Yesterday, Buzzfeed published an article featuring Turkish oil wrestling. People took note, because the sport involves men oiling themselves up heavily before wrestling. Winning involves putting your hands down your opponents pants, as you can see in the video above.
Probably not something we'd get to do in a game, right? Actually...
Fighting games, bless their hearts, take inspiration from many things. Including, yes, Turkish oil wrestling. Meet Hakan, from Super Street Fighter IV:
"Hakan is the president of the world's leading edible oil manufacturer and a leader in Turkey's national sport of Yağlı güreş. He enters the S.I.N. tournament to showcase his skills, while also travelling the world in search of inspiration for a new oil recipe (after beating up and interrogating a trespassing thug whom he accuses of being an industrial spy)."
Huh, interesting. Except, there's almost an erotic undertone to the real Turkish wrestling, isn't there? Look at this. Just look at it.
Whereas Hakan barely looks like a real person (though he is beefed up), and he's also rather goofy (which is in-tune with the rest of Super Street Fighter IV, sure). Check him out in motion in the video here.
I guess you could find the ultra he does in the second half of the video as sexualized given what he says and what he's doing, but only if you're being kind of immature about it.
I can't help but wonder what it would have been like to play Super Street Fighter 4 with a more serious, if not more erotic Turkish wrestler. Either way, I doubt many of us will look at Hakan the same now.
Image Credit: Cemil Kömürcü Photography via Buzzfeed