Stuff You Should Know - How Mexican Wrestling Works

Episode Date: January 19, 2012

Perhaps it's the colorful masks or the high-flying, rapid-fire acrobatic moves. Whatever it is, there's something uniquely and particularly entrancing about Mexican wrestling, called lucha libre. Learn more about lucha libre in this episode of SYSK. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and that makes the Stuff You Should Know, the Olay edition. Yeah. Call me El Chaco. Is that your name? Sure. El Chaco? I don't know. What does that mean,

the chocolate? I don't know. It probably means something bad. Chaco. We might just look that up. Or it might mean nothing at all. I just said, instead of Chaco, I said Chaco. I like, well, it's that kind of like crunchy sandals. Chaco. Yeah. There's a canyon. All right. Yeah, I like that. You're the canyon. Yeah. That the Anasazi used to inhabit. That's my luchador name. Okay. And you pronounce it correctly. It's not Luke. It's luch. Oh, do people say luchador? I did in my head. Did you? Until I looked up the pronunciation. Yeah, lucha libre va vume. Yes. Yes. Yeah. The sexiest of all wrestling matches. I just went over a how to video. All right. What's your intro? Well, this is pretty much it.

This long meandering, terrible thing. Well, we're talking about Chuck, Mexican wrestling, also known as lucha libre. File this under fun. Yeah, this is pretty cool. We're going to go ahead right now and promise a larger pro wrestling podcast. I think we should do it. Because there's a documentary out now that I want to see called Memphis Heat. Oh, really? And it's about Memphis wrestling. Jerry Lawler, Jay Prom, and Andy Kaufman was involved in. Basically gave birth to WWF. What I consider the heyday. Sure. And lucha libre is very reminiscent to me of the older days of American wrestling. Right. Which I'm not into anymore. It doesn't go. Oh, yeah, man. Hexaw Jim Duggan, Hulk, Andre the Giant, WWF. There was a cartoon,

wasn't there? Didn't they have a cartoon? I'm pretty sure they did. Oh, I'm sure they have. If they haven't, then they're way overdue. Yeah. Have you ever heard Jason Segal's Andre the Giant by the way? It's amazing. Really? He does something with his throat. And it's he did it in that one movie with Paul Rudd. That was actually pretty good. And then he did it on Saturday Night Live recently in a skit called Andre the Giant Orders Ice Cream. He goes to an ice cream shop and just eat those up with all this. Nice. Yeah, it's really good. I will definitely check it out. But we're talking about Mexican wrestling. Yes, yes. Today we're talking about Mexican wrestling and to talk about Mexican wrestling. Unfortunately, you have to go

back to the beginning of wrestling, which originated in America. Yeah, this kind of wrestling, sure. Yeah. Yeah, we're not talking like Greco Roman or anything like that. But professional wrestling started in the late 19th century in America. And it had a little bit of a boom. It was very serious. It was very legitimate. And then people got bored with it. Oh, really? Yep. So in the 1920s, these guys, these three professional wrestlers called the Gold Dust Trio. Awesome. Yeah, they, because everything they touched turned to gold, they were like expert promoters. Yeah. They were like, you know what? I think we should stop taking ourselves so seriously. Let's just start making things up. Yeah. And everybody said, what? And they're like, yeah, yeah. We're like,

we do this in carnivals, right? It's entertainment. And everybody said, well, yeah, this is a carnival act. They said, well, we know about kayfabe. Kayfabe is basically like keeping up the suspension of disbelief. Okay. It's made up stuff carried out as if it were real. Right. That's the whole premise behind professional wrestling. Yeah. Which I'm sorry to break an 11 year old's heart right now. Professional wrestling is fake. The athleticism isn't fake. Right. But if somebody like is, you know, really, the guy outside of the ring is not really sleeping with the other guy's wife. Right. And that's not why they're fighting right then. Right. Right. Okay. So the storylines are manufactured for entertainment purposes. Exactly. But they're all amazing athletes and

they all do really get hurt and inflict pain. Right. Many times. Right. Yeah. So I mean, it's not that. Yeah. Real blood. Sure. Um, but okay. Well, no, that's not true. Okay. Well, in a lot of cases. Yeah, they have little blood packets. In some cases. Yes. So this is 1920s when pro wrestling, as we understand it with the kayfabe started within 10 years, we had lucha libre Mexican wrestling. Yeah. Thanks to a guy named Don Salvador Lutero Gonzalez. That's right. He is the father of the lucha libre. Yeah. And he started the first Mexican wrestling league called the impresia Mexicana de lucha libre. And thank you. And originally came from Spain from what I understand too. And they, uh, they called it catches catch can and then just catch.

