Live Mexican wrestling. Lucha libre.
The Misty Seas arrived there in a more or less circuitous fashion. To talk about lucha, we have to begin by talking about sumo. We love sumo, and even write (extensively) about it sometimes.
Discovering a New Pastime
I think a lot of Westerners get into sumo because of their interest in American or other Western-style wrestling disciplines, or martial arts. Sumo is an incredibly different world, and you can never stop learning about it, and from there they become obsessed. But that wasn’t me. I got into sumo because of my love of Japan and Japanese culture, having never been a fan of wrestling in any kind of context – sporting, entertainment or cultural reasons – before falling into the world of rikishi and binzuke.
I’ve spent quite a lot of time with Japan’s national sport, in fact, and after a month spent in Japan in 2018, and in close contact with the sumo world, I had a trip lined up to Mexico City. By this point, I had even brought my friends to see sumo matches. I thought about how different the experience was to their expectations: as one esteemed friend of mine said, before most people see it we think it’s “just a bunch of fat guys in diapers pushing each other around.” So, I thought perhaps it was worth going to have a totally fresh experience with lucha. I didn’t know anything about it – I hadn’t even seen the film Nacho Libre! Perhaps there was another rich culture there for me to discover, underneath the caricatured projection that we tend to think of when we think of this uniquely Mexican experience.
But, how could I partake in this? A search for the best lucha experiences led me to Adán Tamariz’s hugely popular lucha libre AirBnb Experience, which is now purported to be among the top 5 “experience” bookings on the site in Mexico City.
A Crash Course In Ring Names and Face Masks
I meet Adán Tamariz at a restaurant down the street from the lucha arena, called Restaurante Punto y Coma. He knows the owners and frequently brings his guests here. Adán is a lucha journalist, and he’s currently working on his first book on the subject. He also has a podcast. He’s a busy guy.
It’s not crowded in the restaurant. There are a handful of other patrons hanging out, enjoying drinks and watching sports on TV. A mother and son from New York join us. They’re here in Mexico on holiday and also came for this cool experience. We order our cokes and the evening is under way.
Adán explains how lucha works. I have a lot of respect for this process – it’s something I do with sumo all the time, either to friends or tourists at the venue. He explains the stories, the rituals, the masks, the characters. He sets the stage for what we’re going to see, what we should expect, why it’s important, how lucha works, how it fits into Mexican culture. Maybe you don’t think it can be so complicated, but there is nuance to everything. The biggest single concept is that we’re going to see several battles of good vs evil, heroes vs baddies, virtue vs iniquity. Every match has a story.
We go through the day’s matches, and we talk about who’s going to perform. Eventually, in a dramatic swoop, Adan dumps a pile of masks onto the table. This is an exciting moment. We get to pick a mask to wear into the arena and to keep. Will we be a “goodie” or a “baddie?” I pick a white and gold mask out of the pile. Adán says I’m MÍSTICO. I’ve chosen well. He’s the most popular hero. Apparently the last guy to “play” Místico became incredibly popular and defected to the States for more money, so now another guy is playing him. He’s still incredibly popular though, and he’ll be performing today. With that, it’s time to head into the arena.
Arena Mexico
The national home of lucha is Arena Mexico.
The area around the arena is vibrant, busy, chaotic, and exciting. The stalls outside are filled with snacks and colourful lucha merchandise. The arena itself looks like an old warehouse, and the name of the venue has been painted on the side in a style evoking a stencil job. The graffiti theme is prominent the area, and a large, striking mural is located opposite the entrance of a baddie holding up the mask that belonged to a “good” luchador.
This references some of the main drama of lucha libre – the unmasking of the luchador (good or bad) is the ultimate humiliation. It is a rare act of complete dominance. The feat is referenced and played up multiple times in the day’s schedule. Many times a villain luchador will play up to the crowd that he’s going to unmask a hero in order to stir the crowd into a frenzy. People jump up, wave their fingers and swear from all directions. Adan is an animated guide. He’s not having any of the villains’ behaviour and he’s happy to let them know all about it.
There are parallels with what you might expect to see at a top wrestling event in America. There are wall to wall sponsorships (budget airline Volaris is prominently featured throughout the venue). Sexy, scantily dressed ladies announce each new round. There are big pyrotechnics and big personalities.
The silliness of the American pro wrestling leagues were never for me as a kid growing up. The ‘roided up wrestlers didn’t really appeal to me, and the scripted nature of the events seemed corny. Aquí, it’s the opposite. It doesn’t matter if it’s scripted or not scripted. Whether you’ve been following all season or you’re at your first lucha show, the entertainment is nonstop, and the atmosphere is absorbing.
The Main Event
Adan explains that fried bananas with hot sauce is one of the signature snacks of the lucha experience. The mom who has joined our tour orders a packet and shares with the rest of the group. I’m not going to beat around the bush: it’s delicious. Mexico has figured out something that apparently hasn’t translated to America: if you would just throw a packet of hot sauce in with a salty snack, it makes everything amazing. Friends always ask me to bring Mexican Fritos back for this reason. This is an important digression, by the way.
As the matches progress in the arena, the tension and ambience reach progressively higher levels. The music, shouting, swearing, horn playing, special effects and call and responses add to the atmosphere. When a “bad” luchador fires up the crowd, it can feel downright hostile. But then it becomes massively positive when said luchador is catapulted from the ring with a thud you can feel halfway up the stands. Altogether it is a thoroughly bewildering, intoxicating experience.
The matches are perfectly orchestrated. Everyone in lucha has a big personality, even the announcers and referees. One referee is particularly reviled. The two highlight bouts of the undercard for me are the all female battle and the match involving a popular topless, demasked Japanese baddie named Okamura who’s built like a brick shithouse. His team starts their match by standing on the ropes and deploying hand-cannons that shoot fire.
The matches build towards a crescendo, and the final bout involves everyone’s hero, Mistico. Arena Mexico is an absolute frenzy. It doesn’t look like he’s going to win. He wins. Good has prevailed. Everyone rushes the stage to try and get photos with lucha’s ultimate hero on this day. We thank Adan, and go home, having been entertained. We will all come again.
Adán’s Lucha libre Airbnb Experience can be booked by clicking here. Follow him on Instagram at @livemexicanwrestling.
