How to Be a Mexican Wrestler
Shake up a Mexican cocktail of contact sports, pageant and performance art and you get lucha libre, literally translated as "free fight" but figuratively meaning masked Mexican wrestling. If you've grown up watching WWF fights, Mexican wrestling is a whole new game. There are rules, traditions and rituals to which fighters must adhere to preserve the mythology surrounding the competition.
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Instructions
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Masked Fighting
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Learn all the tricks. You need to master the toughness and spontaneity of street fighting with the persona of a superhero or a super villain. Fighting lucha libre style means tossing in acrobatics, props, slapstick, special effects, martial arts, gimmicks, name-calling with the crowd and bouncing off the ropes. Mexican wrestling is a bizarre spectacle with folk roots in Mexican festivals.
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Choose a persona. It's not enough to be Vampiro, Blue Demon or El Santo. You have to choose your lot in life by being a hero, known as a "tecnico", or a villain, known as a "rudo". In the wrestling ring, the rudos are anarchic brawlers who openly defy the rules and insult the crowds. They often maintain the upper hand for the duration of the match, only to experience last-minute upsets. Lucha libre is basically staged, but the choreographed violence can still have gruesome results.
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Train hard. Some people in the business of Mexican wrestling say that if you master lucha libre, all other wrestling is simple. Wrestlers do high jumps, back flips, flying leaps and body slams from the ring to the floor of the stadium. The wrestlers are less bulky than their U.S. counterparts and more lithe, lending them the ability to do aerial maneuvers. To prepare for this kind of physical challenge, wrestlers train by doing arm drags, free falls, body rolls and gymnastics.
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Find your niche. There are the run-of-the-mill wrestlers, and then there are Las Super Luchas, Mexican wrestling's superhero superstars, such as Ultimo Guerrero, Mistico, Psychedelico and Dr. Wagner. The exoticos are gay or cross-dressing wrestlers. The "minis" are midget wrestlers who frequently dress in costume. Women fighters also have a spot in the wrestling ring, as demonstrated in the infamy of Estrellita, called "La Britney Spears de la Lucha."
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Get your costume. Top-of-the-line wrestling masks for lucha libre are not an off-the-rack affair. The celebrities of the Mexican wrestling ring have artisans custom fit the mask to their faces. The mask is made of a sturdy Lycra that is double-stitched to reinforce the seams. The tights and cape are secondary to the outfit, but add to the superhero mystique.
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Tips & Warnings
Remember the words of lucha libre promoter Oscar Juarez: "You have to have the power of a weightlifter, the moves of a dancer and the speed of a runner."