But then during the Spanish Civil War, I think people, uh, the Spanish went back to Spain and it sort of just the wrestlers migrated over to Mexico. Yeah. That'll work. Yes. Okay. The Spanish Civil War shut everything down, shut the leagues down. Yes. Um, what was that movie where that was about the little boy and it's set during the Spanish Civil War in the orphanage? Yeah. Uh, that was what's his face. The Guillermo del Toro. Yeah. What was the name of that movie? It was good. It was very creepy. So see that movie. Look it up. So yeah. So, um, Don Gonzalez said, okay, well, let's take it back to Mexico and that's where Mexican wrestling came from. That's why it's seated in Mexico. The earliest Mexican wrestlers used to go back and forth between Mexico and

Spain until Spanish Civil War. Yeah. And they said, Spain's a little crazy right now. We're going to stick to Mexico. Yeah. And not only that, we've got a steady supply of professional wrestlers from America. They're going to make up some of the earliest, uh, luchadors. Yeah. He was inspired by, uh, Texas wrestling, right? Right. Which I bet was pretty awesome in the 1930s. Yes. Oh, well, I think it was, if not based in Texas, there were carnivals that were being held that came through Texas that we saw. Um, and so he gave birth to, uh, what was it called? The Impressa Mexicana de Lucha Libre. Yeah. The EMLL, which is now the CMLL. Yes. And this is like the, uh, the WWE of Mexican wrestling. It's like the big one. Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre.

Why do you crack up every time? Because you did so earnestly. Well, I'll try to, you know, be authentic. Um, so Chuck, we should, since you are so into the Spanish, um, pronunciation, can you translate lucha Libre for the listeners? Yes. Uh, free fighting or free wrestling is what it's called or translated as. And, um, one of the reasons why is because, you know, sort of loosey goosey. It wasn't like, uh, it's entertainment and not sport. Gotcha. So you want to talk about the entertainment? Let's talk about lucha Libre as a whole, like on a very broad scale. Okay. The lucha dore is the name of the wrestler. Lucha Libre is the wrestling. Right. And they, uh, one, one of the, the biggest things that distinguishes them from their American counterparts is the mask.

The mask is huge. And while not all of them wear masks, most of them start out wearing masks. Right. Very important to the culture. It is. Of their wrestling. Um, and it's a really, really big deal to not wear the mask. Like you can't just go up and unmask a Mexican wrestler. No, no, no. They'll kill you on the spot. Yes. Um, this whole kind of, uh, persona of the lucha door goes outside of the ring too. Oh yeah. And so you may be in your local grocery store. And if a lucha door lives nearby, he will probably be grocery shopping, wearing his mask. Yeah. They carry that identity. Uh, a lot of times they will pass it down to their, their sons and carry on the family tradition of, of the lucha door. Very important to the culture. It's not just some,

you know, redneck sport like it is here. Right. No. Um, not true. I'm sorry. Uh, uh, did you like how quickly I agreed? Yes. We're going to get in trouble for that one. We are. Um, so lucha doors are tech, are traditionally divided along two lines, the good guys and the bad guys, or in American pro wrestling, the bad guys are called heels down there. They're called a rudos. Yeah. Rude boys or, um, just basically villains. Yeah. And then the good guys, the heroes are called technicals. Yes. And, um, yeah, you've got the rudos are often, um, like the, I guess the spine of lucha libre is that it's very populist. Yes. So like a technical will be like, uh, based on a superhero, a saint, an Aztec warrior, somebody who is all about fighting for the common man.

