The Fall of Kung-Fury
Beep-beep-beep.
The tower crane, loaded down with rebar, crept slowly toward the spot right in front of me. Standing beneath it, I waved my signal flag, guiding it into position. The massive hook ground to a halt just ahead, then released the rebar in a slow, careful descent. The ground shuddered faintly beneath my boots.
And with that, every last piece of material was moved.
The white driver up in the cab touched his thumb and index finger together in a circle — the universal sign for let's take five — then climbed down, and the two of us settled onto the half-built apartment complex above, cans of coffee in hand.
The skyscrapers of the city glared back down at us.
Sacramento, California. Off in the distance I could see a billboard announcing that pre-sales were now open for the very complex we were building, slated for completion in 2030. On it, a white family beamed their bright, white smiles, dreaming their bright, white future.
A laugh escaped me before I knew it. To me, every bit of it was fantasy.
A family. Laughter. Money.
I just wish this shift were over.
A blue-collar guy who worked a day to eat for a day — that was me. A second-generation Korean immigrant. My parents were long gone, and whatever they'd managed to save had all been swallowed by hospital bills. The money I scraped together bit by bit was earmarked, at best, for a retirement community someday.
An unchanging, miserable reality. Even that had grown familiar by now.
I was quietly escaping into a cigarette when Chuck, smoking beside me, spoke up.
"Hey, Kim."
"What, Chuck."
"You look like you've seen the boogeyman or something. What's with the face? Crack a smile."
"Reality's a real downer, that's all."
"Better than the boogeyman, at least."
"...Where the hell did that come from?"
"Oh, nothing. I just like to give a little fair warning before I bring something up."
"Bring up what?"
"You used to be a pro wrestler, didn't you?"
"..."
I felt my mouth go dry. That was a fact I'd done my best to bury.
But Chuck, apparently blind to my grim expression, kept right on going.
"Out of the WWF, no less."
"Ancient history."
"What was it like? Back in my day, I used to burn the midnight oil imagining gorgeous women like Gorgon."
"She was an eighties wrestler."
"Haha, too far back for you?"
"What most people remember is the nineties. The Attitude Era."
I played along, giving him just enough. It had been a long time since I'd left the business, but the memories were still vivid.
Fifteen years as a wrestler. Ten as a producer. Twenty-five years total on the one narrow road of pro wrestling.
And the road had ended in misery. Backed into a corner within the company, I'd ultimately fled — quitting the way you'd flee a burning building. It had cost me my life, in every sense that mattered. Nothing was left. So the slide into pleasure came fast, and I gambled away what little money I had left along with everything else.
But hey, what can you do.
It had been a life spent chasing a dream. But a person whose dream has died is left hollow at the core — and I had nothing to be responsible for. No family, no friends. Nothing. All my dream had ever given me was wounds.
So these weren't memories I cared to revisit — but there were times you had to talk about them. Pro wrestling as an industry had decayed, sure, but everyone our age had grown up watching it. Of course people got curious about the life behind the curtain.
So, what was it like for me?
It was shit.
I took a sip of water. Beside me, Chuck was grinning ear to ear.
"Ahh, those days! Rockcold and The Pock were huge. The Pock was making it big as a Hollywood movie star back then, and he even went on to become President of the United States."
"He retired right before my time, so I don't really know him."
His retirement and my debut had overlapped almost to the day.
"That's right about when I quit watching wrestling, actually. Which is why I never even knew you'd been a wrestler."
"Even if you'd watched, you wouldn't remember. I barely ever made it onto TV."
"Really? Why not?"
"Beats me."
I dodged the question. Pro wrestling ran on a different logic than ordinary sports, which made this an awkward one to answer.
There were criteria, of course. Broadly speaking, four of them.
A look that fit your gimmick. Acting ability on the microphone. The wrestling skill to carry a match. And last — backstage politics.
Not that I'd possessed all four back in my days as a wrestler.
But even if I had, the wall of 'race' wouldn't have moved an inch.
Throughout the WWF's history, the top stars who carried the company had almost all been white. Because the audience they courted was mostly working- and lower-class white blue-collar folks.
