Ugandan Wrestling

Norrin Radd

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Kidd Dibiase

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Money Changes Everything

Inspired by their visit, Mason and Mansoor (now signed to AEW as MxM Collection) decided they needed to do more. They organized a who’s who list of wrestlers, social media stars, and even wrestling media members to raise money for the group.

This wasn’t the first time that someone tried to help SGW financially, however. The initial effort portended what should have been seen as a sign to tap the brakes and devise a plan. Instead, everyone involved, including international wrestling superstars and world champions, doubled down.

After seeing some SGW clips on social media, an American teen (not named due to being a minor) reached out to help. Bumbash quickly declared him the US Ambassador for SGW, and a GoFundMe campaign was launched. The stated purpose was to raise funds for the purchase of a proper wrestling ring. The goal was to raise $10,000. That goal was exceeded thanks to the help of some of the biggest names in wrestling.7

AEW standouts Daniel Garcia and Will Ospreay donated, as well as TNA Wrestling’s Jordynne Grace. Ospreay gave $2,000. Garcia chipped in $100, and Grace contributed a donation of $200.8 Much of the remainder came from everyday people.

Eventually, the former SGW associate who organized the GoFundMe campaign was suspended from Twitter, never to return after a campaign of online harassment incited by both Bumbash followers and skeptics accused him of withholding the funds from SGW and causing delays in getting the much-needed money to Uganda. An innocent kid had been implicated both as a thief and part of an international conspiracy to scam people out of their hard-earned money.

The truth is that a teenager is not in the best position to handle international monetary transfers. No matter how successful the campaign would have been, the unprepared minor was in over his head. Any legitimate businessperson would laugh at the very idea of allowing a teen to handle large sums of money with the eyes of the world on them. Bumbash embraced it, knowing having a scapegoat on the back burner may prove useful.

Getting money to Uganda is enough of a conundrum. GoFundMe and many other services are unable to directly send funds to the country, resulting in the use of the third-party wire service, WorldRemit. There were also fees tagged on by GoFundMe, PayPal, and various other services used to convert the currency from US dollars, then to British pounds, and finally to Ugandan Shillings.

Due to the complexity of this process, the transfers were facilitated through a person in the UK with dual Ugandan citizenship and known by Bumbash named Sophia Vee. Despite a large chunk of the donations being lost to the fees, what was left of the money did make it to its destination. Bumbash was furious over the delays, however, and began blaming the very people who were working hard on his behalf.

Several sources directly involved with the situation, including individuals no longer associated with Soft Ground Wrestling painted a picture of a young person who was trying to help a cause he believed in being strong-armed by Bumbash. Text messages obtained during interviews for this story show that Bumbash openly bragged about being pushy and abusive to the teen who was trying to help his peers from across the globe achieve their lofty ambitions as oblivious outsiders looked for somebody to point the finger at. He did not sugarcoat his treatment of the volunteer.

“I abused [the fundraising volunteer] badly,” Bumbash wrote in a text message to one of his associates. “… Once provoked, I become a snake.”

Bumbash, in that same conversation, went on to brag about outsmarting the youth.

“I think I am not dumb,” he boasted. He went on to describe how his degree in surveying uniquely equipped him to outsmart a teenager. That volunteer has since disappeared from all involvement in SGW, citing harassment and stalking stemming from the controversy.

Bumbash also had a backup plan in case the money didn’t arrive as planned. Multiple insiders confirmed that a video had been shot wherein SGW trainees were told to speak about how they were ripped off, shifting blame to the frightened volunteer, who at the time was desperately trying to find a way to get the money to Uganda. This was then held over his head by Bumbash himself. An array of threatening, aggressive communications warned the former SGW associate that if Bumbash didn’t get his money, they would blame him and take pains to ruin his reputation publicly, before there was even a chance to establish it.

