Big Daddy Splat!

Following the ‘Museo de las Momias’ our experiments in activities of questionable taste continued with a night out at the ‘Lucha Libre’ (literally ‘free fight’) that is Mexican wrestling. Very much a family affair we sat in the ‘Parque Beis-Bol’ amongst groups comprising several generations of locals as the first bouts of the night began. We’d arrived ridiculously early so sat on our concrete bench behind the chicken wire fence separating us from the ring (in ‘The Pen’), our sense of anticipation increasing in direct proportion to the loss of feeling in our buttocks.

The wrestlers in the first part of the bill looked like your Dad had decided to have a go. With podgy bodies clad in string vests, ‘budgie-smuggling’ Speedo swimming trunks and old tights they grappled with each other in amateurish style. One even looked like he was about to go fishing, wearing camouflage shorts and a khaki green body warmer. More J.R.Hartley than Giant Haystacks.

In between bouts the gargantuan stereo system pumped classic bass-heavy Mexican two-beat rhythms into the stadium, some of which had English lyrics. ‘You’re so fucking sexy, you’re a sexy fuck’ ran one saucy little rhyming couplet. During these breaks a wonderful array of hawkers descended upon us, touting everything from gimpy wrestling masks to strawberries and cream, though any other similarities to Wimbledon ended there. One hugely fat dude flogged nuts, cakes and biscuits from a heavily-laden round tray perched atop his plump noggin. Impressed by his deportment and balancing skills when he paused and offloaded the tray to pat his perspiring brow we realised how flat and plate-like the top of his polished pate was. Either born to do it or been doing it too long.

As the evening wore on the combatants grew bigger, were in better shape in an Arnold ‘body like a condom full of walnuts’ Schwarzenegger sort of way, and no strangers to body waxing and tanning salons. The costumes were also a little more sophisticated, looking a little flashier than something their Mum had seemingly knocked up on a sewing machine at home. The actual ‘fighting’ however couldn’t have been more pantomime without involving a wrestler called Widow Twankey. It wasn’t so much about the winning as about taking your opponents apart. Dirty tricks were integral and the crowd only became enlivened when what superficial ‘rules’ existed were transgressed with a sucker-punch to a distracted opponent or by kicking a man when he’s prostrate on the canvas. The acrobatic, gymnastic choreography of throws and holds was all stirring stuff, but the Royal Shakespeare Company couldn’t have been better rehearsed.

Just when we felt the comedic bitch-slapping slap-stick had reached its zenith there was a special round for what the politically correct would call ‘vertically challenged’ wrestlers (or a 'Dwarf bout' to the less PC). These diminutive brawlers were a case study in ‘small man syndrome’ viciousness, going at each other in a febrile frenzy of aggression. The violence of this was then unexpectedly leavened by outbreaks of simulated oral or anal sex on incapacitated opponents. One burly masked midget (and I never dreamt I’d be writing those words on this blog) suffered the repeated indignity of having his pants yanked down to reveal his g-stringed buttocks, like a tourniquet tightly bisecting a bronzed ham. This was invariably the cue for another member of his tag-team (3-man tag is simply an excuse for a brawl) to be flung face first between his presumably hot sweaty ass cheeks to the crowd’s delirious roar of approval.

The final headlining match featured the wrestlers whose faces adorned the posters that had first drawn our attention to the night, plastered as they were across the city. In the red corner we had ‘El Hijo del Santo’ (the Son of the Saint), in fetching white tights and silver hood and ‘Gronda XXX’, a red body-painted demon with horns (!) and massively steroid-induced muscles that looked more inflated than pumped. Their opponents were the ‘Blue Demon Jnr’, a vision in shades of cerulean and his partner ‘Dr Wagner’ whose popularity with the baying mob that seemed to have replaced the audience was secured by the hilariously camp, homoerotic mincing of his muscular bulk around the ring.

Twice the action spilled out of the ropes, into the crowd and once even into the stands, a wonderfully unlikely eventuality in that it involved both wrestlers clambering precariously up on a metal chair. This was also a rather more conventional use of a chair as usually they were beating each other over the head with them. By the end of the evening we were numb of cheek and somewhat emotionally exhausted if not quite beating the canvas in submission. We have our own wrestling masks to help us relive the experience. Now we just need a justifiable and acceptable excuse to wear them to avoid resembling perverted gimps. But hey…it’s a look.