Imaginary Worlds - Superheroes in the Ring

Episode Date: August 7, 2019

Mexican wrestling (aka Lucha Libre) has a lot in common with the superhero genre, but trying to be a superhero in real life has its own set of challenges. I talk with wrestlers (aka luchadors) about the joy of being both famous and anonymous. Photographer Lourdes Grobet reveals how she went behind-the-scenes with luchadors without exposing their identities, and author Heather Levi reveals the unusual origin of the iconic Lucha Libre mask. Special thanks to Neuva Era Lucha Productions and The Bronx Wrestling Federation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Malinsky. On a hot and humid Saturday night, I took the subway up to the Bronx until I got to Darrow's Gym. It's a wide space, no AC, but there were huge industrial fans in the walls. To the side of all the exercise equipment was a wrestling ring, surrounded by rows of folding chairs. And above the ring was a banner for the BWF, the Bronx Wrestling Federation. The place was packed, and I got a sense that everyone there was local to the neighborhood. They have shows on the first Saturday night of every month.

Many of the wrestlers were working in the style of the WWE, with oversized personalities trying to get the crowd on their side, with mixed results. And then the real star emerged, Bronco Internacional. Now, first of all, the guy was huge. I mean, his arms were so muscular, he looked like an action figure from the 1980s. And he's a luchador, which means he works in the style of lucha libre, which is Spanish for Mexican wrestling. Now, if you're not familiar with the costume of a luchador, a big part of it is the mask.

It covers his entire head, except for two teardrop-shaped openings around his eyes and a slit for his mouth. But the funny thing about Bronco is that he looks fearsome, but he wears bright colors. In fact, that night his costume was hot pink and he rode into the ring on a child-sized scooter, which corresponded with a video they had projected on the wall earlier showing Bronco chasing down a carjacker on that tiny scooter. The kids loved him.

They cheered for him the whole time. And at the end of the night, they all lined up to get pictures with him. How long have you been wrestling as Bronco at National? How many years have you been wrestling at National? 35. I've been wrestling for 35 years. Bronco is from the Dominican Republic. He doesn't speak English.

So one of the employees, Astro Morales, helped translate. So tell me about Branco. I mean, he's a good guy, right? His personality is catered towards kids, and that's why he comes out with colorful colors and stuff like that, because he caters to like the young fan base so yeah he's a good guy. Do you feel like a real-life superhero when you when you show up here do you feel like you're like Captain America showing up in the wrestling ring? Yeah he says yeah he feels like a superhero because he feels like his character you know he could be inspiring younger kids he feels like a superhero because he feels like his character, he could be inspiring younger kids.

He actually did a movie where he was a young boy dreaming about being a wrestler and being a superhero. He actually did do a movie based on a story like that. In real life, Bronco runs the gym, helps organize the Bronx Wrestling Federation, and he sometimes works in construction. But... Once I put the mask on, it's like I transform myself into this character,

into this superhero, as opposed to my regular life when I'm just regular me. When I put the mask on, I'm different. I'm a different guy. I'm a superhero. A few weeks ago, I did an episode about the WWE, and that got me interested in Lucha Libre, which has been on a steady upswing in popularity in the U.S. for the last 10 years or so. But what I find really fascinating about Lucha Libre are the masks and the capes.

Because, well, you know. And you're wearing a mask. Batman must take off his mask and turn himself in. No one cared who I was until I put on the mask. Now, that last quote from Bane in The Dark Knight Rises has been running through my head ever since I talked with these wrestlers. No one cared who I was until I put on the mask. And appropriately, Bane's costume in the comics is based on Lucha Libre. So I was curious,

do they really get to feel like superheroes or supervillains? And do they have some of the same problems of superheroes in maintaining a dual identity? We'll hear from more wrestlers, or luchadors, as they're called, later on. But first, I wanted to back up and learn about the history of lucha libre. How did lucha libre evolve to the point where it was so different from North American wrestling?