Black wrestlers who reached the top... three of them? No, four?
There had been a handful from Mexico, a few from Europe — but an Asian like me? Not one. Not ever.
Seeing how grave my face had gotten, Chuck panicked and tried to change the subject.
"S-so, uh, what was the wrestler life like?"
"Hellishly painful. Genuinely — when I think back, all I remember is pain."
"I mean, you just kinda throw your body around in a ring, right?"
"...Does it look like child's play to you?"
"Isn't it all fake?"
"It's scripted. But we're the ones executing the script — and every part of us is real."
"That's almost philosophical, Kim."
Chuck laughed, looking intrigued.
"So what was your name? You had one, right? A wrestler name."
"My name?"
"Come on. A ring name."
"...Kung-Fury."
"Huh? I thought you were Chinese?"
"Korean. But the company told me to do it, so I did it."
For all their rough, macho image, pro wrestlers were slaves to the company. Being forced to jump however high they demanded — that was simply the reality of the individual.
And back then, I'd told myself that was fine. Follow orders, and someday my chance would come.
It didn't. The rigid industry was a cesspool of factional politics, and above it all hung a glass ceiling that guys like me couldn't even dream of breaking.
And yet the name 'star' — the ones shining above that ceiling — made my heart pound every single time. The kind of dream everyone vaguely entertains; in my case, it happened to be pro wrestling. I'd dreamed of standing tall as World Champion someday, loved by legions of fans.
It ended as nothing but a dream, though.
Through my entire career, I'd never played anything but the 'loser' whose job was to elevate those stars.
A martial arts master from the East... in name only — in truth, just a chump. That was me. That was 'Kung-Fury.' That was the role I'd been given.
I never made it any further.
Pro wrestling had a caste system, ranked by a performer's standing.
At the very top, the Icons. A status so lofty that only a handful of performers in the industry's entire history had ever reached it — and every one of them had become famous far beyond the business, beloved across all of America. Greats like Captain Logan, Shawn Cena, and Rockcold Stevie Steen.
Just below them were those known as Legends — the pillars who had anchored the eras the Icons built.
And below that — the active headliners fighting over the top-tier titles like the World Championship were called Main Eventers. Beneath them, the roster divided by standing into upper-, mid-, and low-carders.
And at the very bottom, me.
To put it kindly, a 'worker.' To put it bluntly, a 'jobber' — a professional loser of a wrestler. I never once got a cheer from the crowd. Everyone was indifferent to me. I'd learned plenty of flashy techniques, and I only ever used them on the mat instead of a person.
Granted, you could argue I was a perfectly good pro wrestler in the sense that I served the industry that way. But I had wanted to be a star. I'd wanted to be the one lifted up, not the one doing the lifting.
Deep in the twilight of that unfulfilled career, the thought would sometimes creep in: if I'd been a white American, would the outcome have been different?
It was only after retiring and becoming a producer that I understood the truth.
I was never the material to begin with.
Let's be brutally honest — I hadn't tried. I neglected even the basic conditioning expected of a pro wrestler. Told myself it didn't matter since no one would let me talk anyway, so I never practiced my promos. I never even fixed the bad habits I'd been called out for as a young wrestler.
That was why nobody had ever expected anything of me. And so what? Everyone knew an Asian rising to the top of American pro wrestling was impossible. That prejudice had me in its grip my whole life — which was exactly why I never tried.
The fault was mine. And the world's. Neither one outweighed the other.
If nothing else... I should have started with myself.
While I was lost in these thoughts, Chuck drained his coffee and got to his feet.
"...Kim. Let's get back to work."
"Yeah, yeah."
He must have sensed how dark my mood had turned, because he asked nothing more. I brushed off my pants, stood, and — shuffling after him as he headed back toward the crane's cab — stared at his back.
Beep-beep-beep.
The crane crept closer. And somehow, that sound reminded me of my old entrance music.
That tiresome, Chinese-flavored thing.
The ring announcer's voice introduced me. I climbed into the ring, deliberately performing exaggerated martial-arts flourishes the whole way — and because it was so absurdly funny, I'd built a cult following among the fans.
