January 19, 2012 • 40 mins
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.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
from house stock Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and uh
(00:20):
that makes the Stuff you Should Know the l A edition. Yeah,
called me a Choco. Is that your name? Hell, 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. It might mean nothing at all.
I just said instead of Chucko, I said Chaco. I like, well,
(00:43):
it's the kind of um like crunchy sandals. Chaco. There's
a canyon all right, Yeah, you're you're the canyon. Yeah.
From that the Anasaza used to inhabit. That's my luchador name, okay,
and you pronounce it correctly. It's not Luke, It's luch
(01:04):
Do people say Lukador? I did in my head until
I looked up the lucha Lucha libreva boom. Yes, yeah,
the sexiest of all wrestling matches. I just went over
how to video. All right, what's your intro? Well, this
(01:24):
is pretty much it this long, meandering, terrible thing. Ah.
While we're talking about Chuck Mexican Wrestling also known as
Lucha Libre, file this under fun. Yeah, this is pretty cool. Um,
we're going to go ahead right now and promise a
larger pro wrestling UM podcast. I think I think we
(01:48):
should do it because there's a documentary out now, UM
that I want to see called Memphis Heat, and it's
about Memphis wrestling Jerry Lawler came from and Coffin was
involved in, like like what basically gave birth to w
WF what I consider the heyday. Sure, and Luca Libre
(02:09):
is very reminiscent to me of the older days of
American wrestling, which I'm not into anymore. It doesn't good kid,
I was, Oh, yeah, man, he saw Jim tugging um
Hulk Andre the Giant w W Y there's a cartoon
run there. Didn't they have a cartoon? I'm pretty sure
they did. If they haven't, then their way overdue. Yeah.
(02:32):
Have you ever heard Jason Segels Andre the Giant? But
it's amazing. He does something with his throat and it's uh.
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 and he goes into an
(02:52):
ice cream shop. It just yeah, it's really I will
definitely check it out. But we're talking about Mexican wrestling today.
We're talking about Mexican wrestling, um. And to talk about
Mexican wrestling, unfortunately, UM, you have to go back to
the beginning of wrestling, which originated in America. Yeah, that's
(03:13):
kind of wrestling. Sure, yeah, yeah, we're not talking like
Greco Roman or anything like that. But professional wrestling started
in the late nineteenth century in America. UM, and it
had a little bit of a boom. It was very serious,
it was very legitimate, and then people got bored with it. YEP.
So in the nineteen twenties, these guys, these three professional
(03:34):
wrestlers called the gold Dust Trio. Yeah, they because everything
they touched her into gold. And they were like expert promoters.
They were like, you know what, I think we should
stop taking ourselves to seriously, let's just start making things up.
And everybody said what and they're like yeah, yeah, we're
like we do this in carnivals. Rights Entertainment and everybody said, well, yeah,
(03:54):
this is a carnival act. They said, well, we know
about KFABE and cafebe is basically like keeping up the
suspension of disbelief. It's made up stuff carried out as
if it were real. That's the whole premise behind professional wrestling,
which I'm sorry to break in eleven year old heart.
Right now, professional wrestling is fake. The athleticism isn't fake.
(04:16):
But if somebody like is you know, really the the
guy outside of the ring is not really sleeping with
the other guy's wife and that's not why they're fighting,
right then, right? Okay, so, um, the storylines are manufactured
for entertainment purposes. But they're all amazing athletes and they
(04:38):
all do really get hurt and inflict pain many times. Yeah,
I mean it's real blood. Um. Okay, well in a
lot of cases. In some cases. Uh so this isies
when pro wrestling, as we understand it, with the Cafe
Abe started, within ten years we had luch libre Mexican wrestling. Yeah,
(05:02):
thanks to a guy named Don Salvador Lutos Gonzales. That's right,
he is the father of the Lucha libre and he
started the first Mexican Wrestling league called the Impresi, Makana,
the Lucha Libre and thank you, and it originally came
from Spain from what I understand too, and they called
(05:24):
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. Is that it worked. Yes,
the Spanish Civil War shut everything down. Let's shut the
league's downy Um. What was that movie where that It
(05:46):
was about the little boy and it's set during the
Spanish Civil War in the orphanage. Uh that was what's
his face? The Gilmo del Toro. 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 just take it back
(06:08):
to Mexico. And that's where Mexican wrestling came from. That's
why it's seated in Mexico. Um. The earliest Mexican wrestlers
used to go back and forth between Mexico and Spain
until the Spanish Civil War. And they said Spain is
a little crazy, right, now we're going to stick to Mexico.
And not only that, we've got a steady supply of
professional wrestlers from America. They're gonna make up some of
(06:28):
the earliest Lucca doors. Yeah. He was inspired by Texas wrestling, right,
which that was pretty awesome in the nineteen thirties. Yes,
well I think it was, if not based in Texas,
there were carnivals that were being held that came through
Texas to saw Um and so he gave birth to
what was it called the Impressive Mexicana de Lucha Libre. Yeah,
(06:50):
the E M L L which is now yes, and
this is like the the w W E of Mexican wrestling.
It's like the big one Concerjo de Luca Libre. Why
do you crack up every day you do? It's so internest.
Well I'll try to, you know, be authentica. UM so
(07:12):
chuck wish. Since 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 M. One of the reasons why is
because you know, sort of Lucy goosey. It wasn't like
(07:34):
it's entertainment and not sport. 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 luchador is
the name of the wrestler. Lucha libre is the wrestling
and they one one of the biggest things that distinguishes
(07:58):
them from their American counter parts is the mask. The
mask is huge, and while not all of them wear masks,
most of them start out wearing masks. 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,
(08:19):
you can't just go up and unmasked a Mexican wrestler. No, no, no,
they'll kill you on the spot. Um. This whole kind
of persona of the luchador goes outside of the ring too,
And so you may be in your local grocery store
and if a luchador lives nearby, he will probably be
(08:40):
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 luchador. Very important to the culture. It's
not just some you know, redneck sport like it is
here right now. Um, not true. I'm sorry. Did you
(09:00):
like how quickly I agreed? We're gonna get in trouble
for that one. We are. Um. So, Luchadors are technical
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 rudos, rude boys,
or um just basically villains. And then the good guys,
(09:23):
the heroes, are called technicos and um, yeah, you've got.
The rudos are often um like that. I guess the
spine of lucha libre is that it's very populist. So
like a technico will be like based on a superhero,
a saint, an Aztec warrior, somebody who is all about
(09:46):
fighting for the common man. Yes, the farmers, the poor people.
