Lucha Libre

I was cruising around town when I happened to read a poster flopping in the wind advertising a Lucha Libra in El Sargento.  This announcement was great cause for excitement for me.  Based on past experiences with Lucha Vavoom in Los Angeles I figured we were in for a party!  Mexican wrestling — small town style.  We started the evening with some pre-fight margaritas and activities on the beach, and then headed on down el estadio de beisbol (baseball — get it?) to see “Murciélago” take on “Steel Dragon” and many others.

We showed up at six sharp looking for food and fight inside the stadium.  The ring was set up roughly on the pitching mound, and surrounded by hundreds of Corona Extra lawn chairs.  The first fight wasn’t made up of a lucha libre battle, but instead what appeared to be a junior club boxing match.  The junior fights continued with real boxing and clean calls by the referee.  It was obvious these kids trained together and their camaraderie predated this event.  The whole thing reminded me of a high school basketball game — the family atmosphere, concession stand and teams traveling in group.  While entertaining, this wasn’t exactly what we had come to see — I took the opportunity to get some bistec ranchero and knock back a few Pacificos — those came in handy after biting into a particularly spicy roasted pepper.

Then came the real show — the likes of “The Fly” and “Vengador Águila” started performing some sweet trash talking and the throwing of bodies commenced.  I think my favorite luchador was “El Hijo de Porky” — a very rotund guy who I envisioned was a truck driver or something by day and actually did very little fighting but talked a lot of shit.  At one point there was a climax consisting of a fight between just about all the fighters among the chairs that really got the Mexican crowd going with jeers and laughter.  I later talked to a lady whose brother runs the La Paz Lucha Libre, and she thought the El Sargento one was ‘cheezzy’ and that in La Paz you could get the real deal.  Either way, I had some great laughs and excellent tacos, bistec, and hot dogs (with mayo and hot sauce…what?).