Despite the fact that you’d likely never catch me at a WWE match back in the States, I’ve been to live lucha libre matches in Mexico City not just once, but twice during the past month! Lucha libre, or Mexican wrestling, is the second most popular sport in Mexico after soccer. It’s actually not that different from professional wrestling in the U.S. except that that luchadores, or wrestlers, wear masks and perform a lot of high-flying acrobatic moves. It’s been said that the aerial maneuvers alone are worth the price of admission.
A typical lucha libre match will have 4-5 individual fights each consisting of 2-3 rounds. The popularity and skill of the luchadores increases with each round until the final match. The second match is often the female luchadores who can be pretty ferocious. The luchadores work in teams and it’s always the good guys, or técnicos, versus the bad guys, or rudos, and the good guys almost always win.
Lucha libre is so popular in Mexico that many masked luchadores stay in character outside of the ring as well, giving interviews or appearing in public wearing their masks. Interestingly, I remember walking through Roma-Condesa one afternoon several months ago and seeing Blue Demon Jr. giving an interview in his store, mask and all.
Almost as entertaining as the show itself is browsing the street market that sets up around the stadium. Stall after stall of masks, t-shirts, trinkets and a variety of street food and snacks. We made sure to check out every stall, and although we didn’t buy much, our tequila bottles now have masked luchador heads for tops and on that particular evening, Carlos could be seen exiting the stadium disguised as Blue Demon.
If You Go: Arena México is located at Dr. Lavista 197 in the Doctores neighborhood. The closest Metro station is Cuauhtemoc. Matches are held every Friday at 8:30pm and last for approximately 2.5 hours. Tickets can be purchased directly from the stadium box office and range in price from 35 pesos ($3) for balcony seats to several hundred pesos for ring side seating. We paid 85 pesos ($7) for second level preferential seating which turned out to be pretty good — close enough that we could see all the action, but far enough away that we didn’t have to worry about a luchador landing on top of us.
Considerations: Cameras are not permitted in the stadium. If you show up with one you’ll be asked to leave it at the entrance and pick it up again later on your way out. If you’re not comfortable being separated from your camera then the best option is to leave it behind, however cell phones with cameras are allowed inside.
Photo credit: via flickr
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Great image – couldn’t help it, had to Stumble photoblog it and the connected post, as always when I hit this site… learned something new. I’m based outta TX so I gotta make a left one day while heading west through town – if I do, I’ll call you for coffee.
Thanks and I hope you do make it down here, coffee sounds great! =)
I’d love to go see one of these. I think I’ll be adding it to my Mexico Bucket List. Too bad you can’t take a camera in. Know the reason why?
Not sure. But you’ll see plenty of people snapping photos with camera phones throughout the match, which I didn’t quite understand either, but I guess if you have a camera phone then that’s the way to get around the rule.
I’ll bet it’s a blast and a real family event. Never thought much of Roller Derby but living in Austin will take you places you hadn’t dreamed. Babies, grandparents, 20-50somethings as well. We need to visit… you take me to a Lucha libre match and I’ll take you to Roller Derby!
Deal!
Lucha libre! Oh boy, I saw a match in Taxco, it went on for 2 hours with different fighters (some of the people who lost in the first round recovered miraculously and came back to win later). It was so much fun!