We are the ones who will stick up for you,
right exactly. And then the rudos they're like they often
have the character of corrupt cop or official, a drug dealer,
a gangster. Yeah, which I imagine, like, especially these days,
(10:07):
if you are a rudeo and you're like portraying a
drug dealer, you're probably on thin ice and that might
not be the best choice these days. Um. And so
that's this battle between you know, the the little person
and then the larger authority that's trying to oppress them,
(10:27):
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 conquers evil exactly. Yea, unless you're
a good villain, because that can be played up, you know,
over the years as well. Sure, I think one of
these guys that can't remember made his career as one
of like the great villains, that was Guerrero, I think. Okay,
I believe, yes, we mentioned the masks how important they are.
(10:52):
The masters play such a huge part that they have
certain matches called uh luca pistas matches with wagers. Did
you see this? They are very special match matches where
they will wager generally one of three things, either their mask,
their hair, or their career, and it can be in
any combination. It can be I bet my mask versus
(11:14):
your hair, my hair versus your hair, my career versus
your mask. I just I bet my hair. But this
about it. And at the end of this match, obviously
whoever loses either is unmasked, 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
(11:38):
any longer. You can wrestle, but you wrestle shamefully, as
Jonathan Strickling explained it to me, shamefully bare faced. Okay, well,
I've seen you can adopt a new and so I
bet you someone out there nose 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
(11:59):
would do that. It's like a twenty year old UM,
because it would make much sense. And you will literally
have to retire. At the end of the match. You
will reveal your name, your hometown, and how long you've
been wrestling traditionally after you've been unmasked or retired by defeat.
And uh that is the Lucas day a quistas, and
(12:20):
they don't do it very often. It's pretty heated match obviously. Yeah,
I would imagine this. There's something at Steak. It's probably
very um, very well watched too. It's also characterized more
like the lighter wrestlers are more popular, whereas in the
United States the more popular guy. I mean, they're all huge, huge,
(12:40):
right rif um. But yeah, Luca Doors tend to be
smaller and quicker and more agile than American wrestlers. There's
a little more high flying acrobatics that's associated with lucha libre,
and it's like very fast paced, like one move after
the other. That's right. Um. And also we I wanted
(13:01):
to mention rudous, like the characters are sometimes Americans and
just to get the crowd rialed up, like the American
Rudeau will, um, we'll 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, yeah,
(13:24):
that's funny. So 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. They're they're still
is it two leagues? I know there's like w We
have a friend who moved to w W. Yeah, that's right.
I don't know what the rival is anymore, though w
(13:44):
W I think it is. I think it is I'm
pretty sure. Well, they had their International Wrestling Revolution group
and uh oh, I'm sorry. There that that that's that's
the the smaller independent leagues that are also scattered about
the country. But the main rival league is the Estencia
a Sesoria the Administration or the A. So they have
(14:08):
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's when they're in
front of like four thousand people in a gym, like
just flying around. They still do that in UM like
in Memphis, but it's not like four thousand people, it's
like forty yeah, at the Pyramid. And then Strickland also
(14:31):
told me about um No like West Memphis, Arkansas, like
in a like an basically covered alley. Gotcha, um there's
a play. There's this group called Chikara out of Philadelphia
and they've basically they do this absurdist Mexican wrestling. Strickland
told me about this um where like there's this guy
named ice Cream Jr. And his persona is like a
(14:55):
clown with like a little clown hat sacking out the
side of his head. His face is painted and his
secret weapon is a bag of sock filled with ice
cream sprinkles that like he'll throw it like his opponent
and it just burns him like acid. He'll he'll, you know.
There's this one great shot of it of him throwing
(15:15):
it on his opponent, the guy just writhing in pain,
and ice Cream Junior like put 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 my back.
It's really great. You have to see it. I'll send
it right now. Okay, Yeah, I find that remarkable. Yeah,
we should post that to our Facebook page, say we're
(15:36):
gonna do that. But it's um. It's it's the same thing.
It's just like in this fluorescent light gym with like
fifty or a hundred people and it's called kara. Yeah,
but 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 been a couple of wrestlers that
have kind of taken it to the next level, Ultimo
(15:58):
Dragon and Tiger Mask. Tiger Mask. 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 I
love it. You mentioned Lucha va Boom earlier. That is
a variation of Lucha Libra that's pretty popular right now
(16:19):
because it combines wrestling with burlesque, striped tease and stand
up comedy and not just stand up comedy, like um,
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
(16:41):
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
podcast that they start doing and served tons of beer.
They they suggest to best watch it that you drink
tequila shots. Seriously. I was watching this how to watch
um Lucha va Boom, and they were like, this is
(17:04):
the rudos, this is what you do for him boo,
and then this is the technic post 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. Um. It's
pretty cool. But so Lucha va Boom is going to
be in Calgary, Edmonton. There is the tie that binds
this one with chem trails in case you ever come
(17:26):
across the questions all related um on January seven eight
at the Calgary High Performance Rodeo their headlining. If I
live in Calgary, I would go to that they should
bring this to Atlanta. Well, normally they have it in
l A at the Mayan Theater. Yeah, and Atlanta has
a you know, a large uh Latino population, so and
(17:46):
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 because that ruins it. Um. Let's
talk about the wrestling, the rastling itself. Okay, uh, they
have many more weight classes than our American uh count
their American counterparts because it was originally based on boxing classes,
(18:10):
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 US. 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 wallo. It has
(18:31):
nothing to do with anything else. But if you look
up the entomology of welter weight, they think that it's
based on uh, 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. Yeah,
(18:51):
pretty cool. Hundred seventy pounds by the way for the
welter weight. Yeah, you would think the heavy weights would
be welter weight then, yeah, because they inflicked 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,
(19:11):
but we need to go over the rules. They're there
for a purpose, so we have to tell them. Um,
there's four ways to win a single match. That's to
pin for three seconds, knock somebody out of the ring
for twenty seconds, to make your opponents submit, which you
don't tap in Mexican wrestling, you waver you say refereo
like I'm about to die here, I want to quit.
(19:33):
Or you can be disqualified. The other person can be disqualified. Yeah,
there's a few ways that can happen. 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
gonna see any chair hitting going on. Okay, that's definitely different.