Yes. The farmers, the poor people, we are the ones who, uh, will stick up for you. Right. Exactly. And then the rudos, they're like, uh, they often have the, uh, the character of a corrupt cop or official. Yeah. A drug dealer, a gangster. Yeah. Which I imagine like, especially these days, if you are, uh, a rudo and you're like portraying a drug dealer, you're probably on thin ice. Yeah. That might not be the best choice these days. No. Um, and so it's this battle between, you know, the, the little person and then the larger authority that's trying to oppress them. And then the little person of the person that is, fights on behalf of the little person tends to win. That's right. Good, good. Conqueror's evil. Exactly. Yeah. Uh, unless you're a good

villain, cause that can be played up, you know, over the years as well. Sure. I think one of these guys, I can't remember, made his career as one of like the great villains. Uh, that was Guerrero, I think. Oh, okay. I believe Eddie Guerrero. Yes. Uh, we mentioned the masks, uh, how important they are. The masters play such a huge part that they have certain matches called, uh, luchas de puestas, matches with wagers. Did you see this? They are very special match, matches where they will wager, uh, generally one of three things, either their mask, their hair, or their career. Wow. And it can be in any combination. It can be, I bet my mask versus your hair, my hair versus your hair, my career versus your mask. I just, I bet my hair, but

that's about it. And at the end of this match, obviously whoever loses either is unmasked, you know, which means they're either done or they adopt a new persona and leave that behind. I have heard that that's not the case. I heard that if you lose your mask, you can't wrestle masked any longer. You can wrestle, but you wrestle shamefully as Jonathan Strickland explained it to me, shamefully barefaced. Okay. Well, I've seen you can adopt a new one. So I bet you someone out there knows for sure. Yes, we'll find out. Um, or if you're probably nearing retirement, you would, you would bet your career. I doubt if you would do that, it's like a 20 year old, right? Um, because it would make much sense and you will literally have to retire

at the end of the match. Uh, you will reveal your name, your hometown and how long you've been wrestling traditionally after you've been unmasked or retired by defeat. Yes. And, uh, that is the luchas de apuestos and they don't do it very often. And it's pretty heated match, obviously. Yeah, I would imagine something at stake. It's probably very, um, very well watched to you. Yes. Uh, it's also characterized more, uh, like the lighter wrestlers are more popular, whereas in the United States, the more popular guy, I mean, they're all huge, huge, right, right. Um, but yeah, loot, loot your doors tend to be smaller and quicker and more agile than American wrestlers. There's a little more, um, high flying acrobatics that's associated with

lucha libre and it's, it's like very, um, fast paced. Yes. Like one move after the other. That's right. Um, and also we, I wanted to mention rudos, like the characters are sometimes, um, Americans. Oh yeah. Yeah. And just to get the crowd riled up, like the American Rudo will, um, will be just as total racist and like classist. Right. And, um, and apparently the crowd goes crazy for that. I'm sure against that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. So, uh, you mentioned the main league now is the CMLL. There's also a rival league and I don't keep up with American pro wrestling anymore. There's, there's still, is it two leagues? I know there's like WWE. We have a friend who moved to WWE. Oh yeah. That's right. I don't

know what the rival is anymore though. WCW. I think it is. I think it is. I'm pretty sure. Sure. Well, they have their international wrestling revolution group and, uh, oh, I'm sorry. They're, that, that, that's, those are the smaller independent leagues that are also scattered about the country, but the main rival league is the Estencia Accessoria, the administration, or the AA. Gotcha. So they have two big leagues and then some smaller independent like those are the cool ones. I saw some videos and it looks like the old school American day. It's when they're in front of like 4,000 people in a gym. Yeah. Like just flying around. They still do that in, um, like in Memphis. Oh, do they? But it's not like 4,000 people. It's like 40.

Wow. Yeah. At the pyramid. And then Strickland also told me about, um, no, like West Memphis, Arkansas, like in a, like a, basically a covered alley. Gotcha. Um, there's a play, there's this group called Chikara out of Philadelphia and they basically, they do this absurdist Mexican wrestling. Strickland told me about this, um, where like there's this guy named ice cream junior and his persona is like a clown with like a little clown hat sticking off the side of his head. His face is painted and his secret weapon is a bag, a sock filled with ice cream sprinkles that like he'll throw it like his opponent and it just burns him like acid. He'll, um, he'll, you know, there's this one great shot of it, um, of him throwing it on his opponent. The guy just

writhing in pain and ice cream junior like puts some more on the mat and he goes to like drop the guy on it, but the guy gets to drop on him and throws ice cream junior down. He starts writhing like, how am I back? It's really great. Why didn't you send me this? You have to see it. I'll send it right now. Okay. Yeah. Have fun that remarkable. Yeah. We should post that to our Facebook page. We always say we're going to do that, but it's, um, it's, it's the same thing. It's just like in this fluorescent light gym with like 50 or a hundred people and it's called Chikara. Awesome. Yeah. But it, that kind of combines Mexican wrestling with Japanese style Mexican wrestling. Yeah. It's a big over there, right? It is. Um, and there's a couple of wrestlers that have kind of

