Kamala

CTL-E-6979 · Person · other · National era · 1980s–1990s

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07851 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6979.

James Arthur Harris (May 28, 1950 – August 9, 2020) was born in Senatobia, Mississippi, and raised in Coldwater, Mississippi — the fact his most famous character was built to hide. Debuting in 1978 as “Sugar Bear” Harris and wrestling in Europe as “The Mississippi Mauler,” Harris was repackaged in Memphis in 1982 by Jerry Lawler and Jerry Jarrett as Kamala, billed as a Ugandan headhunter and former bodyguard of Idi Amin. The billing was character fiction; the performer was a Mississippian, and this record states both plainly. As Kamala he feuded with André the Giant, Hulk Hogan, and The Undertaker — including WWE's first Casket Match at Survivor Series 1992. Harris left the WWF in September 1987 citing pay frustration, and his later claim that his SummerSlam 1992 pay was a small fraction of his opponent's is carried as his attributed claim, not settled fact. WWE inducted Kamala into the Legacy wing of its Hall of Fame in 2025.

The record

• Also known as: James Arthur Harris, James Harris, Sugar Bear Harris, The Mississippi Mauler, The Ugandan Giant

Notes

Firsts disposition: No first asserted. The SummerSlam 1992 pay-disparity figure is Harris's own later claim (single-source entertainment reporting) — attributed, never asserted. Character billing (Ugandan; Idi Amin bodyguard) is labeled fiction against his documented Mississippi birth. Photo: CLEARED — 'Kamala 1987.png' (unknown author), Public domain per Commons API extmetadata. Curator's Judgment (DRAFT): The record's honesty is the point: a Mississippi-born performer inside a Ugandan-headhunter fiction, with his pay grievances attributed to him rather than settled by assertion. Staged 2026-11-03 in packet W (professional wrestling), temp id — merge assigns the next sequential CTL-E id. No CTL-SPE roster id exists for professional wrestling — the AAES roster's wrestling shelf holds only Olympic wrestling and Bobo Brazil (CTL-E-6902). See the packet memo's roster-addition proposal.

Sources

• WWE. “Kamala, Dory Funk Sr. and Ivan Koloff to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as Legacy inductees.” wwe.com. (primary source · build store)
• WWE. “Kamala passes away.” wwe.com. (build store)
• Wikipedia. “Kamala (wrestler).” en.wikipedia.org. (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6979 · Combined Graph record U-07851 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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