(19:55):
Uh No, groin shots. No. And you can't attack the
ref free Yeah, why would 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 manage and
just getting kote. Classic. Yeah. I'm also pile driver. You
(20:17):
you can't pile drive somebody, But like you said, like unmasking,
they'll sometimes do it anyway, even though you're gonna get disqualified.
But they customarily the person who's pile drived. 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
(20:38):
do that in the States, like don't try this at
home unless you're really tough, Like they inject steroids in
the middle of the ring in the States. So the
referee can also stop the the uh the brawl for
excessio de rhodesas, which is excessive punishment or violence, which
is funny because it's saying like if you, uh excessively
(21:01):
beat your opponent, we're gonna go ahead and give you
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 does that rule? I don't know. There's some rule
where it's like the team's beating the other team by
like twelve points. Yeah, mercy rule. Yeah, if you're up
(21:23):
by like eleven after a certain ending, they'll cough it.
But it makes sense, I mean like humiliating that. 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, Uh,
like you said, the tag team matches are really where
it's at in Mexican wrestling, uh, and the most popular
(21:46):
of the tag team or the three on three the
trios matches. Um. The goal there, if you're gonna win,
is to either pin the captain or to pin both
of the other two guys, right correct, Yeah, right though,
and uh there's two referees usually in those. And there
are also four and four five on five and you
(22:09):
know it's it's a lot of action going on in
the four on four those called the Atomic Coast matches,
which is pretty cool. Yeah, 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, whereas in Mexican wrestling and
(22:31):
lutal libre, if you're out of the ring, which either
thrown out or you can crawl out, then your other
partner can get right on in there, which really speeds
things along and keeps it exciting. Yeah, as they say.
And if you want to know if you moves or
if you'd like to hear the names and descriptions of
a few moves. We get you covered there. Basically, if
(22:52):
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 him with your
full body weight. Yeah. Then there's variations to the plantcha.
There's the tornillo, which is a plancha in which the
(23:13):
wrestler who's jumping off of the ropes twists in mid
air for visual effect. Sure, there's the cent on, which
is a planta 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, Well, if
you're gonna head butt someone, they're gonna call that a
tope um. And these are just a few of the moves.
(23:35):
I mean, there are tons and tons of moves, and
they're done in various combinations according to your personal flare.
And they're all plant a rooted, are they No? Not
all of them. There's plenty of plant of rooted moves.
That's awesome. Cool leg twist where the guy would be
on his back and get a dude like in a
scissor hold with his legs and then do like this
(23:55):
little break dance spin move to flip the guy over.
There's there's a lot like the hurrican rana. What's up? Well,
the rna 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 yeah, and if you
(24:15):
start that out with um a flying head scissor, you're
doing the hurricane rana awesome as as popularized by Hurricane
ra Miras Oh that was his name. Makes sense? Yeah? Uh?
Yet another difference in Luca libre in American pro wrestling
is in American pro wrestling. Aside from like the rock
(24:38):
in your occasional appearance by Hulk Coogan and Rocky Three,
wrestlers are generally wrestlers, whereas in Mexico they are 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,
(25:02):
that's not what it means. I'm just calling him no,
he means his name means the Saints of the Silver Mask.
Santo Ellen Mascarado del Plata. Yes, Saints of the Silver Mask.
So Santo um was a technico and Um he started.
He was one of the original uh luchadors. Yeah, I
(25:24):
was born in nineteen seventeen, started wrestling in the thirties, um,
and by the fifties he was popular enough that this
guy named Jose Cruz came along in and said, I
want to make a comic book of you, and Santo said,
all right, whatever, that's cool, and he made what became
this few medic style. Have you heard a few medic
(25:46):
comic books. You've seen him before. They're really unsettling and weird.
But it's um photographs collages, right, So they'll be like
a group of gangsters following Santo, and you can see
the edges of where the person cut them out and
put him together, arranged them and then drew like speech
bubbles or whatever, and so the perspective is off. The
(26:07):
backgrounds will be drawn, but like the characters are photographs.
If you METI, it's Italian. I saw that. I didn't
know what it was that when I googled it earlier. Yeah,
for this guy. That's what that. That's what that the
the style of comic book that two had and it
went for like thirty five years. His comic book, um,
life time went thirty five years. And he was also
(26:31):
in like fifty movies from I think the first one
was called Evil Brain. That was his breakthrough. Was Santo
Versus the Zombies of course. Um and uh, the last
one was Fury of the Karate Experts from two. So
he's in fifty two movies and two of them were
cameos awesome, and he acted a lot of times alongside
(26:51):
other pro wrestlers, always masked of course. In fact, he
was never unmasked. I saw picture of him. It's kind
of disappointing. So not not disappointing the way he looked,
but ed grabbed. The grabster says that there there are
no photographs or there was one and it was not
publicly available. Not true. Yeah, welcome to the internet, grabst exactly. Um. No,
(27:15):
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, and he unmasked himself
on that show and then he died a week later.
Really yeah, but he was buried in his mask, and
so was one of his acting partners, who was himself
(27:37):
in twenty movies, The Blue Demon. Um. So both of
those guys were buried in their luchador masks. And seriously,
aside from him unmasking himself a week before he died,
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 and out
(27:59):
of the ring in to real life, into the movies,
into comic books, and like, this guy wore this mask.
That's crazy. 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. Yeah,
let's there. Uh. Blue Demon, as you mentioned, Uh, started
in a bunch of his own movies as well. There
(28:19):
was mill mascotas and he was the first guy to
do a lot of the the big aerial moves. That's
what he was known for. And he he was in
a couple of films I think with The Blue Demon
and Santo and he tried. He was one of the
ones that made his name in the United States as well. Yeah.
I think he was the first crossover or the first
successful crossover. Yeah. I don't think we mentioned the w
(28:42):
w E. God, 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 wanna
and you know, there's a lot of Latinos living in
the United States obviously, so they want to draw in
that crowd, and so they try to do a little
(29:02):
cross promotion when they can. Good sense. Um. Probably the
most successful crossover guy was is Ray Mysterio. That's a
great name. UM. He basically brought the idea of um
Luca Libre to professional wrestling in America, at least this
generation that's watching now. UM. And I think he's still wrestling.
(29:26):
I don't know, Maybe we'll find out Mystico is still wrestling.
He just came over to the w w E in
two thousand eleven. Um. He had to change his name though. Yeah.