taken it to the next level. Ultimo dragon and tiger mask. Have you seen tiger mask? No. It's awesome. You know what? I think I have. I mean, it's a tiger mask. Right. Yeah. Um, and these guys are like the, I guess Japanese stars of Mexican wrestling in Japan. So crazy. Yeah. I love it. The war on drugs impacts everyone. Whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute, uh, 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course. Yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is

the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that will piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the I heart radio app, apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. On the podcast, pay dude, the nineties called David Lashor and Christine Taylor stars of the cult classic show. Hey, dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey, dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack

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app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You mentioned lucha of a boom earlier. That is a variation of lucha Libra that's pretty popular right now because it combines wrestling with burlesque strip tease and stand up comedy and not just stand up comedy like like girls spinning three hula hoops and one piece stuff and like, um, yeah, uh, just anything you can think of, um, that's just totally out there. And I think it's based in Los Angeles. They should do that in the middle of a roller derby ring. It's very, I'm surprised that they haven't. And if they haven't, and they listen to this pocket bet they start doing it and serve tons of beer. They suggest to best watch it that you drink tequila shots. Yeah,

that's how you best enjoy. I seriously was watching this how to watch lucha of a boom. And they were like, this is the rudos. This is what you do for him. Boo. And then this is the technicals and you cheer for him. And then you, you want to drink tequila shots, but not so much that you throw up and get up on the stage because that'll ruin it. Right. Right. Um, it's pretty cool. But the, so lucha of a boom is going to be in Calgary Edmonton. There is the tie that binds this one with chemtrails. Yeah. In case you ever come across a question. It's all related. Um, on January 27th and 28th at the Calgary high performance rodeo, their headlining. If I live in Calgary, I would go to that. They should bring this through Atlanta.

Well, normally they have it in LA at the Mayan theater. Yeah. And Atlanta has a, you know, a large Latino population. So yeah. And dudes like us. Yeah. That mix well with that crowd. Yes. Like, like to do tequila shots, but not so much that we throw up. No, because that ruins it. Yeah. Um, let's talk about the wrestling, the Rasslin itself. Okay. They have many more weight classes than our American, uh, count their American counterparts because it was originally based on a boxing classes, which is great because like you said, the little light guys can fly around and jump and do these awesome aerial moves that you don't see as much anymore in the U S. Um, and one of those weights, I was like, you know, I'm going to take this opportunity to look

up what the heck welter weight means. So it looked up welter and welter itself means like wallow. It has nothing to do with anything else. But if you look up the entomology of welter weight, yeah, they think that it's based on the English word welt, which means to beat severely. So I was like, okay, that's what welter weight. It's the weight class where the people beat severely one another. Wow. Yeah. Pretty cool, huh? 170 pounds, by the way, for the welter weight. Yeah. You would think the heavy weights would be welter weight then. Yeah. Cause they inflict more bruises. I guess not. I guess not. So, um, Chuck, there's different kinds of matches you can have. You have like single matches. Boring. Yeah. Those are not the most popular ones. Um, but we need to go over

the rules. Yes. They're there for a purpose. Yes. So we have to tell them, um, there's four ways to win a single match. That's to pin for three seconds. Yep. Knock somebody out of the ring for 20 seconds. Yep. To make your opponent submit, which you don't tap in Mexican wrestling. You wave or you say referee. Oh, yeah. Like I'm about to die here. I want to quit. Right. Or you can, um, be disqualified. The other person can be disqualified. Yeah. There's a few ways that can happen. Uh, if you take off someone's mask, that is a disqualification unless the storyline calls for it. Um, no weapons. So like you're not going to see any chair hitting going on. Okay. That's definitely different. Uh, no grind shots. No. And you can't attack the referee. Yeah. Why would you? Which makes sense.

