Why Mexico’s lucha libre is more than just a masked wrestling spectacle – it’s also steeped in tradition
It’s difficult to find an experience as quintessentially Mexican as lucha libre, the wrestling extravaganzas with masked heroes and villains
Mexico City excites and exhilarates but is never a destination for the faint-hearted.
The Latin American metropolis, teeming with people and traffic jams, dazzles and intoxicates with pre-Columbian ruins, sumptuous colonial baroque churches and palaces, cutting-edge museums and modern architecture. And a unique gastronomy that is finally taking the spotlight on the global stage. But on a recent trip back, the highlight of a non-stop schedule of cultural sightseeing, wining and dining, was something completely unexpected.
One minute my rather studious guide, Francisco Ibarlucea, was giving an erudite lecture on indigenous culture at the celebrated National Museum of Anthropology; the next, he was mischievously suggesting a night out away from the usual tourist haunts, to discover a genuine slice of local life at a no-holds-barred exhibition of lucha libre, the spectacular freestyle contests of Mexico’s masked wrestlers.
How could I resist?
An Uber efficiently delivers us to a bustling downtown neighbourhood a couple of kilometres from the Zócalo (central square), right outside a landmark much more popular with Chilangos, as natives of Mexico City are known: the venerable 1950s Arena México, the cathedral of lucha libre (“free fight”, in Spanish).
Three times a week, thousands of fans make a pilgrimage here to see their favourite luchadores, flamboyant wrestlers, in a three-hour extravaganza that mixes acrobatic stunts by exceptional athletes with non-stop, Las Vegas-style razzamatazz.