As observers of the increasingly popular online sensation awaited the arrival of the money, the tone turned against those involved with the fundraiser, leading to an online bullying campaign that ultimately inspired amateur internet detectives to harass, stalk, and threaten the youngster who put the whole campaign together. That included private threats from Bumbash himself, which understandably left the volunteer terrified. Despite all of this, the funds made it to the personal bank account of the SGW founder.

With a hefty portion of the money being paid out to the various financial service providers and banks, there was not enough left to purchase a ring. In a video posted by Bumbash to the Soft Ground Wrestling account on X as well as one shared on the GoFundMe page9, the group claimed that taxes, transportation, and other factors made it impossible to purchase a ring.10 Instead, the money would be used to build an office and food storage area. It is unknown how much of this initial money went toward those goals, but an SGW source did note that those buildings had already been in place since at least October, months before the fundraiser took place.

This was the first in a long line of questionable events relating to Bumbash’s alleged abuses and Mafia boss-like tactics in the way he handles the business of SGW. There had long been jokes and perhaps dubious suspicions that SGW could be a scam. Bumbash simply promotes it as a place where orphans can come, train, get their bodies and minds in shape, eat well, and learn the ropes of pro wrestling. There were certainly red flags right from the start, but they either went undetected or ignored. Bumbash and his troupe of young grapplers marched forward, riding the wave of their international viral success.

As the Lord White storyline got hot with the social media audience, Mase and Mansoor made their visit, creating even more buzz. They allowed SGW to sell t-shirts with their likeness to raise money.11 Soon, they announced an online stream that would feature a cavalcade of stars to help SGW wrestlers “Achieve the Dream.”

The goal was to raise money for beds, mattresses, six months of food and water, a van so the group could travel, and cash to buy or continue to lease the land they were renting for $200 a month. The event was set for May 6, 2024.12

Famed pro wrestling scoops reporter Sean Ross Sapp joined Mase and Mansoor along with former WWE star Mojo Rawley, AEW World Champion Swerve Strickland, Maffew (of Botchamania fame), YouTube star Justin Whang, and other wrestlers from TNA, WWE, AEW, and the independent circuit including Mojo Rawley, Evil Uno, Mustafa Ali, Donovan Dijak, Joe Hendry, and Nikki Cross for the festivities. The stream had an endlessly positive vibe, and the public was more than happy to send their money to help what they believed were starving kids in a poor country.

Things went better than anyone could have possibly anticipated. The pro wrestling community showed its resolve and love for what Bumbash and company were building. The stream raised nearly $30,000. Mansoor’s mother kicked in the entire amount of cash needed to buy the van. The future of SGW appeared to be secure, and the good news didn’t stop rolling in.

After raising $40,000 with the initial intent of buying a wrestling ring, SGW was still, quite literally, in the mud. The following month, the top star in WWE and one of the most recognizable wrestlers on the planet voiced his support. Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes announced via a video13 that he was going to buy a fully funded ring for Soft Ground Wrestling to be constructed locally so that the logistics pitfalls of the first attempt could be more readily avoided. They now had the money, a legitimate squared circle on the way, and a solid core of international fans who wanted to see what might come next for the unlikely crew.
 

Kidd Dibiase

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“I’ve Never Lied”: The Myriad Lies of Bumbash Daniel

It was at this point that some wrestling fans started to notice that Bumbash was getting a little bit bombastic for a man ostensibly running a charity. The SGW founder started floating delusional ideas of events in a 50,000-seat stadium
.14 Major wrestling outlets picked up on the unverified claim by Bumbash that SGW had signed a television deal, as well.15 On July 1, 2024, Bumbash used the official SGW account on X to make this major announcement. He pulled no punches, stating that a contract had been signed.

“Today SGW signed an agreement with a local famous media company [NBS Sport] to start airing Soft Ground Wrestling on media waves. This is a huge milestone. Thank you, lord,” he wrote.

Searching for more details, I contacted NBS Sport for more information and to verify the news, which is one step farther than any other media outlet covering the story. I was met with silence. I reached out to a source within SGW, who told me that they weren’t sure if there really was a television deal.

