Young Ugandans tangle in the mud. They dream of becoming professional wrestlers

MUKONO, Uganda (AP) — In a forested area outside Uganda's capital, a few dozen youth gather around a makeshift ring to watch two amateur wrestlers tangle in the mud.

The training sessions, complete with an announcer and referee, imitate the pro wrestling contests the teens regularly see on television. Ugandan enthusiast Daniel Bumba, known in the wrestling community as Bumbash, hopes that some of these wrestlers, many of them orphans, can do well and long enough to go professional.

It is the glimmer of a dream, with little else in place. The ring is made of bamboo poles lashed together with rope. And yet the youth pay 100,000 shillings ($26) as a commitment fee for a chance to leave the poverty of this farming region. That's the rough equivalent of 10 days' work by an average construction laborer, a significant amount.

The 35-year-old Bumba said he has been a wrestling fan since childhood. He became what's known as a video jockey after college, offering lively commentary and translating WWE matches into the local Luganda language for fellow viewers.

Now he's a pioneer, known only to a small group of fans in Uganda who follow pro wrestling on TV but aspiring to make it widely popular.

The community Bumba has created, known as Soft Ground Wrestling, has won the attention of some professional wrestlers with its YouTube channel, which broadcasts some bouts.

In February, the American wrestler whose ring name is Jordynne Grace shared a video of a wrestler smashing his opponent against bamboo poles. “What are the chances we could get in touch with them and see if they want a real ring?” she wrote on the social platform X.

Some Americans earlier this year launched a GoFundMe call on behalf of Soft Ground Wrestling. The pitch has raised just over $10,000 and says Uganda's amateur wrestlers "deserve a chance to showcase their talents to the world.”

In addition to buying a wrestling ring, any cash raised will help Soft Ground Wrestling to “continue renting out their land for the foreseeable future," it said.

Soft Ground Wrestling pays $250 monthly to use the four-acre property.

“The dream for this place is first of all to create awareness of the game,” Bumba told The Associated Press recently. “I personally want to become a brand ambassador of wrestling in East Africa."

A first step is a planned wrestling academy, which he sees as a benefit to many children who might otherwise be idle or trapped in crime. Many of the youth in or around the ring in this village 20 kilometers (12 miles) outside the Ugandan capital, Kampala, have long dropped out of school.

Ugandan authorities have taken note, at first with suspicion.

Arthur Asiimwe, co-founder of Soft Ground Wrestling, said security officials visited the community in March and questioned him and Bumba about their objectives. The army officers wanted to know if the group was engaging in “dubious activities” and left after watching some bouts, he said.

Many of the 100 trainees don’t have a clear idea of where wrestling might lead, though they hope to represent Uganda on a global stage. For now, some live in a dorm where they have access to weightlifting equipment. Others come from their homes to wrestle or watch.

They include some aspiring female wrestlers. They said they saw no obstacles to wrestling. There's a sense of camaraderie with the young men. In a fundraising video posted on YouTube this year, a young woman appeals for support to have "a wrestling ring for the perfect, perfect matches" as male colleagues watch in the background.

Daphine Kisaakye, a young woman who wrestled one recent morning, said she was first exposed to it in 2019 as a domestic worker watching WWE televised fights.

“It was very amazing," she said.

Bumba has yet to find appropriate training facilities and health insurance for participants. Injury is a concern. He said all those who intend to wrestle receive months of training from him before they are permitted to venture into the ring.

One of the wrestlers, Jordan Ainemukama, said serious injures were rare, but some members have had minor incidents.

“So far I've never had an injury, a serious injury ... Like you have a shock and then you go to the clinic and then they prepare you like (for) two or three weeks,” he said. “Then you come back."

Ainemukama said he now knows how to take a landing in the makeshift ring: "Our coach always tells us that, ‘Safety first.’”

