WWE如何將美式職業摔角秀給中國
SHANGHAI — Wang Bin looked down. A man wearing a blue skintight unitard writhed at his feet. Mr. Wang grinned. This was the moment he had been waiting for.
上海——王彬朝身下看去。一名穿着藍色彈力緊身衣的男子在他的腳邊翻滾。王彬咧開嘴笑了。這是他期待已久的時刻。
So, too, had Cheng Shi. When Mr. Wang lifted the writhing man and slammed him to the floor for a three-count, it completed Mr. Cheng’s dream of watching a professional wrestler — battling in that most American of fake spectacles — who hailed from China.
這也是程石一直期待的時刻。當王彬把蜷縮在自己腳下的人拉起來，然後把他猛勁摔在地板上，再數到三時，程石的夢想實現了，他觀看了一名來自中國的職業摔角手參加這種最美國式的假打表演。
“I feel very proud and excited to see him onstage tonight, and so do all the fans,” Mr. Cheng, a 21-year-old student who makes fan videos for a Chinese audience, said before the match. He pointed at the screen of his smartphone to indicate the thousands of people watching him on his live broadcast. “We are very, very excited.”
程石是一名爲中國觀衆製作摔角粉絲視頻的學生，今年21歲。他在比賽前說，“今晚能在擂臺上看到他，我感到非常自豪和激動，所有的粉絲也有同感。”他指着他的智能手機屏幕，屏幕上可以看出有數千人在觀看他的現場直播。“我們非常、非常激動。”
Looking for eyeballs and new money sources, World Wrestling Entertainment — the company that brought Hulk Hogan and Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson into American living rooms — has grand ambitions for a bigger but much more difficult market. It has started a new service live-streaming Chinese-language matches and commentary. It is also combing China’s provinces for more beefy talent like Mr. Wang.
爲了尋找眼球和新的資金來源，曾把霍克•霍肯(Hulk Hogan)和綽號“巨石”的道恩•強森[Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson]帶入美國客廳的世界摔角娛樂公司（World Wrestling Entertainment，簡稱WWE），對一個更大但困難更多的市場野心勃勃。該公司已開始了一項新服務，播放配有中文評論的賽事直播，也正在中國各省尋找像王彬這樣的壯碩人才。
China presents formidable challenges. Entertainment names like Netflix and Rupert Murdoch have taken aim at China’s population of 1.4 billion only to run afoul of the country’s tight controls over media. Wrestling’s cartoon violence and sometimes salacious story lines could attract unwanted attention from the government. And while it has its fans, American-style wrestling-as-scripted-entertainment is largely unheard-of among mainland Chinese.
中國市場對該公司來說是一個巨大的挑戰。像Netflix和魯伯特•默多克(Rupert Murdoch)這樣的娛樂公司都已看準了中國14億的人口，但它們也與中國對媒體的嚴格控制發生着衝突。摔角的卡通暴力和有時帶有色情色彩的故事情節可能會吸引來自政府不必要的關注。雖然摔角有自己的粉絲，但是，作爲按照劇本編排的娛樂，這種美式摔角在中國大陸還基本上沒有什麼觀衆。
“There is no presence of product over here,” said John Cena, the square-jawed wrestler and action movie star who has learned to speak some Chinese as part of the push. By tackling the language, he added, “I’m kind of a vehicle to leverage what we’ve done.”
“在這裏還沒有以產品的形式存在，”約翰•塞納(John Cena)說，作爲市場開拓努力的一部分，這位方下巴的摔角手兼動作電影明星已經學會說一些中文了。他補充說，通過解決語言問題，“我可以說是一個工具，爲我們所做的事情起到槓桿作用。”
Wrestling’s answer is to go local — and digital. Bypassing state-controlled broadcast television, it has teamed with a video-streaming company to reach fans though computers and mobile devices.
摔角的中國市場解決方案是本地化，以及數字化。繞過國家控制的廣播電視，公司已與一家視頻流媒體公司合作，通過計算機和移動設備直接觸及粉絲。
It has also geared up efforts to introduce a new audience to the suplex, the body slam and the drop-kick. W.W.E. has hired four full-time social media directors in Shanghai to maintain local-language social media accounts for its wrestlers and executives. It is also hosting viewing parties, like one this month in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, in which locals devoured pizza and cream sodas while watching a pay-per-view wrestling match and playing the W.W.E.’s latest Xbox video game.
