Lucha libre

Hulky good guy

The bullfighting ring, before the action

Well, much to my own surprise and probably yours too, I’ve now been to my first ever Lucha libre (Mexican wrestling) event. Even more surprising, it was super entertaining!

 My friend Jeanie and I went to simply check out the Plaza de Toros one day and found a poster for the wrestling match taking place that same night.  She’s seen it before on TV, but I never had. Ok, I thought, when in Mexico do like the Mexicans.  When we were home having dinner beforehand Michael freaked me out a little. He was sure that the audience would be all guys, similar to the cantina scene, with lots of drunken singing and brawling. Jeanie thought he was dead wrong and she called it.  Turns out we would have been in the majority if we’d brought along Nataly (but we didn’t and I don’t think it was appropriate by my standards). It was quite the family event, with babes in arms. Lots of hair gel and proud papas y mamas. We accidentally bought the seats right at the floor level. 

We soon learned why these were the coveted seats. The action comes right out of the ring and into the audience. Then we all jumped up and followed the fight and tried not to get trampled on. 

The acrobatics were great. Lots of flips and trips and bouncing off the ropes.  Were these guys gymnasts in a former life? There were 4 different matches.  The women match was boring and slow, mostly just striking sexy poses and getting spanked. Another round had creepy clowns/ skeletons things that I think were the good guys. As the night wore on the action became more and more about ball bashing. When one fighter was down the other would take a chair, arrange it between his legs and then use another chair to drive in the blow. I could do without this part, over and over, but heh, the rest was actually great fun. Jeanie bought a mask for a friend (the Silver King – it’s red not silver) and wore it the whole night. As she pointed out she was the only adult wearing one.  She hopped up in the ring between rounds with the other kids (and kids at heart). 

My friend Jeanie and a friend she made

Lots of chanting and audience participation. So will this become my new passion? Probably not, but I’d definitely go again. Hopefully Michael will get a chance to go next time too. 

creepy skeleton