Why Mexico’s lucha libre is more than just a masked wrestling spectacle – it’s also steeped in tradition

A wrestler gets airborne at the Arena Mexico. Photo: CMLL/Alexis Salazar

Mexico City excites and exhilarates but is never a destination for the faint-hearted.

The Latin American metropolis, teeming with people and traffic jams, dazzles and intoxicates with pre-Columbian ruins, sumptuous colonial baroque churches and palaces, cutting-edge museums and modern architecture. And a unique gastronomy that is finally taking the spotlight on the global stage. But on a recent trip back, the highlight of a non-stop schedule of cultural sightseeing, wining and dining, was something completely unexpected.

One minute my rather studious guide, Francisco Ibarlucea, was giving an erudite lecture on indigenous culture at the celebrated National Museum of Anthropology; the next, he was mischievously suggesting a night out away from the usual tourist haunts, to discover a genuine slice of local life at a no-holds-barred exhibition of lucha libre, the spectacular freestyle contests of Mexico's masked wrestlers.

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How could I resist?

An Uber efficiently delivers us to a bustling down-town neighbourhood a couple of kilometres from the ZOcalo (central square), right outside a landmark much more popular with Chilangos, as natives of Mexico City are known: the venerable 1950s Arena Mexico, the cathedral of lucha libre ("free fight", in Spanish).

Three times a week, thousands of fans make a pilgrimage here to see their favourite luchadores, flamboyant wrestlers, in a three-hour extravaganza that mixes acrobatic stunts by exceptional athletes with non-stop, Las Vegas-style razzamatazz.

The streets around the arena are thronged with exuberant families, members aged from 10 to 80 years, browsing stalls displaying T-shirts emblazoned with images of their heroes - Black Shadow, MAscara Dorada, Rey Bucanero - alongside hundreds of glittering luchador masks, perfect to take home for a fancy-dress party.

Fight fans eat on the street first, and Rodrigo PavOn has been serving ricas tortas, gigantic toasted sandwiches, from his stall for more than 20 years.

"We have a signature series named after famous wrestlers like Ultimo Guerrero or Blue Demon," he says, "filled to bursting with melted cheese, chorizo, crunchy jalapeno chillies, egg, avocado, roast pork; all smothered in smoky chipotle sauce. Big enough even to satisfy a hungry luchador."

Different delicacies are served at nearby Arroces del Babyface, a stall run by a genial retired wrestler who often fought in Japan - which has its own lucha libre scene and, until the late 1990s, its own organisation, Universal Lucha Libre - and elsewhere in Asia, developing a taste for the street food there. He now cooks up huge plates of fusion tiger prawn fried rice or, for the adventurous, Arroz A la Latin Lover, with grilled chicken breast, chimichurri, salmon, shrimp, scallop and wild mushrooms.

Although tickets (from US$5 up to US$35, for ringside seats) for the lucha libre can be reserved online, there are always some available outside on the night.

Clutching tickets for almost ringside seats, we enter the arena's auditorium, decorated with a vivid 70-metre mural depicting heroes, villains and acrobatic bouts of combat from almost a century of lucha libre history.

The atmosphere beyond is electric: bright flashing lights, dancing pom-pom girls, booming Latin disco music. And as the first contestants enter the ring, thousands of screaming fans erupt in cheers for the good guys, known as tecnicos, and boos for the evil rudos, comic-book baddies.

All professional sportsmen and women with sponsor-ship deals - some even with roles in films - wrestlers compete for a series of belts, including heavyweight, lightweight, tag team and women's championship titles.

The first contest is a lively tag match, the luchadores hurtling around the ring, performing an incredible array of drop kicks, backflips, leg locks and flying scissor kicks, as well as acrobatically launching themselves from the top cord right into the front seats, where we are sitting.

It's all choreographed, of course, so the only people in danger of getting hurt are those wrestlers who fall awkwardly.

Confusingly, not all luchadores are wearing masks, and as we catch our breath before the next of the evening's six bouts, Ibarlucea explains, "The wrestler's mask has become a sacred element, preserving his mystery, creating a mythical identity like a flesh-and-blood superhero who all the fans can connect with. Most luchadores never ever take their mask off in public."