Ugandan youth celebrate after winning an amateur wrestling tangle in the soft mud in Kampala, Uganda, Wednesday, March. 20, 2023. The open-air training sessions, complete with an announcer and a referee, imitate the pro wrestling contests the youth regularly see on television. While a pair tangles inside the ring, made with bamboo poles strung with sisal rope, others standing ringside cheer feints and muscular shows of strength. (AP Photo/Patrick Onen)

Ugandan youths perform an amateur wrestling tangle in the soft mud in Kampala, Uganda Wednesday, March. 20, 2023. The open-air training sessions, complete with an announcer and a referee, imitate the pro wrestling contests the youth regularly see on television. While a pair tangles inside the ring, made with bamboo poles strung with sisal rope, others standing ringside cheer feints and muscular shows of strength. (AP Photo/Patrick Onen)

Ugandan youths perform an amateur wrestling tangle in the soft mud in Kampala, Uganda Wednesday, March. 20, 2023. The open-air training sessions, complete with an announcer and a referee, imitate the pro wrestling contests the youth regularly see on television. While a pair tangles inside the ring, made with bamboo poles strung with sisal rope, others standing ringside cheer feints and muscular shows of strength. (AP Photo/Patrick Onen)

Ugandan youths perform an amateur wrestling tangle in the soft mud in Kampala, Uganda Wednesday, March. 20, 2023. The open-air training sessions, complete with an announcer and a referee, imitate the pro wrestling contests the youth regularly see on television. While a pair tangles inside the ring, made with bamboo poles strung with sisal rope, others standing ringside cheer feints and muscular shows of strength. (AP Photo/Patrick Onen)

Ugandan youths perform an amateur wrestling tangle in the soft mud in Kampala, Uganda Wednesday, March. 20, 2023. The open-air training sessions, complete with an announcer and a referee, imitate the pro wrestling contests the youth regularly see on television. While a pair tangles inside the ring, made with bamboo poles strung with sisal rope, others standing ringside cheer feints and muscular shows of strength. (AP Photo/Patrick Onen)

Ugandan youths train before an amateur wrestling tangle in the soft mud in Kampala, Uganda Wednesday, March. 20, 2023. The open-air training sessions, complete with an announcer and a referee, imitate the pro wrestling contests the youth regularly see on television. While a pair tangles inside the ring, made with bamboo poles strung with sisal rope, others standing ringside cheer feints and muscular shows of strength. (AP Photo/Patrick Onen)

Ugandan youths perform an amateur wrestling tangle in the soft mud in Kampala, Uganda Wednesday, March. 20, 2023. The open-air training sessions, complete with an announcer and a referee, imitate the pro wrestling contests the youth regularly see on television. While a pair tangles inside the ring, made with bamboo poles strung with sisal rope, others standing ringside cheer feints and muscular shows of strength. (AP Photo/Patrick Onen)

Ugandan youth prepare a ring before an amateur wrestling tangle in the soft mud in Kampala, Uganda Wednesday, March. 20, 2023. The open-air training sessions, complete with an announcer and a referee, imitate the pro wrestling contests the youth regularly see on television. While a pair tangles inside the ring, made with bamboo poles strung with sisal rope, others standing ringside cheer feints and muscular shows of strength. (AP Photo/Patrick Onen)

Ugandan youths lift weights before an amateur wrestling tangle in the soft mud in Kampala, Uganda Wednesday, March. 20, 2023. The open-air training sessions, complete with an announcer and a referee, imitate the pro wrestling contests the youth regularly see on television. While a pair tangles inside the ring, made with bamboo poles strung with sisal rope, others standing ringside cheer feints and muscular shows of strength. (AP Photo/Patrick Onen)

Ugandan youths perform an amateur wrestling tangle in the soft mud in Kampala, Uganda Wednesday, March. 20, 2023. The open-air training sessions, complete with an announcer and a referee, imitate the pro wrestling contests the youth regularly see on television. While a pair tangles inside the ring, made with bamboo poles strung with sisal rope, others standing ringside cheer feints and muscular shows of strength. (AP Photo/Patrick Onen)