He started out in the CMLLL in two thousand and six. UM,
and he when he came over to the w w E. Apparently,
see m l L doesn't have the same kind of
(29:48):
contract with the w w E that the other one does,
because they said, no, we own 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 since sara, which
translates to without a face. He's like, you're still writing
the checks, right, you know? Yeah? Anyways, all right, yeah,
(30:09):
I'll be whatever then. And then you also mentioned Eddie
Guerrero and he um. He was very popular heel Rudols
who made a crossover into the w w E. Oh yeah, yeah,
I've seen pictures of that guy. But he died in
two thousand and five, supposedly of um steroid use. It
was exacerbated by steroid use. There are female uh pro
(30:34):
wrestlers in Mexico and they are called Lucadores obviously, and
they have their own cml L has their own women's division,
and Triple A also recognizes a mixed tag team championship,
which I imagine would be pretty cool men and women
wrestling wrestling together. But that's fine, and they have the
mini Estralla or the minis, which is not only for
(30:58):
little people but just people under five ft tall originally,
although there are some now they're like five four or
five five. Well, do you want to talk with the
mini there? Well, they're little people that wrestle. Well, there's
there's commonly a mini version of another of a larger luchador. Okay,
so they'll be like, um, just kind of a sometimes
(31:20):
they'll wrestle together. Um, sometimes they're alter egos, but they'll
be like like a mini version of of a luchador.
Did you hear about arter Rito. He was one of
the mini's and he had a he did an R
two D two bit. His name is Archrita. Yeah, that's
pretty cool. And then perhaps the biggest way that it
(31:42):
differentiates from American wrestling is since the nineteen fifties they
have openly supported gay wrestlers, very flamboyant, cross dressing gay wrestlers. Yeah,
they're called the Exotic Coast. Yeah, how about that. There's
one um that's really kind of larger and in charge
right now, um named Uhdra and he is the Queen
(32:08):
of the Ring. That's what he builds himself as he
commonly wrestles in like a bathing suitor bikini and pantyhose
um in drag. I watched the interview with him. He's extremely,
extremely flamboyant and um. Apparently he started out wrestling with
a mask. Uh and then said, you know, I realized
(32:28):
I'm hiding behind this and I don't feel like I
need to hide. So he's one of also not only
the probably the most flamboyant of the exotic cos the
most openly gay of them all. 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.
(32:52):
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 nineteen fifties Exotico
uh pro wrestler, and apparently fans get behind it in
a in a country and sport that's obviously very geared
towards the macho. Uh. It's pretty cool to know that
they'll they'll get behind these guys and root for him. Yeah.
(33:13):
Cassandra is the star. Robert Lamb of Stuff to Blow
your mind told me you know about Cassandro right, well
he uh also Cassandro was was trained by Raymisterio Senior,
so he is like a real legit awesome lineage there. Yeah,
the Mysterios have like this whole family dynasty. Yeah, that's
real big his so Raymisterio who we mentioned his uncle,
(33:37):
Raymisterio Senior um was like one of the original luchadors.
And then they also has like a brother and nephew
a cousin that are all also very um they're like
successful luchadors too. Pretty cool. So I'd love to go
to I hope the Bavoom or something comes to Atlanta. Like,
I'm not so much into the w w E, but
(33:58):
this stuff reminds me of 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 wanted to correct himself, that
was Eddie Guerrero who was part of a family dynasty. Okay,
not Mysterio, but there is a Ray Mysterious Senior. I've
got some of these, you know. Lamb has like five
(34:21):
of these masks, and uh el Cheapo my band was
gonna wear them for our Halloween party and playing them,
and so he lent them to me and I thought
it was awesome. But my drummer was like mask what? Yeah,
he did want to wear a mask. I know you're
drummer and he needs to wear a mask. Um, And
(34:41):
I almost meant to bring one in and then kind
of dip behind the curtain before we started, and then
just like sit down in surprise at the point I
left mine at home too. Do you have one? Yeah,
Strickling gave me one. What is it with those two?
I don't know. Did they get together and wrestle and masks?
You should see them around candy sprinkles though they can't
even be in the same room. I got to see
(35:01):
the video, all right, Well, um, that's it for Mexican
wrestling a k a. 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 he's he's I don't think it
was his best I like Jack Black the least that
he was the least part of that movie that I liked.
(35:22):
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 lad 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. How have we
not brought up Super Barrio, who is a Mexican wrestler
that exists only outside the ring. There's a guy who
(35:45):
in the eighties was showing up at um like evictions
things like that, in protests like um cheap housing protests. Uh.
As this Mexican wrestler name named super Barrio, even though
he didn't wrestle, was a big fat guy um and
he uh, he was a an avenger for the rights
(36:06):
of tenants. And he said, like he was interviewed, he
ran for president of Mexico in night and uh he
was interviewed and said, like in after this devastating earthquake
that left a lot of people homeless in Mexico. Um,
he was in his apartment and he was bathed suddenly
in a yellow and red light and when it just pated,
he said, quote, I was dressed like this, and he's
(36:26):
wearing like a red and yellow like outfit with like
a cape and everything. And he said that a voice
told him you are super barrio, defender of tenants and
scourge of greedy landlords. 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
(36:47):
they had like these causes that they were behind, like
defending the poor and stuff like, instead of just you know,
I'm I don't even know their names anymore. Rowdy Roddy Piper. No,
he wasn't. They lived. Oh so he's he's got a
pass for me forever. Okay, I don't care what he does.
He he was in They Live, and that's cool. He's
(37:07):
old school. Yeah, all right, Well that's it about Roddy
Roddy Piper. That's right. Um. And like we said, we'll
do a pro wrestling once someday, we'll we'll try to
figure it out. Okay. I thought about a tandem, but no,
I thought that's you're gonna lose some listeners if you
do a Tuesday Thursday wrestling combo. Yeah. Yeah, um, if
you want to know more about Mexican wrestling. Type in
(37:28):
Mexican wrestling in the search bar at how stuff works
dot com. There's also Mexican wrestling masks for thumbs if
you want to do lut libret thumb wrestling there. Yeah,
I gotta get some of them. Um. You can probably
find those just about anywhere on the internet. Sure. Um,
but you want to type in Mexican wrestling and search
bar at how stuff works dot com, which brings up
Chuck Josh no listener mail. Today, We're gonna do what
(37:52):
we rarely do, which is just ask you to help
support us, not financially. It remains free, but uh, 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 that
it helps out our iTunes rankings out I believe. Yeah,
(38:16):
we always feel like we have Beggar's bowls out when
we're doing this right now. We almost never do. It
beats a pledge drive. It definitely does, Chuck, and also
we would like to announce that our 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
(38:38):
you should know. Search it on iTunes, subscribe to it.