Heather Levi is a professor at Temple University, and she is one of the most prominent U.S.-based academics who studies lucha libre. In fact, as part of her research, she trained to be a luchador in Mexico City. It allowed me to understand the physicality of it and understand in a different way what draws people to it. Now, the masks are the most defining feature of lucha libre. But Heather says it was actually a wrestler from Missouri named Cyclone McKay who first introduced masks to Mexico when he

wrestled there in the early 1930s. And there was this shoemaker who had developed a boot for the wrestlers. So all of the wrestlers were buying their boots from this guy. According to the son of that shoemaker, his father was approached by Cyclone McKay, who said to him, you know, I want to wrestle in a mask. Can you make me a mask? Something like a hood, something like the KKK would wear. And also in Mexico in that period, the Klan would have been known for lynchings of Mexicans in Texas. So, I mean, he was really going to be a rudo. A rudo is a bad guy. The term for a good guy is a tecnico. Now, a white hood was not practical for McKay to wrestle in. So, the shoemaker designed a mask to fit very snugly around McKay's head. And when he debuted in Mexico

City as the masked marvel, Mexican wrestlers started emulating his look very quickly. I think the first Mexican to use it, at least some of the things that I read said that it was, what was his name? Murciélago Velázquez, who means Bat Velázquez, who would come into the ring wearing a mask and releasing a swirl of bats. It's like Batman. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They don't all wear masks. They've never all worn masks. But at least half of them do.

Some people have theorized that the masks caught on because there's such a long history of masks in Mexican culture, from the Aztecs to Day of the Dead celebrations. masks in Mexican culture, from the Aztecs to Day of the Dead celebrations. But Heather thinks the reason why the masks caught on in the 20th century was because they allowed people to transcend social class, not just in terms of money. Lucha Libre has actually never been that lucrative. It's more about respectability. You're talking to this guy and he puts on a mask and you're talking to something else after that. You know, you're talking to this figure. So one thing that the mask does is really makes people be larger than life. You know, it adds this aura of mystery. You don't know who this person is. And the other thing about it is that since a lot of the people who would go to Lucha Libre,

the luchadores are coming from the same neighborhoods that they're coming from, right? So if the luchador is wearing a mask, on the one hand, he's this mysterious figure, this larger than life superhero. And on the other hand, he might be your next door neighbor, for all you know. Television also shaped the way that Lucha Lib libre evolved, or the lack of TV, because lucha libre was televised in Mexico briefly in the 1950s, and it didn't come back on the air until the 1990s. And by that point, there was no history of luchadors boasting to the cameras. You're not playing to the mic. You're playing to the third balcony.

That's why lucha libre is more acrobatic than North American wrestling. I mean, it's just as choreographed or staged, but there are no epic storylines where they build up the characters outside the ring. And with less time trash talking, there's more time for wrestling. Even the amateur Lucha Libre matches can last for 10 minutes. Which may not sound like much, but if you think about what it would be to do like laps of somersaults and leapfrogs, right? It's that level of aerobic activity. So 10 minutes of it is pretty intense. The last match of the night is a half hour and they're wrestling the whole time. So a week after I went to the Bronx, I took the subway to another end of New York City. An organization called American Luchas was putting on an event at a community center in Corona, which is one of the last stops in Queens before you get

to the airport. The crowd was full of families. Vendors were selling masks at tables. All the announcements were in Spanish. And a few of the wrestlers had come directly from Mexico, like the Laredo Kid. He's from the town of Laredo, which is just on the other side of the Texas border. And he was very excited to be performing in New York City. Yes, now in New York, like, well, in U.S., like, Lucha Libre, we have a lot of people, Mexicans, well, in U.S., like, Lucha Libre, we have a lot, a lot, a lot of people, Mexican, here in this country. And I think it's a great culture for the American people to saw the Mexican Lucha Libre here.

Now, he was wearing a mask the whole time I talked with him. And his mask was sparkly green with white triangular shapes that came up over his head like a crown. It was really elaborate, and he said the design was based on an eagle. I certainly never asked him for his real name. I didn't think he'd give it to me. And you would have no clue what he looked like under that mask. That's why we use the mask. Do your friends back home, do they not know who you are? Do you have a secret identity, like a superhero? They don't even know that you're this character?