Bumbash himself did respond to my request for more information.

When asked to prove the deal was legitimate, Bumbash sent me part of an undated, unsigned contract, allegedly between NBS Television Limited d/b/a NBS Sport and Soft Ground Wrestling Uganda, of Elita Plaza Nankulabye, Kampala, Uganda.

I informed him that this single page proved nothing. It provided no terms, no timeframe, and no signatures.

Bumbash then sent me another page, presumably the final page of the “contract.” It listed miscellaneous terms regarding a memorandum of understanding. There were signature places for Kin Kariisa, CEO of NBS Television Limited and Obadia Ismail, Chief Legal Officer. The second party signatures had spaces for Daniel Bumba (Bumbash), listed as the Managing Director of Soft Ground Wrestling Uganda, along with Deputy Manager Shafik Kamoga and Operations Manager Samuel Sewamala. None of them were signed.

I bluntly asked Bumbash if he was lying about a contract being signed, as he was unable to provide one.

Bumbash replied, “They gave me [this] to read and after shall send [you] everything once we agree on the exact time… Everything is well and being worked upon. That was the draft they gave me by email.”

I once again directly asked Bumbash if there was a signed contract for an SGW TV show as he had claimed. He once again dodged the question, saying, “I will send [you] all the details this week… The contract is secured already. Can’t send you those specifics, but that’s the authentic contract from NBS TV.”

In other words, there was no signed contract. After I once again asked directly, Bumbash told me to contact NBS. There may well someday be a Soft Ground Wrestling television show on NBS Sport, but Bumbash is confirmed to have lied when it came to telling the world that an agreement had been signed.

It is worth noting that there is no Board of Directors for Soft Ground Wrestling Uganda, because it does not legally exist. A search for any legal entity known as “Soft Ground Wrestling” yields no results from the Uganda Registration Services Bureau database. My source pointed me in the direction of a “Bumbash Wrestling Academy.”

In the past, Bumbash has presented paperwork denoting that he had become a legitimate wrestling school. However, the application for “Bumbash Wrestling Academy,” filed on March 12, 2024, has yet to be approved. The TV contract did not mention this entity, instead naming Soft Ground Wrestling specifically. Soft Ground Wrestling, as of July 30, 2024, is neither a legal business, charity, orphanage, school, or any other type of entity as far as the laws of Uganda are concerned.

A close Bumbash colleague provided several documents that he claimed proved the legitimacy of Soft Ground Wrestling as a legal entity. These documents, in fact, proved nothing, other than that paperwork to form a company called Bumbash Wrestling Academy Limited was filed, but not completed.

The documents establish Bumbash Wrestling Academy Limited as a company limited by guarantee. This is common for non-profit groups in Uganda. There are a handful of requirements to gain full legal recognition, which would allow the group to receive donations tax free. The process for forming this type of company is simple.

The first step is to draft and file a Memorandum and Articles of Association to establish the entity. This document was obtained and is dated January 1, 2024. Next, the company must elect two adult directors and name two adult members. These are outlined in the Articles as Bumba Daniel Sedrick and Asiimwe Arthur Simon. Third, a name reservation must be filed. This document was indeed submitted and accepted by the URSB on March 12, 2024. Next, an application for registration needs to be completed, and the two directors must submit additional personal information as well as passports. This document was also filed, and a copy was obtained that showed proof of receipt by the Uganda Registration Services Bureau. Once that is finished, the URSB will approve the incorporation and send out a Certificate of Incorporation. This document is what proves that a company is legally incorporated to operate in Uganda; without it, they do not exist. There does not appear to be a valid certificate.

Bumbash did not respond to repeated requests to see the document. An associate insisted that it exists but refused to provide it. It was odd that Bumba and Asiimwe would go through the trouble to complete all this paperwork, but not to finalize it. They insisted that this was an error on the URSB website and that they had a valid certificate but were not willing to share it in order to clear up the confusion. This type of deflection became common as Bumbash continued to pile on the lies.

