Sunday, 08 February 2009

• My Adventure at the Lucha Libre Ring!

  by Anne
  
  During a trip to Mexico City, my best friend and I decided to squeeze in one night to attend a Lucha Libre match, Spanish for "free wrestling," it is a form of professional wrestling in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries.
  
  

  
  

  
  When we found out where the ring was, we made our journey there and noticed that there weren't a lot of people. It was odd because we heard these shows get pretty packed with people. We sat in front of the venue and only saw a few men standing around. Of course we were scared being two small girls in what seemed like secluded area of town which was dark at the time.
  
  After a while, we decided to walk to the nearest hotel and ask the concierge where the night's match was located and he told us we were at the wrong venue! So we hopped on the metro and headed over to the other venue.
  
  Lo and behold, when we got to the right venue, it was swarming with crowds of people! We purchased our tickets outside and headed on in and once we did a man asked to look at our tickets and once we handed them to him, he ran off! We were in panic. We paid for good seats!
  
  And I don't know about you, but when I was nervous, I could not blurt out a single clear Spanish word. It came out something like, "El hombre! He! Tiquetes! Ayauda! Help!" Another man tried to help find our tickets. We finally found the man who took off with our tickets and after explaining to us we realized that the event is so fast-paced that if you hand them your tickets they will run off to show you your seats and you have to run after them and not just stand there looking dumbfounded.
  
  And then the match began! I'd have to say that without the crowd cheering for the good guys and booing at the bad guys, the match wouldn't have been as exciting. We totally absorbed the energy of the crowed, we cheered when they cheered and booed when they booed. We even learned the name of the good guy and cheered for him along with the crowd, "Mystico! Mystico!"
  
  

  
  

  
  I was stunned by some of the stunts these wrestlers performed. I read that lucha libre is more focused on aerial stunts rather than powerful smacks. This made sense because I saw some amazing aerial jumps off of the ropes of the ring.
  
  

  
  

  
  After the match, the crowds were still full of excitement so we stuck around to do some people watching. We even bought our own souvenirs, a couple of luchador masks.
  
  

  
  

  
  Have you been to Mexico City or other parts of Mexico? Have you seen a lucha libre match?
  
  
  

  • 6:19 PM
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