Yeah, some friends. Not everybody. Just the most closest friends. And my family knows. If a luchador is unmasked, especially if they're unmasked in the ring, it could be the end of their career, or at least a very significant turning point, because the mystique is broken. Heather says

it is easy for fictional billionaire playboy industrialist superheroes to hide their secret identities. But in real life, especially in Mexico, if you're kind of starting out in wrestling and you're not a star, and you probably aren't from a wealthy family, because if you were, you wouldn't be going into Lucha Libre, and you wear a mask, you have to figure out how to get yourself from your neighborhood, which might be two hours away from the arena, to the arena and at some point put on the mask

in a moment where nobody's going to see you do it and nobody's going to remember your face. You know, so people would tell me these stories about how they do it. Like, you know, at least the last part of it, you take a taxi, you slip into the taxi and just sort of assume that the taxi driver is not going to be paying attention. And then you put on the mask, you know, or you just slip into a cantina and go into the bathroom and you come out and you're masked. But you're never supposed to be seen in a way that would associate your face with your mask. When I was in Queens, I also talked with a Mexican-American wrestler called Montaquia, which is Spanish for butter. He was wearing a mask that looked kind of like an Aztec design of a sun

with like almost like a beard of rays around his chin. The openings for his mouth and his eyes were big black shapes, but they were happy shapes if you could imagine that. And luchadores often design their own masks, even if they have to get a professional to sew it together. I drew it out one day at work and just was doodling with stuff and then it just came to life. Tell me about that. What's the story of your character? Story of the character is, you know,

worked in a lobster house next to a radioactive facility and one thing led to another and now I'm the superhero named Butter. And so I see like all the yellow around you. That's how I had a feeling. You look like you have like this sort of smile, not a smiley face, but a smiling face.

Yeah, for sure. Always happy. What do you do for work? I work with autistic children. Oh, nice. Yes. Montekia wanted to be a luchador ever since he was a kid.

As an adult, he held off on that dream for a while, until he realized he wasn't getting any younger. You know, wrestling is a short stint in your life. It's extremely physically demanding, so you have to do it when you can, not when you won't. Better sooner than later. So far, he really likes the challenge of living a double life uh i don't like to you know mix worlds yeah you know maybe some very few that like uh i come close friends that i might have at work but i don't really try to publicize it too much two different lives i like

to keep things separately so even like on facebook you're not like hey everyone i'm wrestling this weekend well facebook on facebook and on my social media is all strictly wrestling. I don't have a personal account. That's it. All right. So who are you wrestling tonight? I am wrestling El Hijo de LA Park. Yes.

Is he from LA? He is not. He's a Mexican guy, man. Okay. How much have you guys rehearsed? Never. Never even met him. Oh, okay. Nope. Okay. How much have you guys rehearsed? Never. Never?

Never even met him. Oh, okay. Nope. So it was the first time I meet him. I'll figure it out when we get out there, pretty much. And he speaks only Spanish. El Hijo de L.A. Park is actually a pretty big deal. He's the son of a Mexican wrestler named L.A. Park.

And his costume looked kind of like Darth Maul with aggressive red and black triangular shapes. And his boots are white with ha ha ha written over them like the Joker. So he is a rudo, a bad guy. Montekia is obviously a good guy, a technico. When Montekia got into the ring, he had to hype up the crowd to get them on his side because he's pretty unknown. But when his opponent, El Hijo de LA Park, walked into the room, people ran up to take pictures of him. And he had a certain kind of presence. I mean, it almost reminded me of the time that I saw Bruce Springsteen in concert. The opening band felt like it was swallowed up by the arena. But the moment that Springsteen in concert. The opening band felt like it was swallowed up by the arena,

but the moment that Springsteen walked on stage, that stadium seemed to shrink down until it felt like a small, intimate club. And that's what a luchador can do with pure physical charisma. Although El Hijo de L.A. Park had kind of a villainous charisma. In terms of what they do, the Rudos are supposed to cheat. They're supposed to show disrespect to the audience and disrespect to the referees. You know, they're supposed to be rougher than they need to be,

but mostly they're supposed to break the rules and get away with it. Well, I'm sorry to report that the happy-go-lucky Montekia had a pretty rough match against Darth Joker. In fact, in the end, after Montekia had been beaten, he was selling his defeat so hard as he was lying in the ring, I noticed that the ref went up to him very quietly just to check to make sure if he was okay. And Montekia quickly nodded, as if to say,

it's all part of the show. In a moment, we will hear from a Mexican photographer who walks the line between revealing the secret life of luchadores without revealing too many of their secrets. Lourdes Grobet lives in Mexico City, and she is very well respected in the world of lucha libre because she spent three decades photographing luchadors. And early in her career, she photographed two of the biggest stars of the day,