A search of the URSB database of registered names shows a reservation16 for the company name “Bumbash Wrestling Academy Limited.” The listing shows a reservation number rather than a registration number, indicating that the process was not complete. Other businesses shown in the company name search are listed as “Registered.”

The URSB business entity search17 returns no results for Bumbash Wrestling Academy Limited. Therefore, there is no evidence that it legally exists. Nobody at SGW was willing to explain what steps were missed or why there is no certificate.

These details are important, as it means that all assets (including cash donations), contracts, and agreements are in the personal name of Bumba Daniel Sedrick, rather than Bumbash Wrestling Academy, as they should be if this were a valid tax-exempt non-profit. That is, after all, the whole point of forming the company. As it stands, nobody could stop Bumbash from walking away with everything, short of the authorities charging him with some type of crime.
 

Kidd Dibiase

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A Culture of Deception and Abuse

In the post-mortem of the hugely successful Achieve the Dream fundraiser led by Mase and Mansoor, it was reported to me by an SGW insider that after the first fundraising fiasco, the latest batch of funds were sent directly to somebody in SGW other than Bumbash to try and keep things from getting out of hand. Bumbash has allegedly made repeated threats to that person, becoming infuriated and making veiled threats when he was accused of mishandling money. People who cared about the students didn’t want to see any more cash disappear, and there was a faction that was growing to distrust Bumbash more by the day. Even the van that Mansoor’s mother footed the bill for was registered to Bumbash personally. There is nothing to stop him from using it for anything he wants outside of the scope of SGW. Things needed to be reined in.

The same source stated that there are people in SGW who appear to be in a cult-like trance and are vehemently pro-Bumbash and believe everything he says, even when you point out that they are obvious lies. Others who have not fallen under Bumbash’s spell have pulled no punches and talked candidly with fans and some in the wrestling media about their personal experiences with SGW’s leader as the threats and strong-arming over access to the donated money continued to boil over.

During my chat with Daniel Bumbash, he continually denied any wrongdoing while also getting caught in lies and inconsistencies about the legitimacy of his venture. Initially, I was not interested in doing any reporting on this subject. I simply had a curiosity to find out exactly what was going on in Kampala. I wanted to believe in the apparent goodness that had enveloped the wrestling community. That all changed on July 30, 2024, when he personally reached out to me. His lies were so bombastic that I had to say something.

At first, I told him I was not interested in chatting.

Bumbash responded, “Please listen to my side.”

“I’ve Never Lied”

I was curious, so I told him I would. He said that he made a terrible mistake by allowing people who are fighting against SGW to get too close. He insisted that the accusations hurt him and maintains that they are false. Bumbash even blamed his biggest star, Lord White, declaring, “Lord White is fighting Soft Ground.”

I asked about a since-deleted social media post made on June 4, 2024, that declared that SGW students and talent had gone out to “donate to the poor and disabled people using wrestling as an umbrella.”18 They allegedly made these pilgrimages in the new van that was purchased by Mansoor’s mother.

Over a month later, Nova Talent Elevation Africa, a charitable organization, responded to news reports on SGW using the van to feed the poor. They stated, “The information and content shared in the above post belongs only to Nova Talent Elevation Africa and we have no business relationship with SGW Wrestling Uganda.”19

The photos used were from a TikTok from an event in 2023, and the van was not the same van purchased with the funds from Mansoor’s mother. It was a Nova Talent event that Bumbash was taking full credit for, despite having nothing to do with it.

I asked him why he had lied so brazenly about such a thing.

Bumbash pushed back, “I’ve never lied.”

He was informed that he was caught red-handed and shown the post replies from Nova. I pointed out the inconsistency. Bumbash calmly responded, admitting his lie while also blowing it off.