Although, you know, they do that some in American wrestling. Yeah. And there's that one classic clip that was at the beginning of Malcolm in the middle of that, the referee getting in front of a punch during that boxing man. Yeah. Just getting KOed. Classic. Yeah. Um, also a pile driver. You can't pile drive somebody. Yeah. But like you said, like unmasking, they'll sometimes do it anyway, even though you're going to get disqualified, but they customarily, the person who's pile drive, pile driven, um, is carried out on the stretcher to just make sure all the kids know, like, don't do this at home. It's very bad, which is pretty awesome. Yeah. Uh, they certainly do that in the States. No, like, don't try this at home unless you're really tough. Right. Like,

they inject steroids in the middle of the ring in the States. That's so, uh, the referee can also stop the, the, uh, the brawl for excessio de rudezas, which is excessive punishment or violence. It was just funny because it's saying like, if you, uh, excessively beat your opponent, we're going to go ahead and give you the, the, the match. Oh, you win? Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. I know. It's like a, well, it's like the referee stop in a boxing match, I guess. Or like a baseball game. What is that rule? I don't know. Well, there's some rule where it's like the team's beating the other team by like 12 points. Oh, like a mercy rule? Yeah. Mercy rule. Yeah. If you're up by like 11. Yeah. After a certain inning, they'll cough it. But it makes sense. I mean,

like, so humiliating. Yeah. It's not like you're going to give the win to the team that lost. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. It's the same thing. Although these days, you never know. Kids, this country, these days, like you said, the tag team matches are really where it's at in Mexican wrestling. Uh, and the most popular of the tag team are the three on three, uh, the trios matches. Um, the goal there, if you're going to win is to either pin the captain in or to pin both of the other two guys. Right. Correct. Yeah. Correct though. Yeah. And, uh, there's two referees usually in those and there are also four and four, five on five. And, you know, it's, it's a lot of action going on in the four on four. Those are called the

Atomic Coast matches, which is pretty cool. Yeah, I like that. Um, and then the five on five, the whole, like the only way to win is to pin the team captain, apparently. Yeah. And another difference between that and American wrestling when you have a tag team in American wrestling is you have to literally tag each other. Right. Whereas in Mexican wrestling in Lucha Libre, if you're out of the ring, which either thrown out or you can crawl out, then your other, uh, partner can get right on in there, which really speeds things along and keeps it exciting. Yeah. As they say. And, uh, if you want to know a few moves, or if you'd like to hear the names and descriptions of a few moves, we get you covered there. Basically,

if you understand what the plancha is, you understand Mexican wrestling. Okay. Basically, the plancha is where your opponent is flat on his back on the, in the ring. Um, and you're up on the ropes and you jump on them with your full body weight. Yeah. Then there's variations to the plancha. There's the, uh, Torneo, which is a plancha in which the wrestler who's jumping off of the ropes twists in midair for visual effect. Sure. There's the Centon, which is a plancha in which the diving wrestler lands on his back on top of the other wrestler. Nice. Um, and then that's pretty much it. I mean, there's a couple of others you want to take this? Uh, well, if you're going to headbutt someone, they're going to call that a tope. Um, and these are just a few

of the moves. I mean, there are tons and tons of moves and they're done in various combinations. Right. According to your, your personal flair. And they're all plancha rooted. Are they? No, not all of them. There's plenty of plancha rooted moves. I saw some cool leg, uh, uh, twists where the guy would be on his back and get a dude like in a scissorhold with his legs and then do like a, this little break dance spin move to flip the guy over. That sounds a lot like the Huracan Rana. Oh yeah. What's that? Well, the Rana is the position where, so the wrestler holds the opponent's shoulders down with his knees and then hooks his legs with his arms. Right. Oh, yeah. And if you start that out with, um, a flying head scissor, you're doing

the Huracan Rana. Awesome. As, as popularized by Huracan Ramirez. Oh, that was his name. Makes sense. Yeah. Uh, yet another difference in lucha Libra in American pro wrestling is in American pro wrestling, aside from like the rock and your occasional appearance by Hulk Hogan and Rocky three wrestlers are generally wrestlers. Whereas in Mexico, they are, uh, national icons and generally they're on TV. They're in movies and comic books. They're all over the place. And that's thanks largely to, um, El Santo. The king. Yeah. Santo. Um, that's not what it means. I'm just calling him. No, he, it means, uh, his name means, uh, the saint of the silver mask. Yeah. Santo. El enmasquerado de plata. Yes. Saints of the silver mask. So Santo, um, was a