El Santo and Blue Demon. The parties were just amazing. It was like a dream place because at the beginning they were really very handsome and very well dressed. Now the economics fell down. I mean, they don't dress that way,

but by that time they looked like prince. Lourdes started watching Lucha Libre when she was a girl in the 1950s. It was that period of time where Lucha Libre when she was a girl in the 1950s. It was that period of time where Lucha Libre was very briefly televised. She begged her father to take her to a match. But my father didn't want to take me to the wrestling matches because I was a woman.

So when I became a photographer, when you're a camera, you can do whatever you want. And you can solve all your needs and curiosities and so so I went into the arena to take some photographs and then I caused a problem because I was a woman again taking photographs of the wrestling matches they haven't seen a woman taking photographs. I mean, all the photographers were men. Eventually, she got permission to take pictures. And today, lucha libre organizations like the CMLL do have female wrestlers.

But what's most striking about Lourdes' work is that she photographs the luchadors in their everyday lives, but they're still wearing their costumes while they're sitting in their living rooms or doing their day jobs. In looking at her pictures, I kept focusing on the little details, like the fabric on their couches, like anything that would reveal something about their true selves. But it's a strange juxtaposition because these are private spaces where they wouldn't normally need to wear masks. Even if I go to their houses, when they see a camera in front, you have to have respect. And you don't have enough for their living. When I go and take photographs of them, I mean, I cover their faces because you cannot take a photograph of a masked wrestler because you destroyed all the myth of the character.

What kind of jobs did a lot of them have outside of earning money through wrestling? I mean, you find a big range of work because you can find people coming out from universities, like a dentist, like a medicine. But there's a lot of people, the bodyguards. There are people that make boots and make little dolls to sell outside of the arenas. Some others have shops or stores in the markets, all sorts. One of the things that I think is so compelling about her work is because these wrestlers have to wear masks in front of the camera, you're very aware of yourself being a voyeur in a private space that you want to be in, but you know you

don't quite belong. Like one of her most famous photographs is of a female luchador feeding her infant son with a bottle while she's wearing a black and sparkly silver mask that covers her entire head except for her hair. And after the time I met her, well, I have been close to her and I have the same photograph, but with her grandchild. And she left the wrestling and she became a police. And I took some photographs of her as a police in her police car. Did she have her mask on in the police car? Yeah, and I told her, could I take a photograph of you mask? And she

said, of course. All my friends, all my chiefs are wrestlers, so go on. That's so funny. Did you ever see her without her mask? Yeah, I mean, just at Santo Blue Demon, I didn't meet them without mask. All the rest, I met them without mask.

But of course, when we had a photographic session, they used a mask. Lucha Libre has changed since Lourdes started taking pictures in the early 1980s. I mean, it is still deeply rooted in Mexican culture, but I noticed that a lot of them are also now citing Hollywood movies and comic books as their inspiration. For instance, I talked with a wrestler called Rayo, which is Spanish for Thunderbolt. Now, all the wrestlers that I talked with were wearing masks,

but Rayo's mask was the only one that actually covered his mouth. I come because I like Flash more. You know, I like Flash and what he wears all the time. In case you couldn't understand him, he said the inspiration for his costume is the Flash. That's why he's got lightning motifs coming out of his wrist cuffs, and he had a secondary mask around his eyes that shot up these lightning designs over his head. The rest of his head was covered with a black mesh mask, and the only part of his face that

wasn't covered were his eyes, but he was wearing white contact lenses that erased the color around his eyes, making him look otherworldly. When I had my mask, I feel like super hero. I feel like nobody can stop me. I can do a lot of stuff that I can't do without my mask, you know, and I feel more like more confident all the time. Now, Ryo is actually trained by Bronco Internacional, the wrestler from the Bronx that we heard at the very beginning.

