The name Tiger Jeet Singh probably rings a bell among fans who followed pro wrestling in the late 1960s and early 1970s. With his turban, trusty sword and signature Cobra hold, Singh was part of a cavalcade of ethnic stereotypes that included the likes of Bobo Brazil and his Coco Bonk head butt, and arch-villain The Sheik and his nefarious manager, Abdullah (The Weasel) Farouk. So what's the Tiger been up to for the last three decades? As director Lalita Krishna's minimally budgeted documentary shows you, he's been big in Japan -- really.
As nostalgia, alas, Tiger! doesn't really work. But as an exploration of the bizarre career path that a Canadian immigrant can follow, it's oddly compelling. Jagit Singh Hans arrived in Vancouver from India in 1965 at age 17. After watching wrestling on TV, he hopped a train to Toronto and showed up in promoter Frank Tunney's office dressed in full Sikh regalia. Tunney knew a profitable gimmick when he saw it. In 1967, Singh won his first bout, against U.S. champion Johnny Valentine, in seconds: Singh tossed him into a corner and opened a wound requiring 32 stitches. Unfortunately, as the new U.S. titleholder (well, in Toronto at least), Singh was then paid just $100 a week for four matches. But wrestling gained in popularity, and in 1971, Singh and the Sheik drew a then-record crowd of 18,000 to Maple Leaf Gardens for a cage match. Singh was a bad guy, but the Sheik was worse -- praying to Allah before each bout, then cheating every time by pulling a "mysterious foreign object" from his trunks, gouging his opponent and feasting on his blood. Tunney paid Singh $6,800 for that match. "I bought my first Cadillac -- $5,400 cash," Singh recalls. The main trouble with Tiger!, however, is there's virtually no footage of any of his early Canadian bouts. But Singh soon found there was even more money to be made in Japan, and he's traveled there regularly ever since. Fortunately, there is plenty of Japanese ring footage, including several matches against Antonio Inoki, the long-time NWF world titleholder (well, world champion in Japan at least). Singh is now a multi-millionaire with a 100-acre estate in Milton, Ont. As Tiger! shows, he's a pussycat at home, playing soccer with his grandchildren and blowing out the candles at his 60th birthday last year. He's still a mountain of a man, though. Much of Tiger! shows him gearing up for a bout last year against 36-year-old Japanese judo champion Naoya Ogawa. I won't give away the result -- mainly because after repeated viewings, it still wasn't clear. But as always with wrestling, it's best not to look too closely.n