technical and, um, he started, he was one of the original, uh, luchadors in the thirties. Yeah. Uh, he was born in 1917, started wrestling in the thirties. Um, and by the fifties, he was popular enough that this guy named Jose Cruz came along in 1952 and said, I want to make a comic book of you. And Santo said, all right, whatever. That's cool. Let's see. And he made, uh, what became, uh, this Fumetti style. Have you heard of Fumetti comic books? No. You've seen them before. They're really unsettling and weird, but it's, um, photographs, collages, right? So there'll be like a group of gangsters following Santo and you can see the edges of where the person cut them out and put them together, arranged them and then drew like speech bubbles or whatever. And so the

perspective is off. The backgrounds will be drawn, but like the characters are photographs, Fumetti, it's Italian. I saw that. I didn't know what it was. You saw that when I googled it earlier. Yeah. For this guy. That's what that, that's what that, the, the, that style of comic book that Santo had and it went for like 35 years. His comic book, um, lifetime went for 35 years. And he was also in like 50 movies from, I think the first one was called Evil Brain. Nice. That was in 1958. His breakthrough was Santo versus the zombies. Of course. Um, and, uh, the last one was Fury of the Karate experts from 1982. So he's in 52 movies and two of them were cameos. Awesome. And he acted a lot of times alongside other pro wrestlers, always masked,

of course. In fact, he was never unmasked. That is not true. Yeah, I saw a picture of him. Um, it's kind of disappointing. So not, not disappointing the way he looked, but Ed grab the grabster says that there, there are no photographs or there was one and it was like not publicly available. Yeah, not true. Yeah. Welcome to the internet grabster. Exactly. Um, no, he, he was actually, he unmasked himself. Yeah. Later in life, he went on a show, um, called counter punta, which I think means counterpoint. Yeah. Um, in 1984 and he unmasked himself on that show and then he died a week later. Really? Yeah. But he was buried in his mask. Yeah. And so was one of his acting partners who was himself in 20 movies, the blue demon.

Yes. Um, so both of those guys were buried in their luchador mask and seriously aside from him unmasking himself a week before he died. Yeah. That man spent his entire life pretty much in that mask. People didn't know what he looked like. He was a national hero. Like, but consider that like he was a wrestler and his wrestling persona made it out in, out of the ring into real life, into the movies, into comic books and like this guy wore this mask. That's crazy. Yeah. He's handsome. I saw the picture of him. I have not seen it. Just type it in. You find it right now. I tried and I didn't see one. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's there. Uh, blue demon, as you mentioned, uh, started in a bunch of his own movies as well.

Yeah. Uh, there was a mill mascot us and he was the first guy to do a lot of the, uh, the big aerial moves. Yeah. That's what he was known for. And he, he was in a couple films, I think with the blue demon and santo and he, he was one of the, uh, ones that made his name in the United States as well. Yeah. I think he was the first crossover or the first, um, successful crossover. Yeah. I don't think we mentioned the WWE. I hope I get that right. One of the, if not both have, have, you know, contracts with the Lucha Libre organizations because, you know, it's big money in both countries. So they want to, they want to, and, you know, there's a lot of, uh, Latinos living in the United States, obviously.

So they want to draw in that crowd. And so they try to do a little cross promotion when they can. Yeah. Makes good sense. Um, probably the most successful crossover guy was, is, is Ray Mysterio. That's a great name. Um, he basically brought the idea of, um, Lucha Libre to professional wrestling in America, at least this generation that's watching now. Um, and I think he's still wrestling. I don't know. Maybe we'll find out. Mystico still wrestling. He, uh, just came over to the WWE in 2011. Um, he had to change his name though. Oh, really? Yeah. He started out in the CMLL in 2006. Um, and he, when he came over to the WWE, apparently the CMLL doesn't have the same kind of contract with the WWE that the other one does because they said, no, we own, uh, Mystico

and his mask. So you have to change your name and wear a new mask and be shamed forever, probably. And so he said, you know what, that's fine. I'll be Sin Sara, which translates to without a face. He's like, you're still writing the checks, right? Yeah. Yeah. And he goes, all right, yeah, I'll be whatever then. And then you also mentioned Eddie Guerrero and he, um, he was, uh, very, uh, popular heel, a Rudolph's who made a crossover into the WWE. Oh yeah. Yeah. I've seen pictures of that guy, but he died in 2005 supposedly of, um, steroid use. Oh, really? Or it was exacerbated by steroid use. There are female, uh, pro wrestlers in Mexico, and they are called Lucha Doris, obviously. And they have their own, uh, CMLL has their own