And we have our little game show that we do
it's fun, and our little short one minute things we
did for Discovery and Science channels. Your interstitials. Yep, there's
a bunch of video of us. I don't know why
anybody would want to watch it. Hey, you never know. Um,
(38:58):
there's a lot of sick people out there. If you
you can also search um how stuff works or stuff
you should know video podcast RSS if you don't use iTunes, um,
and that there's a whole RSS page of all of
the ones that are published and it will be updated
every time we published stuffs. So back with listener mail
next time, I promise, So I guess until then, Um,
(39:21):
if you want to send us a good listener mail,
we're wide open, man, I mean we are wide open
right now? Are empty? Yeah? Um? 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
(39:41):
Knock Our Socks Off on Twitter, s y s K.
Podcast on Facebook, Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know,
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(40:03):
we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow,
brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
from house stock Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and uh
(00:20):
that makes the Stuff you Should Know the l A edition. Yeah,
called me a Choco. Is that your name? Hell, 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. It might mean nothing at all.
I just said instead of Chucko, I said Chaco. I like, well,
(00:43):
it's the kind of um like crunchy sandals. Chaco. There's
a canyon all right, Yeah, you're you're the canyon. Yeah.
From that the Anasaza used to inhabit. That's my luchador name, okay,
and you pronounce it correctly. It's not Luke, It's luch
(01:04):
Do people say Lukador? I did in my head until
I looked up the lucha Lucha libreva boom. Yes, yeah,
the sexiest of all wrestling matches. I just went over
how to video. All right, what's your intro? Well, this
(01:24):
is pretty much it this long, meandering, terrible thing. Ah.
While we're talking about Chuck Mexican Wrestling also known as
Lucha Libre, file this under fun. Yeah, this is pretty cool. Um,
we're going to go ahead right now and promise a
larger pro wrestling UM podcast. I think I think we
(01:48):
should do it because there's a documentary out now, UM
that I want to see called Memphis Heat, and it's
about Memphis wrestling Jerry Lawler came from and Coffin was
involved in, like like what basically gave birth to w
WF what I consider the heyday. Sure, and Luca Libre
(02:09):
is very reminiscent to me of the older days of
American wrestling, which I'm not into anymore. It doesn't good kid,
I was, Oh, yeah, man, he saw Jim tugging um
Hulk Andre the Giant w W Y there's a cartoon
run there. Didn't they have a cartoon? I'm pretty sure
they did. If they haven't, then their way overdue. Yeah.
(02:32):
Have you ever heard Jason Segels Andre the Giant? But
it's amazing. He does something with his throat and it's uh.
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 and he goes into an
(02:52):
ice cream shop. It just yeah, it's really I will
definitely check it out. But we're talking about Mexican wrestling today.
We're talking about Mexican wrestling, um. And to talk about
Mexican wrestling, unfortunately, UM, you have to go back to
the beginning of wrestling, which originated in America. Yeah, that's
(03:13):
kind of wrestling. Sure, yeah, yeah, we're not talking like
Greco Roman or anything like that. But professional wrestling started
in the late nineteenth century in America. UM, and it
had a little bit of a boom. It was very serious,
it was very legitimate, and then people got bored with it. YEP.
So in the nineteen twenties, these guys, these three professional
(03:34):
wrestlers called the gold Dust Trio. Yeah, they because everything
they touched her into gold. And they were like expert promoters.
They were like, you know what, I think we should
stop taking ourselves to seriously, let's just start making things up.
And everybody said what and they're like yeah, yeah, we're
like we do this in carnivals. Rights Entertainment and everybody said, well, yeah,
(03:54):
this is a carnival act. They said, well, we know
about KFABE and cafebe is basically like keeping up the
suspension of disbelief. It's made up stuff carried out as
if it were real. That's the whole premise behind professional wrestling,
which I'm sorry to break in eleven year old heart.
Right now, professional wrestling is fake. The athleticism isn't fake.
(04:16):
But if somebody like is you know, really the the
guy outside of the ring is not really sleeping with
the other guy's wife and that's not why they're fighting,
right then, right? Okay, so, um, the storylines are manufactured
for entertainment purposes. But they're all amazing athletes and they
(04:38):
all do really get hurt and inflict pain many times. Yeah,
I mean it's real blood. Um. Okay, well in a
lot of cases. In some cases. Uh so this isies
when pro wrestling, as we understand it, with the Cafe
Abe started, within ten years we had luch libre Mexican wrestling. Yeah,
(05:02):
thanks to a guy named Don Salvador Lutos Gonzales. That's right,
he is the father of the Lucha libre and he
started the first Mexican Wrestling league called the Impresi, Makana,
the Lucha Libre and thank you, and it originally came
from Spain from what I understand too, and they called
(05:24):
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. Is that it worked. Yes,
the Spanish Civil War shut everything down. Let's shut the
league's downy Um. What was that movie where that It
(05:46):
was about the little boy and it's set during the
Spanish Civil War in the orphanage. Uh that was what's
his face? The Gilmo del Toro. 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 just take it back
(06:08):
to Mexico. And that's where Mexican wrestling came from. That's
why it's seated in Mexico. Um. The earliest Mexican wrestlers
used to go back and forth between Mexico and Spain
until the Spanish Civil War. And they said Spain is
a little crazy, right, now we're going to stick to Mexico.
And not only that, we've got a steady supply of
professional wrestlers from America. They're gonna make up some of
(06:28):
the earliest Lucca doors. Yeah. He was inspired by Texas wrestling, right,
which that was pretty awesome in the nineteen thirties. Yes,
well I think it was, if not based in Texas,
there were carnivals that were being held that came through
Texas to saw Um and so he gave birth to
what was it called the Impressive Mexicana de Lucha Libre. Yeah,
(06:50):
the E M L L which is now yes, and
this is like the the w W E of Mexican wrestling.
It's like the big one Concerjo de Luca Libre. Why
do you crack up every day you do? It's so internest.