“We are stronger no matter what. We are rectifying that.”

A source within SGW also noted that the idea that the organization was a haven for orphans and homeless kids was largely a myth. Bumbash was running a business but presenting it to potential financial backers as a charity designed to help the poor and orphaned youth of Uganda.

A more-than-significant number of SGW wrestlers are actually adults.20 Many of them are not homeless or even orphans. In his own YouTube videos, Bumbash advertised that there is a 150,000 UGX (Ugandan Shillings) fee to train at SGW. That’s about $40 US dollars, a steep price for so-called starving orphans. According to Unesco21, the average monthly wage for Ugandan workers with no education in 2019 was UGX 143,045 (approximately $25 US). These are ostensibly unemployed, homeless orphans; at least that is how Daniel Bumbash has been presenting SGW to the world and what he views as potential money marks.

Bumbash admitted that he is making the students pay for food and to stay at the training facility, where donated money was used to purchase around 100 beds and to pay the rent. Bumbash has provided some receipts to validate this, but the source, who is familiar with prices and currency in Uganda, said the cost was inflated by something approaching 50%. Another Bumbash affiliate alleged that at least some of the receipts were faked. Several involved believe there is a strong chance that Bumbash pocketed the rest.

I asked Bumbash how much students pay to eat, train, and stay at the SGW facility. Once again, the response was misleading at best, and a flat out lie at worst.

“That’s not true,” he said of the students paying to attend the school.


I referred him back to his own promotional video.

“Some of them who are not orphans pay $1.50 for purchase of toilet paper, electricity bills, rent for their dormitories, water bills, soap for cleaning. The $1.50 is for those who are not orphans, and it is paid weekly hence they pay for small household bills. They did this since last year.”

Bumbash did not mention the initial $40 fee for training at any point during our conversation, despite openly advertising it in his promotional videos. Presuming that is a one-time fee, SGW is “helping” orphans to the tune of charging them 439,236.47 UGX ($118) for the first year and 290,342.75 UGX ($78) for each additional year. All of this to pay for things that other people have already paid for.

I asked Bumbash what his moral justification was for charging any of the students when all the beds, the food, the land, and other amenities were donated by fans and wrestlers. His reply implied that any previously raised money has already been burned through.

“There are 120 kids who [are] difficult to maintain once you don’t have funds. They fall sick, they eat, we travel, and also buy clothing for them. Remember, we need good cameras [and] software for editing.”


I then asked about any revenues that were generated from merchandise sales or through social media and how it was distributed. Specifically, I asked him, “If I buy a Coolman (one of the more popular SGW wrestlers) t-shirt, how much money does Coolman receive for the use of his likeness?”

“Coolman gets $10 [per shirt]. That’s why he is even getting a passport soon for $200 from his procedes.”

I asked if this meant that Bumbash had not distributed any of the $200 to Coolman.

“We are getting him a passport travel document with the money.”

Bumbash claims that Coolman needs the passport as he will soon go to Japan for further training and experience. He was not forthcoming regarding details on who is paying for the trip, when it is happening, or any further information. At this point, the trip is as real as the SGW TV contract. If SGW is paying, it will be out of donated funds that Bumbash earlier said had run out. It could also be by more wrestlers dropping even more cash on this questionable yet somehow completely unvetted enterprise.

As far as the money goes, it costs roughly 250,000 UGX ($65 US) to get a passport in Uganda. It takes ten working days to process at that fee tier. There are no immediate international bookings coming up for Coolman, so there would be no reason to have to spend the extra 150,000 UGX ($40.30 US) to expedite that process to two days. Ironically, this was in line with just about the share of the donation money that my source accused Bumbash of pocketing, give or take some potential bribery at the Directorate of Citizen and Immigration Control.

I asked Bumbash where the other $85 went. He did not respond. I followed up by asking if he could provide any corporate documents proving that SGW was a legitimate, registered business. He has still not answered. I do not anticipate that he will.
 
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