women's division and AAA also recognizes a mixed tag team championship, which I imagine would be pretty cool. Yeah. Men and women wrestling, wrestling together. Right. But that's fun. And they have the mini Estrella or the minis. Yeah. Which, uh, is not only for little people, but just people under five feet tall originally, although there are some now they're like five, four, five, five. Well, do you want to tell them what the minis are? Well, they're little people that wrestle. Well, there's, there's commonly a mini version of another of a larger Lucha door. Oh, okay. So they'll be like, um, just kind of a, uh, sometimes they'll wrestle together. Um, sometimes they're alter egos, but they'll be like, uh, like a mini version of, of a Lucha

door. Did you hear about Arterito? He was one of the minis and he had a, he did a R2D2 bit. His name was Arterito. Yeah. That's pretty cool. And then perhaps the biggest way that it differentiates from American wrestling is since the 1950s, they have openly supported gay wrestlers, very flamboyant cross-dressing gay wrestlers. Yeah. They're called the Exoticos. Yeah. Yeah. How about that? Oh, there's one, um, that's really kind of large and in charge right now, um, named, uh, really? No, it's Cassandra. Uh-huh. And, uh, he is, uh, the queen of the ring. That's what he bills himself as. He commonly wrestles in like a bathing suit or a bikini and pantyhose, um, in drag. Yeah. Watch the interview with him. He's extremely, extremely

flamboyant. Yeah. And, um, apparently he started out wrestling with a mask, uh, and then said, you know, I realized I'm hiding behind this and I don't feel like I need to hide. So he's one of also not only the, um, probably the most flamboyant of the Exoticos, the most openly gay of them all. Yeah. Um, he's also one of the rare, um, Mexican wrestlers that wrestles without a mask. Yeah. And he said that, you know, the fans get behind me. He said that, you know, at first I'll get some booze and some like some things being said to me, but it's been going on since the 1950s, the Exotico, uh, pro wrestler and apparently fans get behind it and in a country and a sport that's obviously very geared toward the macho. Right. Uh, it's pretty cool to know

that they'll, they'll get behind these guys and root for him. Oh yeah. Cassandra is a star. Robert Lamb of stuff to blow your mind told me. You know about Cassandra, right? Well, he, uh, also Cassandra was, was trained by Ray Mysterio senior. Yeah. So he is like a real legit, awesome lineage there. Yeah. The Mysterios have like this whole, uh, family dynasty. Yeah, that's real big. His, so Ray Mysterio, who we mentioned, his uncle Ray Mysterio senior, um, was like one of the original luchadors and then they also as like a brother and nephew of cousin that are all also very, um, they're like successful luchadors too. Pretty cool. Very cool. I'd love to go to, I hope the baboon or something comes to Atlanta. Like I'm not so much into the, the WWE, but, uh,

this stuff reminds me of the, the awesome childhood wrestling that I so enjoyed. Yeah. Plus masks. Yeah. And if it doesn't come, Chuck, you can watch it on the internet. And by the way, I want to correct myself. That was Eddie Guerrero, who was part of the family dynasty. Okay. Not Mysterio. No, but there is a Ray Mysterio senior. That part was made up. I've got some of these, you know, lamb has, uh, like five of these masks and, uh, El Chippo, my band was going to wear them for our Halloween, uh, party and play in them. And so he lent them to me and I, I thought it was awesome, but my drummer was like, I don't want to wear a mask. What? Yeah. He didn't want to wear a mask.

I know your drummer and he needs to wear a mask. Um, and I almost, I meant to bring one in and then kind of dip behind the curtain before we started and then just like sit down and surprise you. I left mine at home too. Do you have one? Yeah. Strickland gave me one. What is it with those two? I don't know. Did they get together and wrestle in masks? You should see them around candy sprinkles though. They can't even be in the same room as them. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute, uh, 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course,

yes, they can do that in on the prime example. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On the podcast, pay dude, the nineties called David Lasher and Christine Taylor stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the nineties. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co stars, friends and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL instant messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as

we take you back to the nineties. Listen to Hey Dude, the nineties called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. Well, that's it for Mexican Wrestling, AKA Lucha Libre. Indeed. Oh, we should probably mention Nacho Libre. I thought it was a good movie. What about you? I liked it, man. I mean, I love Jack Black, but I don't think it was his best. I like Jack Black the least. He was the least part of that movie that I liked. But with that movie, keeping with the tradition, he played a man fighting for the rights of these orphans. Right. So it was very much true to the Lucha door. And I'm so glad you brought that up, because I really feel like we would have gotten a lot of listener mail and we would have been

