Lucha Libre Mexican Wrestling: Mexico City

Lucha Libre Mexican Wrestling: Mexico City.
Dec 9 (cont’d)
After the scorpion eating, Irmante, Clint and I stopped for some wine and cheese in the market, but my stomach was pretty wonky.  We dropped into Mercado de Artesanias La Ciudadela and by the time we had dinner in a local traditional dive restaurant, I was in tip-top shape again.

We headed for to Arena Mexico for tonight’s event of Lucha Libre Mexican Wrestling.

The three of us had purchased masks and we were ready for awesome!  I wore El Durado Dragón’s mask, Irmante was Mysterio, and Clint was Scorpio Durado. During the body search to get into the venue, my searcher found the camera in my pocket and told me that I was allowed to take it into the arena.  I could not believe it…  Every person heading into the venue had a camera on their phone that they would be using, yet I was not allowed to bring in my point-and-shoot camera.  I would have understood had it been a fancy camera with a giant lens that could capture the beads of sweat coming off the wrestler’s, but all I had was a regular camera.  Rules are rules, but I was very pouty about having to turn it in my camera to retrieve later.

A lady ushered us to our seats…

Mexico Arena in Mexico City is huge.  It seats 22,300 people.  Lucha Libre Mexican Wrestling is the second most popular sport in Mexico after football (soccer). The history of the sport dates back to 1863. The arena was not quite full, but there were a lot of very thrilled people inside wearing their own Lucha Libre Mexican Wrestling masks.

We were drinking large beer in cups for 70 pesos each as we waited for everything to begin.  Six gorgeous senorita cheerleaders danced on the side to get us pumped up for the match.

There would be six bouts that were:
1 – tag team 2 x 2
2 – tag team 3 x 3
3 – women’s tag team 3 x 3
4 – individual 1 x 1
5 – semi-final tag team 3 x 3
6 – main event finals 2 x 2

Most of the wrestles were wearing elaborate masks, but some of them had revealed faces.  I found out that all wrestlers start out in masks, but if they are ever unmasked in their career, their mask wearing days are over.

Unmasking a wrestler is the most humiliating thing that can happen to a wrestler during a match.

Four of the six men in the semi-finals were older and had been unmasked.  Assumingly that will happen over a long career.  I wonder how traumatizing it is after you have been Lucha Libre Mexican Wrestling for 15 years and you get the script that the next bout will be your unmasking…

The wrestling was pretty great.  It is all staged, and it is clear that this is where the foundations of WWF and WWE were originally borrowed.

The third bout of the evening was ‘three on three’ women’s Lucha Libre Mexican Wrestling.  A couple of the girls were pretty husky, but a couple of them who had been unmasked were very pretty.  One was actually gorgeous and seemed too pretty to be a wrestler.  A lot of women’s Lucha Libre Mexican Wrestling involved slapping.  It was really great to watch.

There is just something about two attractive women throwing each other around and trying to pin each other in a match that startles something in this man…

The wrestlers are in incredible shape and their athleticism totally amazed me.  Those people are professional gymnasts, though many of them are huge men and women.  To be so agile with that amount of weight and size is really something inconceivable.  The wrestlers were doing back flips from the top ropes and landing on each other, and jumping across the ring from the ropes to fly through the air so that their legs go around a standing opponents neck and they would fall together.  They were leaping from the top ropes of the ring onto an opponent on the floor outside the ring, jumping on each other from 4 meters of height.  Wrestlers were running across the ring and diving through the air between the top and second rope, out of the ring and onto an opponent below.

It was astonishing to watch.

In the semi-finals, one of the wrestlers was a gay character.  Initially we did not understand why the crowd was yelling ‘Besos’ at him through the match.  Then when he got close enough to an opponent during the bout he kissed the other man on the lips.  That really threw things for a loop in this machismo society and the other wrestler who had been gay-kissed was busy dramatically wiping the kiss from his lips.  As that was happening and the kissed wrestler was freaking out, the referee went to enforce a rule against the kissing-wrestler and when he got close enough the wrestler kissed the referee on the lips as well.  Two men were wiping the kiss from their lips at the same time, things got crazy, and the whole match fell apart for the opponent who had been kissed.  It was ridiculous.

The finals included two of the most important wrestlers who had little people, aka midgets, as mascots ringside during the match.  The little men were also brought into the ring by opponents during the fight.  It was all really good entertainment from start to finish.

During the show, Clint wanted to purchase capes to go with our attire.  He said he had never owned a cape before, so he got a blue one for himself to match his mask and I got a gold one to match mine.

The capes were 200 pesos ($10) and would turn out to be some of the best money anyone has ever spent!

After the event finished, I collected my camera and we went out to party in Mexico City.  Clint and I took off our shirts so that we were just wearing wrestling masks, a cape, jeans and shoes.  We became very popular Lucha Libre Mexican Wrestling stars in Mexico City.  People wanted photos with us and girls tried to get us into their taxi-cabs.

The highlight, without question was the midnight Lucha Libre Mexican Wrestling match that Clint and I had against each other on the subway train.

There were only a few people on the metro on their normal journey home, but it is certain that they will never forget that train ride.

The Video of the Ridiculous:

Irmante was tired and wanted to go to sleep so Clint and I went to a bar still dressed as Lucha Libre Mexican Wrestling heroes.  People in the bar liked us.  I drank a lot of tequila and Clint put back a lot of Jägermeister.

It was an entire day of crazy and a fantastic night.

Mexico City, you are incredible amounts of fun!