If I'd realized that back then, I would have kept drilling fresh, hilarious moves to win them over. But I hated my own gimmick, so I never even bothered looking for a reaction. If I had it to do over, I'd have fought to show the world the charm I had, working at it every single day.
But what could I do about it now?
I was a fifty-year-old man. Far too old to return to the business. Nothing remained for me.
And still, the delusion came. The future that might have changed if only I'd tried. The moment I'd have faced off, at last, against the legendary names of my own era — having overcome the limits of being Asian.
The main event of Wrestle Imperium.
And standing in that ring would be me. The World Champion. Cheered on by hundreds of thousands.
Right at that moment—
Huh?
My body floated up into empty air. A fierce gust had swept through.
Come to think of it, the memo said today's materials could kick up wind, so buy and use safety equipment...
But the safety harness cost over two hundred dollars. I'd only need it for today, and I'd figured two hundred dollars was a luxury. And that was what killed me.
I fell. Two hundred and fifty meters down.
The howling wind whipped past my ears and melted into Kung-Fury's entrance music.
Shoo-shk, shk-shoo-shoo-shk~ Kung~ Fury~
I told them I was Korean, damn it.
Sons of bitches.
I bolted upright in bed.
"HuuuAAAGH?!"
A scream tore out between my lips. Grabbing at whatever my hands found, I gulped down air.
A bed. Blinds. Empty liquor bottles.
"Wh... where...?"
Where was I? I scanned my surroundings, bewildered — clothes strewn everywhere like garbage, a cramped, messy room.
"What... the...?"
Déjà vu washed over me. The blurry vision sharpened, and before long, I realized exactly where I was.
This is... without a doubt...
The camper I'd lived in back during my indie wrestling days. There was no mistaking it. Photos of me with wrestlers and fans from every corner of the country covered the walls — and, decisively, the flashy wrestling gear hanging carelessly on the shelf was unmistakably mine.
My mind went hollow. None of it made sense. Because my memories were perfectly intact.
I had fallen two hundred and fifty meters off a tower crane, swept away by the wind.
Chasing pointless daydreams, and then an accident... but why am I here?
A dream? Or the afterlife? As I looked around thinking that, I realized all five of my senses were working just fine — and my eyes went wide.
There was a mirror on the far side of the bed. And the reflection staring back at me was unmistakably... my twenty-three-year-old self.
Blond hair settled it. The only time in my entire life I'd been blond was at twenty-three. I'd thought it looked cool back then. To everyone else, it was just an Asian who'd gone blond.
What the hell is going on?
Nothing added up. Panicking, I moved carefully to climb out of bed — and that was when a knock came from outside the door, followed by a voice.
"Hey, Jun. You up?"
Goosebumps rippled across my skin at the familiar voice.
"Adam Jonathan Silverland...?"
"What, are you my mom when she's pissed? Why are you suddenly calling people by their full name?"
I stood there, dumbstruck. Adam was the friend who'd stuck with me after I ran away from home at twenty, chasing the dream of pro wrestling. For three years we'd traveled the indie circuit together, wrestling all over the country. Then Adam had made it into a WWF developmental territory a step ahead of me — and gone on to become big. By the end of his career, they'd call him one of the greatest heels of all time.
What is this? When the hell is 'now'? Is this a dream, or is it real? What is happening?!
"Coming in..."
Adam stepped inside. I blurted out the first thing rattling around my head.
"A-Adam, what day is it today?"
"What kind of nonsense is that? It's tryout day, dumbass. Get your head on straight and eat breakfast."
My whole body went rigid.
The memory came flooding back. We had taken that tryout together for a WWF developmental territory that was scouting trainees. And I had failed. Because the Cuban sandwich I'd eaten that morning turned out to be bad, and I'd gotten the runs in the middle of the ring. Afterward... for a few months, I actually suspected Adam might have slipped something into that sandwich.
"Here — your favorite."
And Adam was holding out to me, at this very moment, that infamous Cuban sandwich.
"...You have got to be kidding me."
Is this for real?