard many stories about Congolese catch.
But I'd also heard of the Champion Jaribu.
He had left that behind because he had found Christ.
So yesterday, we came and we got to see Champion Jaribu
in the ring, and sure enough, through his mite in Christ,
he was able to overcome his opponent.
- Whoo! -Whoo!
So I say to you...
Tshilobo... -
Tshilobo.
I said, I said, tshilobo!.
I said, tshilobo!
I said! Tshilobo!
- Tshilobo! Jesus!
So, yesterday at the match, no one seemed to pay.
Everyone just came in for free.
Does it normally work that way?
Like, I'm curious how you get paid as a wrestler.
For wrestlers in the Congo, a clear paradox exists.
Their fans demand they use sorcery in the ring and
in their services as witch doctors,
but then the general public shames the wrestlers
and calls them Satanists, causing them
to be pushed further to the margins of society.
In a country where the average person survives on
less than a dollar a day, it's a vicious cycle
that only exacerbates their poverty.
The interesting thing about Pastor Walesa is that
he's criticizing wrestlers for being false prophets and
Satanists, but then he uses the same magic and pageantry
to promote his church.
By converting one of the most popular wrestlers in Kinshasa,
he's very cleverly gained direct access to
a huge new audience.
Given the lack of, you know,
financial rewards, given the physical risk,
and given the social stigma attached to it,
what keeps you both wrestling?
I think of anywhere I've been in the world,
this is the most exciting style of wrestling I've ever seen.
What you're able to do with what little you have
in terms of a ring and in terms of, you know,
training facilities, it's unbelievable.
You, you guys capture that crowd in a way that
I've never seen wrestlers capture a crowd,
and it's beautiful.