公司也在努力把背摔、抱舉對手重摔，以及飛身踢介紹給新的觀衆。WWE已在上海聘請了四名全職社交媒體總監，爲其摔角手和高管們維護本地語言的社交媒體帳戶。公司還主辦了觀看聚會，例如本月在中國城市廣州舉辦的那場，應邀前來的當地觀衆吃着披薩餅、喝着汽水，同時觀看着按次付費的摔角比賽，玩着WWE最新版的Xbox視頻遊戲。
Success requires exposing Chinese audiences to a new type of entertainment — a choreographed drama in which the outcome is known, though its dangers and injuries are sometimes shockingly real.
要想成功，就需要讓中國觀衆接觸到一種新型的娛樂，一種結果事先就定下來、精心編排的打鬥劇，雖然這種表演的危險和傷害有時真實地令人震驚。
“They’ve never really seen anything like us,” said Paul Levesque, W.W.E.’s executive in charge of talent and live events, who is also a partly retired wrestler better known as Triple H. “The athleticism is very real. The story lines and the theater part of it is where they had a hard time with the blurred line of that.”
“他們從未看到過我們這樣的東西，”WWE負責人才和直播活動的執行官保羅•萊維斯克(Paul Levesque)說，他也是以Triple H而聞名、半退休的摔角手。“這裏面的運動能力是非常真實的。他們難以接受的是其中的故事情節和戲劇部分，那是讓表演和比賽的界限模糊的地方。”
To friends unfamiliar with wrestling, “I find that the shortest way to tell them is to say it’s an American version — a global version — of the kung fu novel,” said Jay Li, a longtime executive at multinational companies in China who in April joined W.W.E. as its general manager for greater China. “They get it immediately, because they immediately have a cultural connection and a mental image of what this is about.”
對於不熟悉摔角的朋友來說，“我發現，向他們解釋的最簡單的方法是說那是一個美國版的、一個全球版的功夫小說，”長期擔任跨國公司中國區執行官的李傑(Jay Li)說，他已於今年4月作爲大中華區總經理加入了WWE。“他們馬上就明白了，因爲他們馬上就產生了一種文化聯繫，腦海中就有了這是怎麼一回事的概念。”
While a lot of attention has been placed in recent years on the expansion into Hollywood of Chinese companies like Dalian Wanda, most foreign entertainment firms struggle to make comparable inroads in China. For some, like Disney, penetrating China has meant giving the Communist Party greater say over its business on the mainland.
雖然近年來，像大連萬達這樣的中國公司進軍好萊塢的擴張相當引人注目，但大多數外國娛樂公司在中國的類似努力卻困難重重。對於一些公司，比如迪士尼來說，進入中國市場意味着讓共產黨對其大陸業務有更大的話語權。
Sports — or something that looks like a sport — might be different. Sports enjoys thematic support from the government, which is big on hosting international events like the Olympics and promoting sports like soccer. China’s push to get soccer into schools and make the country a power in the sport has led companies to pay big sums for broadcast rights.
體育運動，或者看上去像體育運動的東西可能會有所不同。體育運動享受政府的專項支持，政府對舉辦如奧運會這樣的國際比賽，以及促進諸如足球這樣的運動高度重視。中國在學校推廣足球、把中國變成足球強國方面的努力，已導致不少公司爲爭奪轉播權投入大筆資金。
“Sports has historically been underdeveloped in China and online, and a lot of players are looking for ways to monetize that,” said Vivek Couto, a founder and a director at Media Partners Asia, an industry research consultant.
“體育運動在中國歷史上一直不發達，在網絡上也一樣，很多人都在尋找在這方面賺錢的方法，”維韋克•庫託(Vivek Couto)說，他是行業研究機構“亞洲傳媒夥伴”(Media Partners Asia)的創始人和董事。
Professional wrestling could use the eyeballs. Like other media companies, W.W.E. is grappling with the new world of cord-cutting, in which viewers drop their cable subscriptions and order shows, à la carte, via the internet.
職業摔角需要更多的眼球。像其他媒體公司一樣，WWE正在努力應對有線電視需求劇減的新世界，人們正在退掉他們訂購的有線電視服務，通過互聯網來點播想看的節目。
International viewers offer one potential growth area. They make up only about a quarter of the paid subscribers on W.W.E.’s digital subscription service, which is one of the biggest contributors to the company’s bottom line.
國際觀衆爲媒體公司提供了一個潛在的增長領域。國際觀衆只佔WWE數字化服務付費訂戶的四分之一，而數字化服務是對公司收入貢獻最大的服務之一。
As China shows, international growth isn’t always easy. In October, W.W.E. told investors it was still waiting to offer subscriptions directly to Chinese viewers.
