Lucha Libre

What defines Mexico? Some things that come to mind immediately are Tequila, Mezcal, soccer, tacos and Mariachi music. However, there is a popular sport in Mexico that also defines the culture and that is Lucha Libre. It is literally translated as “free fight” but in Mexico, it means “wrestling”.

We are not fans of wrestling, but our son who was visiting us in Mexico City had been a fan of wrestling when he was a child. We thought it would be fun to take him to a Mexican wrestling match.

Because we don’t know the rules of the game, or even if any rules exist, we signed up for a tour. Our guide promised to explain the sport, teach us a few cuss words to shout out and to take us to the wrestling match.

We met our guide Leon at 8 pm outside a popular bar near the wrestling arena. Matches were already underway, and we could hear the roar of the crowd from inside the arena. Leon was a big fan of the sport and he told us about wrestling, its origins, and popularity.

Lucha Libre is similar to American style pro wrestling but true wrestling fans know the differences. The most obvious difference is that many of the Mexican wrestlers wear masks to establish their character. Their mask can be taken away if they lose their match, use dirty tricks or pull off another wrestler’s mask. A mask-less wrestler brings shame to himself and his fighting partners. A wrestler can also remove his mask if he wants to retire his character and take on a new persona with a new mask.

Another difference from American wrestling is that most of the Lucha Libre matches are 3-on-3 tag-teams with less brute strength and more acrobatic moves than U.S. matches.

In every Lucha Libre match there are Rudos (bad guys) who wrestle Ténicos (good guys). The Rudos are rules breakers, villains and anything goes for these wrestlers. Rudos are the luchadors (wrestlers) who fans love to hate. Ténicos play by the rules. They are the good guys everyone cheers for. Ténicos wear light-colored costumes and masks and Rudos wear dark ones.

In a one-on-one match, the wrestler can win by pinning his opponent for a count of three, knocking them out of the ring for a count of twenty, forcing them into submission or getting them disqualified. He can also win if the referee awards the superior wrestler the win after exeso de rudezas” (excessive violence).

We watched so many close matches with two and a half count pins. The referees entertained us by ruling time after time that the wrestler had pinned his opponent for 2.5 seconds rather than the full count of 3 seconds. The pin was just not quite long enough.

Our guide taught us a few traditional “shout out” words and phrases to use during the matches. No matter how polite and respectful fans are –when in the arena, we could shout out any cuss words we wanted. Anything goes in the arena. It’s all part of the experience.

After we learned how to swear, we got into the spirit of the sport by donning our masks. While we had the masks, we lacked the pro wrestler physique.

We had to do one more thing before entering the arena. Drink pulque. Pulque is an ancient alcoholic drink made from the sap of the agave plant, which is known as aguamiel (honey water). Mezcal and Tequila are made from a different part of the plant, the piña or heart.

The pulque bar was packed with people drinking and dancing to live music. We tasted several different pulque drinks and danced with our guides and other tourists. After an hour of drinking, swaying to the music and shouting to be heard over the roar of the bar, we left, walked a couple of blocks and entered the arena.

Inside, a buzz of excitement and energy was coming from the screaming fans. We could tell the Rudos from the Ténicos by the fans’ reactions during the matches. We enjoyed yelling, screaming and booing the wrestlers. I’m sure there were times we should have been booing or yelling out more profanities, but honestly, it was hard to keep up.

What impressed us the most was the athleticism and skill of the wrestlers. They did some amazing feats in the air. Their bodies were flying off the mat, the buckles and ropes and yet landing perfectly on their opponent or the ground (if they missed). Each match was perfectly choreographed. It was like a ballet with men in tights and masks.

Even after watching the matches we still couldn’t figure out the rules. Apparently, there are rounds in a match like in amateur wrestling and boxing, but we had no idea how long each round was. A match would still be in full swing when a bikini-clad woman would walk out with a big card indicating the start of the next round. It didn’t seem to matter to the wrestlers, the fans or the referee.

We also couldn’t tell when the matches ended. The only thing we knew was that the referee was holding up the arm of one of the wrestlers.

We didn’t even realize that all of the matches had ended until the arena lights came up and people started heading to the exits. Despite everyone leaving, wrestling continued in the ring.

As we left, we were happy that we had a chance to experience this tradition but once was enough for us.

Visitors from the U.S.

During our last week in Mexico City, we hosted our sons and daughter-in-law for our final hurrah in Mexico.

We moved from our smaller apartment to a 3-bedroom apartment to accommodate all of us. In this final week in Mexico, we crammed in as many fun events as we could. Even though we had already experienced some of these activities, they were even more fun when we shared them with our family.

We learned how to make tortillas from scratch in a cooking class. We visited the world-famous anthropology museum, sampled Mezcal (similar to Tequila), learned all about Mariachi music at the Mariachi Museum, visited the ancient Teotihuacan pyramids near Mexico City, visited the Frida Kahlo Museum, shopped in open markets, and ate great Mexican Food.

It is always a joy traveling with our kids, but this much activity left us pretty tired. We like slow, easy-going travel and sightseeing but because we only had a week with our family we wanted to do as much as we could.

We left Mexico City with mixed emotions. On the one hand, we were sad to leave because we enjoyed the culture, food and the people of Mexico. We also enjoyed sharing our adventures with our kids. But we’re also excited to move on to Santiago, Chile. We look forward to exploring this international city and all that Chile has to offer.