On a Friday night in September, the crowd at HM Fitness in Dubai was impatiently waiting for Joelle Hunter to appear for a third and final wrestling match against her rival, the Vigilante.
Joelle is the first female pro wrestler in the Middle East. Though she’s only had a handful of matches, she’s already made fans from all over the world, including American WWE champion Daniel Bryan.
Videos by VICE
In the green room backstage, however, Joelle was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was Gheeda Chamsaddine, a 5’4” 17-year-old girl dressed in short shorts, fishnets, and red lipstick stretching in a dimly lit gym. Moving slightly to the music from her massive headphones, she was still preparing to inhabit her wrestling character. For now, she said, she would “much rather do [the interview] as Gheeda.”
Read More: Battling to Save Malaysia’s Oldest MMA Gym
Growing up in Saudi Arabia, Chamsaddine used to play fight with other kids on the streets, but she hadn’t heard of wrestling until she moved to Dubai for high school. Friends introduced her to WWE and her love of the sport grew with each YouTube clip she watched.
“It’s unlike any other sport. It’s different. It’s something you put your heart into,” she said. “When you see people wrestling in the ring you feel emotion.”
Soon, just seeing was not enough. When Chamsaddine walked into Dubai Pro Wrestling school for the first time, nearly a year ago, she was scared. It was her first time in the ring, and she hadn’t expected to be the only girl. Once training began, though, she quickly felt at home.
“Everyone was so welcoming and supportive of me,” she said. “Ever since the first class, I just got hooked and I just kept coming back.”
Chamsaddine gets ready to enter the ring and make history. — Photo by E.K. Hudson.
“She’s so passionate about it,” said Caleb Hall, Chamsaddine’s coach and the school’s founder. “We weren’t going to stop her.”
Hall, an American wrestler who trained under such greats as Rip Rogers, Davey Boy Smith Jr., and the Hart family, moved to Dubai in 2013. Seeing a void of wrestling schools, Hall founded Dubai Pro Wrestling in January 2014, and now holds monthly matches to showcase his students. He hopes to create a wrestling community and establish competitive divisions in time.
Chamsaddine started making headlines around the world in June after she wrestled in a public match for the first time. Now, with her family and Hall’s support, she’s planning a career in wrestling. “I think she has a really good chance at it,” said Hall.
These days, a typical week for Chamsaddine includes six hours of wrestling at the school and 10 hours of weight training. In between, she does school work; she’s completing her final year of high school online.
Chamsaddine’s ring character, Joelle Hunter, is based partly on Chamsaddine’s reality and partly on the superwoman Chamsaddine wants to become. Joelle gets bullied a lot, according to Chamsaddine, but she is resilient and determined. “She’s always there to beat up anyone who’s there to beat her down or push her around.”
Since June, that person has been the Vigilante, also known as Michael Nassif, whom Chamsaddine casually calls Meesh. In their previous two matches, Vigilante was the victor and a fierce rivalry emerged. Vigilante dwarfs Joelle when they stand across from each other in the ring. He’s taller, wider, heavier, and he thinks Joelle doesn’t belong in the sport at all; his name comes from his desire to clean up “what she’s doing” to the sport.
“I know that people don’t like me saying that but I don’t really give a damn. She shouldn’t be wrestling,” he said before the match. “In a way, I’m saving her from getting even more humiliated and beat down than she already has been.”
Back in the green room, by the time I asked about Vigilante’s comments, Gheeda was gone.
“The only one who’s going to be cleaning is him and the only thing he’ll be cleaning [up are] his teeth after the match, after this match hopefully,” Joelle answered.
An hour later, Vigilante was running for the dressing room holding his injured arm and Joelle was fist-pumping in celebration of her first ever win. She let him keep his teeth.
Vigilante isn’t the only one who questions Joelle’s place in the sport. Usually, she said, the criticism hinges on her sanity. “They’re like, ‘OK, well this chick’s crazy’ or ‘You’re out of your mind. You shouldn’t be doing this.’ I say, everyone has their own passion. This is just mine.”
Hall is well aware of the gender dynamics surrounding Joelle’s wrestling career; its inclusion in her rivalry with Vigilante was intentional. Earlier in the week, Dubai Pro Wrestling posted a quote from Vigilante saying Joelle should be at home cooking and cleaning. “What we do is performance, it’s entertainment, it’s theatre, but a lot of it is very real,” Hall said. “There are people who see things the way Vigilante does and there are people who see it the way Joelle does so we’re playing off of real debates.”
In the Arabian Gulf, many Muslim women dress in traditional clothing such as abayas or hijabs. Traditionalists in Joelle’s native Saudi Arabia believe a woman’s place is not at work or behind the wheel of a car, let alone wrestling with the guys. Yet there is the red-lipped Joelle, in ripped shorts and a tank top, writhing on the mat wrestling a guy double her size.
To Hall, Joelle’s win sends a positive message to other would-be female wrestlers. “I think she is opening up the doors to people who maybe have the idea that they would like to do this,” he said.
The message resonated with 8-year-old Sara Seddiqi, who was in the audience with her family that night. She currently takes boxing lessons and dreams of being a wrestler. Creating a women’s division for girls like Sara is one of Joelle’s top goals for her wrestling career. She feels an obligation to leave the sport better for the Arab women and girls to come. After she’s accomplished that, she’ll set her sights on the WWE.
Walking out of the ring with a victory under her belt and a smile from ear-to-ear, Joelle had only a few words left to say: “Women’s wrestling will exist now and forever.”