remiss had we not brought up Super Barrio, who is a Mexican wrestler that exists only outside the ring. Oh, yeah. There's a guy who in the eighties was showing up at like evictions, things like that and protests, like cheap housing protests as this Mexican wrestler named Super Barrio, even though he didn't wrestle. He's a big fat guy. Yeah. And he he was a an Avenger for the rights of tenants. Awesome. And he said like he was interviewed. He ran for president of Mexico in 1988. And he was interviewed and said like in 1985 after this devastating earthquake that left a lot of people homeless in Mexico, he was in his apartment and he was bathed suddenly in a yellow and red light. And when it dissipated, he said quote, I was dressed like this. And he's

wearing like a red and yellow like outfit with like a cape and everything. Awesome. And he said that a voice told him you are Super Barrio defender of tenants and scourge of greedy landlords. Awesome. So he spent at least a decade showing up at rallies and like, you know, really having a real genuine impact for the greater good. I think I'd be way more into American pro wrestling if they had like these causes that they were behind, like defending the poor and stuff like that. Sure. Yeah. Instead of just, you know, I'm, I don't even know their names anymore. Rowdy Roddy Piper. She's still around. No, he wasn't, they live though. So he's, he's got a pass for me forever. Okay. I don't care what he does. He was in they live and that's cool.

He's old school. Yeah. All right. Well, that's it about Roddy Roddy Piper. That's right. And like we said, we'll do a pro wrestling one someday. We'll try to figure it out. Okay. I thought about a tandem, but I thought, you're going to lose some listeners if you do a Tuesday, Thursday wrestling combo. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to know more about Mexican wrestling, you can type in Mexican wrestling in the search bar at house to force.com. There's also Mexican wrestling masks for thumbs. If you want to do literally great thumb wrestling. Really? Yeah. I got to get some of them. You can probably find those just about anywhere on the internet. Sure. But you want to type in Mexican wrestling in search bar at house to force.com, which brings up Chuck.

Josh, no listener mail today. We're going to do what we rarely do, which is just ask you to help support us not financially. It remains free. But do us a favor, go to iTunes, leave a rating. We're not saying leave a good one. If you think we're mediocre, leave us two and a half stars. No, don't do that. Stay away from iTunes if you're doing that. No, just go and leave a rating and leave some comments. It helps our iTunes rankings out, I believe. Yeah. We always feel like we have beggars bowls out when we're doing this, but we almost never do. It beats a pledge drive. It definitely does, Chuck. And also, we would like to announce that our little videos that we've been running that we've gotten some good feedback on our audio podcast. If you notice, they're not

there anymore because we have a brand new video only podcast, stuff you should know. Search it on iTunes, subscribe to it. And we have our little game show that we do. That's fun. Yes. And our little short one minute things we did for Discovery and Science Channels. Yeah, interstitials. There's a bunch of video of us. I don't know why anybody would want to watch it. Hey, you never know. There's a lot of sick people out there. If you can also search how stuff works or stuff you should know, video podcast RSS, if you don't use iTunes. And there's a whole RSS page of all of the ones that are published. And it will be updated every time we publish this. So back with Listener Mail next time, I promise. Yeah. So I guess until then,

if you want to send us a good Listener Mail, we're wide open, man. I mean, we are wide open right now. The coffers are empty. Yeah. I mean, we get some, but it's mostly like high, which is cool. But they're not necessarily like Listener Mail readable. Yeah, we want like knock our socks off. Knock our socks off. Exactly, Chuck. Knock our socks off on Twitter, SYSK podcast on Facebook, Facebook.com slash stuff you should know or via email at stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff From the Future. Join How Stuff Works staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the Reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?

The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1967, Joseph Stalin's only daughter flees Russia for her new home, America. Hello, everybody. I am very happy to be here. That story alone is worthy of a podcast, but Svetlana Svetlana is about what comes next and it's the craziest story I've ever heard. It has KGB agents, a Frank Lloyd Wright commune, weird sex stuff,

three Olgas, two Svetlanas and one neurotic gay playwright. That's me. Listen to Svetlana Svetlana January 30th on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.