Ugandan youths have breakfast before an amateur wrestling tangle in the soft mud in Kampala, Uganda Wednesday, March. 20, 2023. The open-air training sessions, complete with an announcer and a referee, imitate the pro wrestling contests the youth regularly see on television. While a pair tangles inside the ring, made with bamboo poles strung with sisal rope, others standing ringside cheer feints and muscular shows of strength. (AP Photo/Patrick Onen)

Ugandan youths perform an amateur wrestling tangle in the soft mud in Kampala, Uganda Wednesday, March. 20, 2023. The open-air training sessions, complete with an announcer and a referee, imitate the pro wrestling contests the youth regularly see on television. While a pair tangles inside the ring, made with bamboo poles strung with sisal rope, others standing ringside cheer feints and muscular shows of strength. (AP Photo/Patrick Onen)

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials have developed specific and highly credible intelligence suggesting that an American citizen who disappeared seven years ago while traveling in Syria has died, the man's daughter said Saturday.

Maryam Kamalmaz said in an interview with The Associated Press that during a meeting in Washington this month with eight senior American officials she was presented with detailed intelligence about the presumed death of her father, Majd, a psychotherapist from Texas.

The officials told her that on a scale of one to 10, their confidence level about her father's death was a “high nine." She said she asked whether other detained Americans had ever been successfully recovered in the face of such credible information, and was told no.

“What more do I need? That was a lot of high-level officials that we needed to confirm to us that he’s really gone. There was no way to beat around the bush,” Maryam Kamalmaz said.

She said officials told her they believe the death occurred years ago, early in her father's captivity. In 2020, she said, officials told the family that they had reason to believe that he had died of heart failure in 2017, but the family held out hope and U.S. officials continued their pursuit.

But, she said, “Not until this meeting did they really confirm to us how credible the information is and the different levels of (verification) it had to go through."

She did not describe the intelligence she learned.

A spokesperson for the White House declined to comment Saturday. The FBI's Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell issued a statement that did not offer any update on Kamalmaz but said that no matter how much time has passed, it continues to work “on behalf of the victims and their families to recover all U.S hostages and support the families whose loved ones are held captive or missing.”

Majd Kamalmaz disappeared in February 2017 at the age of 59 while traveling in Syria to visit an elderly family member. The FBI has said he was stopped at a Syrian government checkpoint in a suburb of Damascus and had not been heard from since.

Kamalmaz is one of multiple Americans who have disappeared in Syria, including the journalist Austin Tice, who went missing in 2012 at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus. Syria has publicly denied holding Americans in captivity.

In 2020, in the final months of the Trump administration, senior officials visited Damascus for a high-level meeting aimed at negotiating release of the Americans. But the meeting proved unfruitful, with the Syrians not providing any proof-of-life information and making demands that U.S. officials deemed unreasonable. U.S. officials have said they are continuing to try to bring home Tice.

The New York Times first reported on the presumed death of Majd Kamalmaz.

FILE - Rep. Al Green, right, listens as Samar Hamwi, sister of Majd Kamalmaz, speaks during the Bring Our Families Home Campaign, a campaign led by family members of Americans wrongfully detained or held hostage abroad, news conference on Tuesday, July 4, 2023 in Houston. U.S. officials have developed specific and highly credible intelligence suggesting that Majd Kamalmaz, an American citizen who disappeared seven years ago while traveling in Syria has died, his daughter, Maryam Kamalmaz, said Saturday, May 18. (Yi-Chin Lee/Houston Chronicle via AP, file)

FILE - Maryam Kamalmaz poses for a photo in her home in Grand Prairie, Texas, Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2024. U.S. officials have developed specific and highly credible intelligence suggesting that Majd Kamalmaz, an American citizen who disappeared seven years ago while traveling in Syria has died, Maryam Kamalmazr said Saturday, May 18. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, file)

FILE - Maryam Kamalmaz hold a photo of her father with some of his 14 grandchildren in Grand Prairie, Texas, Jan. 17, 2024. U.S. officials have developed specific and highly credible intelligence suggesting that Majd Kamalmaz, an American citizen who disappeared seven years ago while traveling in Syria has died, Maryam Kamalmaz said Saturday, May 18. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)