Well I'll try to, you know, be authentica. UM so
(07:12):
chuck wish. Since 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 M. One of the reasons why is
because you know, sort of Lucy goosey. It wasn't like
(07:34):
it's entertainment and not sport. 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 luchador is
the name of the wrestler. Lucha libre is the wrestling
and they one one of the biggest things that distinguishes
(07:58):
them from their American counter parts is the mask. The
mask is huge, and while not all of them wear masks,
most of them start out wearing masks. 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,
(08:19):
you can't just go up and unmasked a Mexican wrestler. No, no, no,
they'll kill you on the spot. Um. This whole kind
of persona of the luchador goes outside of the ring too,
And so you may be in your local grocery store
and if a luchador lives nearby, he will probably be
(08:40):
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 luchador. Very important to the culture. It's
not just some you know, redneck sport like it is
here right now. Um, not true. I'm sorry. Did you
(09:00):
like how quickly I agreed? We're gonna get in trouble
for that one. We are. Um. So, Luchadors are technical
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 rudos, rude boys,
or um just basically villains. And then the good guys,
(09:23):
the heroes, are called technicos and um, yeah, you've got.
The rudos are often um like that. I guess the
spine of lucha libre is that it's very populist. So
like a technico will be like based on a superhero,
a saint, an Aztec warrior, somebody who is all about
(09:46):
fighting for the common man. Yes, the farmers, the poor people.
We are the ones who will stick up for you,
right exactly. And then the rudos they're like they often
have the character of corrupt cop or official, a drug dealer,
a gangster. Yeah, which I imagine, like, especially these days,
(10:07):
if you are a rudeo and you're like portraying a
drug dealer, you're probably on thin ice and that might
not be the best choice these days. Um. And so
that's this battle between you know, the the little person
and then the larger authority that's trying to oppress them,
(10:27):
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 conquers evil exactly. Yea, unless you're
a good villain, because that can be played up, you know,
over the years as well. Sure, I think one of
these guys that can't remember made his career as one
of like the great villains, that was Guerrero, I think. Okay,
I believe, yes, we mentioned the masks how important they are.
(10:52):
The masters play such a huge part that they have
certain matches called uh luca pistas matches with wagers. Did
you see this? They are very special match matches where
they will wager generally one of three things, either their mask,
their hair, or their career, and it can be in
any combination. It can be I bet my mask versus
(11:14):
your hair, my hair versus your hair, my career versus
your mask. I just I bet my hair. But this
about it. And at the end of this match, obviously
whoever loses either is unmasked, 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
(11:38):
any longer. You can wrestle, but you wrestle shamefully, as
Jonathan Strickling explained it to me, shamefully bare faced. Okay, well,
I've seen you can adopt a new and so I
bet you someone out there nose 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
(11:59):
would do that. It's like a twenty year old UM,
because it would make much sense. And you will literally
have to retire. At the end of the match. You
will reveal your name, your hometown, and how long you've
been wrestling traditionally after you've been unmasked or retired by defeat.
And uh that is the Lucas day a quistas, and
(12:20):
they don't do it very often. It's pretty heated match obviously. Yeah,
I would imagine this. There's something at Steak. It's probably
very um, very well watched too. It's also characterized more
like the lighter wrestlers are more popular, whereas in the
United States the more popular guy. I mean, they're all huge, huge,
(12:40):
right rif um. But yeah, Luca Doors tend to be
smaller and quicker and more agile than American wrestlers. There's
a little more high flying acrobatics that's associated with lucha libre,
and it's like very fast paced, like one move after
the other. That's right. Um. And also we I wanted
(13:01):
to mention rudous, like the characters are sometimes Americans and
just to get the crowd rialed up, like the American
Rudeau will, um, we'll 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, yeah,
(13:24):
that's funny. So 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. They're they're still
is it two leagues? I know there's like w We
have a friend who moved to w W. Yeah, that's right.
I don't know what the rival is anymore, though w
(13:44):
W I think it is. I think it is I'm
pretty sure. Well, they had their International Wrestling Revolution group
and uh oh, I'm sorry. There that that that's that's
the the smaller independent leagues that are also scattered about
the country. But the main rival league is the Estencia
a Sesoria the Administration or the A. So they have
(14:08):
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's when they're in
front of like four thousand people in a gym, like
just flying around. They still do that in UM like
in Memphis, but it's not like four thousand people, it's
like forty yeah, at the Pyramid. And then Strickland also
(14:31):
told me about um No like West Memphis, Arkansas, like
in a like an basically covered alley. Gotcha, um there's
a play. There's this group called Chikara out of Philadelphia
and they've basically they do this absurdist Mexican wrestling. Strickland
told me about this um where like there's this guy
named ice Cream Jr. And his persona is like a
(14:55):
clown with like a little clown hat sacking out the
side of his head. His face is painted and his
secret weapon is a bag of sock filled with ice
cream sprinkles that like he'll throw it like his opponent
and it just burns him like acid. He'll he'll, you know.
There's this one great shot of it of him throwing
(15:15):
it on his opponent, the guy just writhing in pain,
and ice Cream Junior like put 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 my back.
It's really great. You have to see it. I'll send
it right now. Okay, Yeah, I find that remarkable. Yeah,
we should post that to our Facebook page, say we're
(15:36):
gonna do that. But it's um. It's it's the same thing.
It's just like in this fluorescent light gym with like
fifty or a hundred people and it's called kara. Yeah,
but 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 been a couple of wrestlers that
have kind of taken it to the next level, Ultimo
(15:58):
Dragon and Tiger Mask. Tiger Mask. 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 I
love it. You mentioned Lucha va Boom earlier. That is
a variation of Lucha Libra that's pretty popular right now
(16:19):
because it combines wrestling with burlesque, striped tease and stand
up comedy and not just stand up comedy, like um,
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
(16:41):
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
podcast that they start doing and served tons of beer.
They they suggest to best watch it that you drink
tequila shots. Seriously. I was watching this how to watch
um Lucha va Boom, and they were like, this is
(17:04):
the rudos, this is what you do for him boo,
and then this is the technic post 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. Um. It's
pretty cool. But so Lucha va Boom is going to
be in Calgary, Edmonton. There is the tie that binds
this one with chem trails in case you ever come
(17:26):
across the questions all related um on January seven eight
at the Calgary High Performance Rodeo their headlining. If I
live in Calgary, I would go to that they should
bring this to Atlanta. Well, normally they have it in
l A at the Mayan Theater. Yeah, and Atlanta has
a you know, a large uh Latino population, so and
(17:46):
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 because that ruins it. Um. Let's
talk about the wrestling, the rastling itself. Okay, uh, they
have many more weight classes than our American uh count
their American counterparts because it was originally based on boxing classes,
(18:10):
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 US. 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 wallo. It has
(18:31):
nothing to do with anything else. But if you look
up the entomology of welter weight, they think that it's
based on uh, 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. Yeah,
(18:51):
pretty cool. Hundred seventy pounds by the way for the
welter weight. Yeah, you would think the heavy weights would
be welter weight then, yeah, because they inflicked 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,
(19:11):
but we need to go over the rules. They're there
for a purpose, so we have to tell them. Um,
there's four ways to win a single match. That's to
pin for three seconds, knock somebody out of the ring
for twenty seconds, to make your opponents submit, which you
don't tap in Mexican wrestling, you waver you say refereo
like I'm about to die here, I want to quit.