Yeah, yeah. He's the one who opened the doors for us, actually. Ten years ago, I didn't know anything about where to train and all that. So I came to that gym and he opened the doors for me. He opened the doors for a lot of kids around here. Now, Rayo's regular job is

working in IT, in audiovisual equipment. But outside of that, he's been training for ten years to be a luchador. We work every day. There's no day that we can work. Even these guys, the Gressling guys, they work so much, you know? They work he's been training for 10 years to be a luchador. I live all the way like two hours from here, you know, so I come all the way. I live in Connecticut and I train in Bronx, you know. So every, almost like every three days, I come like Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I travel every two hours to come to my gym and travel two hours back to my house. It's really, it's a lot of traveling, but it's worth it.

At the end, it's always worth it, you know. Who are you going to wrestle tonight? Tonight? I don't know yet. I don't know yet, but whatever it is, I'm ready. Always ready. Always ready, yeah. Rayo ended up being part of a tag team, and his opponents were these two guys that were more of a hybrid

of U.S. and Mexican wrestling. Now, you might have noticed that none of the wrestlers that I talked with were in character, but Jay Lion and Midas Black definitely were. Midas wore a sparkly ringmaster uniform, and Jay Lion looked kind of like a muscular version of Scar from The Lion King designed in a Lucha Libre style. Roar!

All over the world. Big man, lion, like to eat, do flip, roar. This man, this lion, excuse me, because he's just so freaking impressive, he could do it all. Like, he's such a big body. He could dive through hula hoops. This man could do hand springs, back flips.

Like, he's one of a kind. How did you come up with the design of the mask? Did you work with like a guy to make the mask? Yes, yes. Lion hide face, hide real face, real ugly. Midas pretty face, he no wear mask. So it's like when you put on that mask, you just become a lion.

Yes, I am lion. In the mask and in my heart. When you look at a picture of a lion, you think of heart of a lion, you think of everything a lion stands for, that's what you get with Jay Lion. And that's why he is my lion. He's not only my lion, he's the world's lion. Watching them wrestle against Raya was interesting. I mean, it was all very super acrobat with lots of body slams and flips and

vamping for the audience. And it was a taste of what is going on in North America and Latin America because the two styles of wrestling are starting to blend. For North American audiences, having luchadores crop up is just an interesting novelty. But Lourdes Grobet is fiercely protective of Lucha Libre as a Mexican cultural icon. She doesn't like seeing the influence of the WWE down in Mexico. Wrestling software, this way of living that you impose, which is business, I mean, show business and commercial, it changed a lot. I mean, there's people that are real aficionados. How do you say aficionados?

Oh, yeah, aficionados, yeah. Yeah. They don't want to go anymore to the arenas, the main ones, because those are the ones, la Arena Mexico, la Arena Coliseo, the biggest ones, the main ones. That changed a lot. But fortunately, wrestling is so strong in this country, around the city and in small places and cities,

it's the same, it's the same ambience, it's not about business. And that's why I believe that this will never finish in this country. And that's why I believe that this will never finish in this country. Now, I can't really say definitively whether the shows that I saw in New York were classic lucha libre or a hybrid. But the thing that I found most encouraging were the kids. On a Saturday night, they were not glued to screens watching movies or YouTube or playing video games. They were watching something live. The sound of the wrestlers hitting the floors was very real. The suspense over who was going to win was real, at least for the audience. And these heroes and villains, even if they were

cartoonish, felt real. I mean, they were right in front of their eyes. So the next time you see an Uber driver, a construction worker, a special ed teacher, an IT consultant, a police officer, think twice. You might be in the presence of a star. Not that they'd tell you about it. That is it for this week. Thank you for listening. Special thanks to Lourdes Grobet and Lucina Malalesio, who recorded Lourdes in Mexico City. Special thanks to everybody at Nueva Era Lucha Productions and everybody at the Bronx Wrestling Federation. And special thanks to Heather Levi. She actually has a lot more to say about Lucha Libre and her book, The World of Lucha Libre Secrets, Revelations, and Mexican National Identity. My assistant producer is Stephanie Billman. You can like the show on Facebook. I tweet at emalinski and Imagine Worlds Pod, and I have pictures of the luchadors that I met on the show's Instagram page. And the show's website is imaginaryworldspodcast.org.