A Look At Lucha Libre Mexicana

If you think the WWE and TNA are wild, take a look at Lucha Libre.
Wrestling in Mexico is different than wrestling here in the US.
Where it's mainly considered a joke here, in Mexico it is a tradition.
Lucha Libre falls just behind soccer in popularity which would be like the WWE running second place to the NFL here.

The two main wrestling promotions in Mexico are Asistencia Asesoría y Administración (AAA) and Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL).
There are smaller wrestling promotions like International Wrestling Revolution Group (IWRG), The World Wrestling Association (WWA) and the all female (luchadora) promotion Lucha Libre Feminil (LLF).
There are Lucha Libre style promotions in Japan like Michinoku Pro Wrestling and Osaka Pro Wrestling, and even a few Lucha Libre promotions here in the US like Chikara and a couple of promotions that are on the verge of being performance art like Incredibly Strange Wrestling and Lucha Va Voom.

Lucha Libre has made its way into the main stream here.
Of course we had the 2006 Jack Black film, Nacho Libre (that was actually based on a real Luchadore, Fray Tormenta) and many of you may have seen some of the Lucha film imports like Las Vampiras with John Carradine and Mil Mascaras (yes THE John Carradine) Mil Mascaras vs. the Aztec Mummy (with luchadores El Hijo del Santo, Blue Demon Jr, and Huracan Ramirez Jr) and via Mystery Science Theater 3000 you may have been able to catch the legendary El Santo in Santo vs. Las Mujeres Vampiro ("Samson vs. the Vampire Women").

And not only movies but TV shows have felt the influence of Lucha Libre.
On the WB television series Angel, there was an episode entitled "The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco" which featured a group of Luchadores (Los Hermanos Números) that fought evil much like their Lucha film counterparts in Mexican cinema.

On one of my favorite Cult TV shows, The Middleman on ABC Family, the martial arts trainer for the Middlemen is named Sensei Ping. Ping wears a traditional Lucha Libre mask in honor of the only man he could not technically defeat in combat, El Sapo Dorado. The Middleman episode, "The Sino-Mexican Revelation" is not only full of luchadores, but also more references to the Lucha films in Mexico.

And incredibly enough, the 200th episode of the respected CBS TV show CSI, "Mascara", was heavily influenced by Lucha Libre.
Former WWE wrestler Aaron Aguilera even guest starred as a luchadore called Fantasma.

The animated television series ¡Mucha Lucha! debuted on Kids' WB in August of 2002 and brought Lucha Libre to a whole new generation of American children.
And even though it was popular in the US, I understand that it was wildly popular in Mexico.

And we have Rob Zombie's animated comedy film, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto.
It was released on DVD on September 22 and reviews seem to list it as amazing to horrible.
I guess there is a lot of personal preference there.

On ITV's Justin Lee Collins: The Wrestler, British comedian, television and radio presenter Justin Lee Collins (or JLC) trained or 10 days in Mexico with a luchadore called Cassandro.
In the show, JLC returned to England, had a match and was unmasked in a Lucha Libre event at the Roundhouse.
Justin Lee Collins: The Wrestler featured an appearance by the real life son of El Santo, El Hijo del Santo.

In the Batman comics, Bane the super villain that broke Batman's back and ended his career for a short time, wears a Luchador type mask.
In the Cartoon Network series "Young Justice", Kid Flash even refers to Bane as "El Luchador" in the episode "Drop-Zone".
Of course since Christopher Nolan's Batman movies have very little to do with the comics, dont expect any luchador references in The Dark Knight Rises.

A lot of the allure of Lucha Libre (to me at least) is the amazing masks.
They go from the simple ones worn by El Santo, Blue Demon and Dr.Wagner to the elaborate ones worn by the late Abismo Negro, Místico, La Parka and the really bizarre Gronda.
Some of them look like a mix of pro wrestlers and Power Rangers.
(Yes they had a wrestling stable based on the Power Rangers)
The masks in Lucha Libre are not just ring props, they are part of the sports tradition and go back to the early part of the 20th century and even before with the Aztec idea of taking on another persona to gain power.
Some wrestlers like El Santo were never seen in public without their masks, and El Santo was even buried in his.
This was not looked at as a weird quirk by the public, but as respect for the Lucha Libre tradition.

Artists like Francisco Delgado and writer and artist Xavier Garza even incorporate Lucha Libre masks and themes into their works.

Not all wrestlers in Lucha Libre are masked.
Some even start out masked, lose their masks and go onto very successful careers.

WWE Superstar Rey Mysterio, Jr. took a lot of heat in Mexico for being unmasked in the WCW, then putting the mask back on in the WWE.
After the WCW unmasking, Rey wrestled for CMLL in Mexico, but had to do it unmasked.
When the WWE went to Mexico, the La Comision de Lucha Libre said they Rey could not wrestle in Mexico masked, but the WWE "somehow" worked out something with them to allow Rey to wrestle with his mask on in WWE shows.
*cough* payoff *cough*