(19:33):
Or you can be disqualified. The other person can be disqualified. Yeah,
there's a few ways that can happen. 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
gonna see any chair hitting going on. Okay, that's definitely different.
(19:55):
Uh No, groin shots. No. And you can't attack the
ref free Yeah, why would 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 manage and
just getting kote. Classic. Yeah. I'm also pile driver. You
(20:17):
you can't pile drive somebody, But like you said, like unmasking,
they'll sometimes do it anyway, even though you're gonna get disqualified.
But they customarily the person who's pile drived. 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
(20:38):
do that in the States, like don't try this at
home unless you're really tough, Like they inject steroids in
the middle of the ring in the States. So the
referee can also stop the the uh the brawl for
excessio de rhodesas, which is excessive punishment or violence, which
is funny because it's saying like if you, uh excessively
(21:01):
beat your opponent, we're gonna go ahead and give you
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 does that rule? I don't know. There's some rule
where it's like the team's beating the other team by
like twelve points. Yeah, mercy rule. Yeah, if you're up
(21:23):
by like eleven after a certain ending, they'll cough it.
But it makes sense, I mean like humiliating that. 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, Uh,
like you said, the tag team matches are really where
it's at in Mexican wrestling, uh, and the most popular
(21:46):
of the tag team or the three on three the
trios matches. Um. The goal there, if you're gonna win,
is to either pin the captain or to pin both
of the other two guys, right correct, Yeah, right though,
and uh there's two referees usually in those. And there
are also four and four five on five and you
(22:09):
know it's it's a lot of action going on in
the four on four those called the Atomic Coast matches,
which is pretty cool. Yeah, 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, whereas in Mexican wrestling and
(22:31):
lutal libre, if you're out of the ring, which either
thrown out or you can crawl out, then your other
partner can get right on in there, which really speeds
things along and keeps it exciting. Yeah, as they say.
And if you want to know if you moves or
if you'd like to hear the names and descriptions of
a few moves. We get you covered there. Basically, if
(22:52):
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 him with your
full body weight. Yeah. Then there's variations to the plantcha.
There's the tornillo, which is a plancha in which the
(23:13):
wrestler who's jumping off of the ropes twists in mid
air for visual effect. Sure, there's the cent on, which
is a planta 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, Well, if
you're gonna head butt someone, they're gonna call that a
tope um. And these are just a few of the moves.
(23:35):
I mean, there are tons and tons of moves, and
they're done in various combinations according to your personal flare.
And they're all plant a rooted, are they No? Not
all of them. There's plenty of plant of rooted moves.
That's awesome. Cool leg twist where the guy would be
on his back and get a dude like in a
scissor hold with his legs and then do like this
(23:55):
little break dance spin move to flip the guy over.
There's there's a lot like the hurrican rana. What's up? Well,
the rna 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 yeah, and if you
(24:15):
start that out with um a flying head scissor, you're
doing the hurricane rana awesome as as popularized by Hurricane
ra Miras Oh that was his name. Makes sense? Yeah? Uh?
Yet another difference in Luca libre in American pro wrestling
is in American pro wrestling. Aside from like the rock
(24:38):
in your occasional appearance by Hulk Coogan and Rocky Three,
wrestlers are generally wrestlers, whereas in Mexico they are 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,
(25:02):
that's not what it means. I'm just calling him no,
he means his name means the Saints of the Silver Mask.
Santo Ellen Mascarado del Plata. Yes, Saints of the Silver Mask.
So Santo um was a technico and Um he started.
He was one of the original uh luchadors. Yeah, I
(25:24):
was born in nineteen seventeen, started wrestling in the thirties, um,
and by the fifties he was popular enough that this
guy named Jose Cruz came along in and said, I
want to make a comic book of you, and Santo said,
all right, whatever, that's cool, and he made what became
this few medic style. Have you heard a few medic
(25:46):
comic books. You've seen him before. They're really unsettling and weird.
But it's um photographs collages, right, So they'll be like
a group of gangsters following Santo, and you can see
the edges of where the person cut them out and
put him together, arranged them and then drew like speech
bubbles or whatever, and so the perspective is off. The
(26:07):
backgrounds will be drawn, but like the characters are photographs.
If you METI, it's Italian. I saw that. I didn't
know what it was that when I googled it earlier. Yeah,
for this guy. That's what that. That's what that the
the style of comic book that two had and it
went for like thirty five years. His comic book, um,
life time went thirty five years. And he was also
(26:31):
in like fifty movies from I think the first one
was called Evil Brain. That was his breakthrough. Was Santo
Versus the Zombies of course. Um and uh, the last
one was Fury of the Karate Experts from two. So
he's in fifty two movies and two of them were
cameos awesome, and he acted a lot of times alongside
(26:51):
other pro wrestlers, always masked of course. In fact, he
was never unmasked. I saw picture of him. It's kind
of disappointing. So not not disappointing the way he looked,
but ed grabbed. The grabster says that there there are
no photographs or there was one and it was not
publicly available. Not true. Yeah, welcome to the internet, grabst exactly. Um. No,
(27:15):
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, and he unmasked himself
on that show and then he died a week later.
Really yeah, but he was buried in his mask, and
so was one of his acting partners, who was himself
(27:37):
in twenty movies, The Blue Demon. Um. So both of
those guys were buried in their luchador masks. And seriously,
aside from him unmasking himself a week before he died,
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 and out
(27:59):
of the ring in to real life, into the movies,
into comic books, and like, this guy wore this mask.
That's crazy. 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. Yeah,
let's there. Uh. Blue Demon, as you mentioned, Uh, started
in a bunch of his own movies as well. There
(28:19):
was mill mascotas and he was the first guy to
do a lot of the the big aerial moves. That's
what he was known for. And he he was in
a couple of films I think with The Blue Demon
and Santo and he tried. He was one of the
ones that made his name in the United States as well. Yeah.