This is no recent phenomenon. In 1933, an American luchador, El CiclOn McKey, asked a shoemaker to create a goatskin mask that would be nearly impossible for an opponent to rip off in the ring, and the idea proved such a success, mascaras became a lucha libre hallmark. The original shop, Martinez Sports, is still making highly prized masks on a side street by Arena Mexico.

From initially distinguishing wrestlers by differing in colour, today's sequin-studded Lycra masks evoke animal imagery, gods and heroes, and replicas are worn by many fans in the Arena when their idol is wrestling.

The golden rule is that wrestlers are not allowed to pull an opponent's mask off. But there is an exception: a few times a year, there is a top-of-the-bill luchas de apuestas, a match in which two luchadores literally bet their masks, the winner getting to reveal the face of the loser, forcing him to retire his mask: a serious dishonour.

Women in Mexico have been professional wrestlers since 1935, some [18] years before they had the right to vote, and today, no one dares to refer to us as the weaker sex

For the rest of his career, the loser has to fight without a mask, and if he foolishly takes on another wager match and loses again, he must endure the ultimate humiliation: to sit on a stool in the middle of the ring and have his head shaved.

No one is getting their head shaved, though, in the next bout, an all-female luchadoras affair, with Reyna Isis and La MetAlica, classic rudos, up against the good-girl team of Hera and Olympia.

They battle as fiercely and athletically as their male counterparts, and although Reyna Isis ends up on the losing side, and sports some serious bruises, the cheerful 31-year-old grants me a brief chat in the dressing room before the following contest.

"I first saw female luchadoras on TV when I was 11 and knew that was what I wanted to do," she says. "I made my debut here in the Arena in 2015 and five years later, was crowned Mexico's national champion. It has been a long journey of training in the gym, bodybuilding, travelling across Mexico, the USA and Japan, but we women wrestlers often have children, too, which also means taking the kids to school, cooking dinner at home.

"Not many of the luchador guys do that.

"Can you imagine that women in Mexico have been professional wrestlers since 1935, some [18] years before they had the right to vote, and today, no one dares to refer to us as the weaker sex."

Despite Mexico's reputation for being a macho society, lucha libre is fundamentally a sport of inclusion and acceptance - all wrestlers are welcomed into "the family", a value illustrated by the rest of the evening's contests.

ExOtico wrestlers, resembling pumped-up drag queens, blow kisses but also body slam opponents, several openly LGBTQ fighters compete and costumed micro-wrestlers, or minis, have won respect as exceptionally skilled athletes and entertainers, competing in their own championship.

Even age is no barrier to competing. The highlight bout features Blue Panther flying across the canvas towards Hechicero; a historic vendetta. Ibarlucea momentarily forgets he is a serious culture guide and leaps up, loudly chanting for Blue Panther, who has just acrobatically drop-kicked his opponent.

"I grew up idolising this luchador from the first time my father brought me to the Arena, and have never wavered even when he lost his mask," he exclaims. But that was all some time ago; Blue Panther, unmasked as Genaro VAzquez Nevarez in 2008, is now 64 years old, just one of many veteran luchadores who carry on wrestling when most people would be enjoying retirement.

The shows put on at the Arena every Tuesday and Friday night, with Sunday afternoons set aside for families and children, are proclaimed as "orgullosamente Mexicana", proudly Mexican. And they are certainly a far cry from star-spangled American entertainment such as Raw, WrestleMania and SmackDown, manufactured by the all-powerful WWE organisation and beamed into millions of homes across the globe.

Yet lucha libre is much more than sport and enter-tainment. It is a genuine reflection of Mexican culture, identity and tradition, dating back to 1933, when its founding father, promoter Salvador Lutteroth, formed the first professional association, having made his name fighting in the Mexican Revolution against Pancho Villa.

Today, his descendants oversee the CMLL, the World Lucha Libre Council, which manages more than 200 luchadores performing all over the country. No other experience for visitors to Mexico City can compare to a night out at the Arena, a unique glimpse into the heart of Mexico that surely merits official recognition as Unesco Intangible Cultural Heritage.

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