正如中國的經驗所示，公司想在國際上增長並不總是容易的。今年10月，WWE對其投資者說，公司仍在等待能讓中國觀衆直接成爲其訂戶。
For now it works with a Chinese video company service called PPTV, which streams the company’s weekly flagship shows, called “SmackDown” and “RAW,” with real-time Mandarin commentary. (Suplex, in case you were wondering, translates as deshi beishuai, or “German-style back throw.”) PPTV subscriptions start at less than $3 per month, roughly a third of what W.W.E.’s own subscription service costs outside China, and include movies and other shows.
目前，WWE在與一家名爲PPTV的中國視頻公司合作，通過PPTV來播出公司每週一期、名爲SmackDown和RAW的主打節目，並實時配有普通話評論。（如果你想知道suplex怎麼翻譯，它被譯爲“德式背摔”。）PPTV訂戶每月最低收費爲20元（不到三美元），大約是WWE自己爲中國以外訂戶提供服務收費的三分之一，其服務也包括電影和其他節目。
Much rides on Mr. Wang, W.W.E.’s first mainland wrestler. The company’s social media team works to make him a star — his verified account on the Weibo social media service recently featured videos of him training at W.W.E.’s huge facility in Orlando, Fla. Seven other mainlanders, six men and one woman, will relocate to Orlando in January.
很多期望都寄託在WWE的首位大陸職業摔角手王彬的身上。公司的社交媒體團隊正在努力把他打造成一名明星，他在社交媒體微博上的認證帳戶最近推出了他在WWE佛羅里達州奧蘭多的巨大場地進行培訓的視頻。其他七名大陸人，六男一女，也將在明年1月到奧蘭多去。
Mr. Wang, a 22-year-old native of eastern Anhui Province, was an athlete after middle school, a member of the provincial rowing team. He later moved to Shanghai and took up sparring, and caught the attention of representatives from Inoki Genome Federation, a big Japanese wrestling and mixed martial arts promotion.
22歲的王彬來自東部的安徽省，中學畢業後當了運動員，曾是省賽艇隊隊員。他後來到上海去練散打搏擊，引起了Inoki Genome Federation代表的注意，那是推廣摔角和混合式武術的一家日本大型團體。
Mr. Wang spent three years in Japan before he was noticed by W.W.E. He signed a three-year development deal with the American company and started training in Orlando over the summer in preparation for his China debut.
在受到WWE的注意之前，王彬在日本待了三年。他與這家美國公司簽訂了爲期三年的發展協議，今年夏天在奧蘭多開始受訓，爲他在中國的首次登臺做準備。
When the moment finally arrived in Shanghai in September, Mr. Wang entered the arena to modern Chinese music. He gave the crowd a traditional Chinese, kung fu-style greeting, pressing his right fist into his left palm.
今年9月，當那個時刻終於在上海到來時，王彬在中國現代音樂聲中登上擂臺。他把左掌合到右拳上，對人羣報以中國傳統的功夫式問候。
His opponent, a wrestler named Bo Dallas, was booed by the Shanghai crowd before Mr. Wang tossed him to the mat, pinning him in a three-count on the second try.
他的對手是一個名叫博•達拉斯的摔角手(Bo Dallas)，上海觀衆對他報以噓聲。之後，王彬把對手摔在了墊子上，並在第二次摔倒對手後將其壓住了，直到數到三。
Mr. Wang doesn’t yet have a defined act or character, or even a flashy name. One of the oldest such personas in W.W.E.-style wrestling is the foreign heel, or bad guy; those include personas like Mr. Fuji, a Japanese villain played by Harry Fujiwara.
王彬還沒有一個明確的戲碼或角色要演，甚至也沒有一個花哨的名字。WWE式摔角中最古老這類角色之一是外國渾蛋或壞人，包括比如像佐藤哈利(Harry Fujiwara)扮演的富士先生這種角色。
In an interview, Mr. Wang said he wasn’t a big believer in appealing to such nationalistic tropes.
在一次採訪中，王彬說，他不大相信用這種民族主義老調來吸引人。
“People shouldn’t see you for your nationality or ethnic group,” he said. “It’s less about that and more about what you can do, personally, as a warrior and a figure in the ring.”
“人們不應該只看你的國籍或民族，”他說。“那不重要，重要的是你能做什麼，你個人作爲一個鬥士、一個人物在擂臺上能做什麼。”