I think he was the first crossover or the first
successful crossover. Yeah. I don't think we mentioned the w
(28:42):
w E. God, 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 wanna
and you know, there's a lot of Latinos living in
the United States obviously, so they want to draw in
that crowd, and so they try to do a little
(29:02):
cross promotion when they can. Good sense. Um. Probably the
most successful crossover guy was is Ray Mysterio. That's a
great name. UM. He basically brought the idea of um
Luca Libre to professional wrestling in America, at least this
generation that's watching now. UM. And I think he's still wrestling.
(29:26):
I don't know, Maybe we'll find out Mystico is still wrestling.
He just came over to the w w E in
two thousand eleven. Um. He had to change his name though. Yeah.
He started out in the CMLLL in two thousand and six. UM,
and he when he came over to the w w E. Apparently,
see m l L doesn't have the same kind of
(29:48):
contract with the w w E that the other one does,
because they said, no, we own 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 since sara, which
translates to without a face. He's like, you're still writing
the checks, right, you know? Yeah? Anyways, all right, yeah,
(30:09):
I'll be whatever then. And then you also mentioned Eddie
Guerrero and he um. He was very popular heel Rudols
who made a crossover into the w w E. Oh yeah, yeah,
I've seen pictures of that guy. But he died in
two thousand and five, supposedly of um steroid use. It
was exacerbated by steroid use. There are female uh pro
(30:34):
wrestlers in Mexico and they are called Lucadores obviously, and
they have their own cml L has their own women's division,
and Triple A also recognizes a mixed tag team championship,
which I imagine would be pretty cool men and women
wrestling wrestling together. But that's fine, and they have the
mini Estralla or the minis, which is not only for
(30:58):
little people but just people under five ft tall originally,
although there are some now they're like five four or
five five. Well, do you want to talk with the
mini there? Well, they're little people that wrestle. Well, there's
there's commonly a mini version of another of a larger luchador. Okay,
so they'll be like, um, just kind of a sometimes
(31:20):
they'll wrestle together. Um, sometimes they're alter egos, but they'll
be like like a mini version of of a luchador.
Did you hear about arter Rito. He was one of
the mini's and he had a he did an R
two D two bit. His name is Archrita. Yeah, that's
pretty cool. And then perhaps the biggest way that it
(31:42):
differentiates from American wrestling is since the nineteen fifties they
have openly supported gay wrestlers, very flamboyant, cross dressing gay wrestlers. Yeah,
they're called the Exotic Coast. Yeah, how about that. There's
one um that's really kind of larger and in charge
right now, um named Uhdra and he is the Queen
(32:08):
of the Ring. That's what he builds himself as he
commonly wrestles in like a bathing suitor bikini and pantyhose
um in drag. I watched the interview with him. He's extremely,
extremely flamboyant and um. Apparently he started out wrestling with
a mask. Uh and then said, you know, I realized
(32:28):
I'm hiding behind this and I don't feel like I
need to hide. So he's one of also not only
the probably the most flamboyant of the exotic cos the
most openly gay of them all. 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.
(32:52):
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 nineteen fifties Exotico
uh pro wrestler, and apparently fans get behind it in
a in a country and sport that's obviously very geared
towards the macho. Uh. It's pretty cool to know that
they'll they'll get behind these guys and root for him. Yeah.
(33:13):
Cassandra is the star. Robert Lamb of Stuff to Blow
your mind told me you know about Cassandro right, well
he uh also Cassandro was was trained by Raymisterio Senior,
so he is like a real legit awesome lineage there. Yeah,
the Mysterios have like this whole family dynasty. Yeah, that's
real big his so Raymisterio who we mentioned his uncle,
(33:37):
Raymisterio Senior um was like one of the original luchadors.
And then they also has like a brother and nephew
a cousin that are all also very um they're like
successful luchadors too. Pretty cool. So I'd love to go
to I hope the Bavoom or something comes to Atlanta. Like,
I'm not so much into the w w E, but
(33:58):
this stuff reminds me of 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 wanted to correct himself, that
was Eddie Guerrero who was part of a family dynasty. Okay,
not Mysterio, but there is a Ray Mysterious Senior. I've
got some of these, you know. Lamb has like five
(34:21):
of these masks, and uh el Cheapo my band was
gonna wear them for our Halloween party and playing them,
and so he lent them to me and I thought
it was awesome. But my drummer was like mask what? Yeah,
he did want to wear a mask. I know you're
drummer and he needs to wear a mask. Um, And
(34:41):
I almost meant to bring one in and then kind
of dip behind the curtain before we started, and then
just like sit down in surprise at the point I
left mine at home too. Do you have one? Yeah,
Strickling gave me one. What is it with those two?
I don't know. Did they get together and wrestle and masks?
You should see them around candy sprinkles though they can't
even be in the same room. I got to see
(35:01):
the video, all right, Well, um, that's it for Mexican
wrestling a k a. 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 he's he's I don't think it
was his best I like Jack Black the least that
he was the least part of that movie that I liked.
(35:22):
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 lad 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. How have we
not brought up Super Barrio, who is a Mexican wrestler
that exists only outside the ring. There's a guy who
(35:45):
in the eighties was showing up at um like evictions
things like that, in protests like um cheap housing protests. Uh.
As this Mexican wrestler name named super Barrio, even though
he didn't wrestle, was a big fat guy um and
he uh, he was a an avenger for the rights
(36:06):
of tenants. And he said, like he was interviewed, he
ran for president of Mexico in night and uh he
was interviewed and said, like in after this devastating earthquake
that left a lot of people homeless in Mexico. Um,
he was in his apartment and he was bathed suddenly
in a yellow and red light and when it just pated,
he said, quote, I was dressed like this, and he's
(36:26):
wearing like a red and yellow like outfit with like
a cape and everything. And he said that a voice
told him you are super barrio, defender of tenants and
scourge of greedy landlords. 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
(36:47):
they had like these causes that they were behind, like
defending the poor and stuff like, instead of just you know,
I'm I don't even know their names anymore. Rowdy Roddy Piper. No,
he wasn't. They lived. Oh so he's he's got a
pass for me forever. Okay, I don't care what he does.
He he was in They Live, and that's cool. He's
(37:07):
old school. Yeah, all right, Well that's it about Roddy
Roddy Piper. That's right. Um. And like we said, we'll
do a pro wrestling once someday, we'll we'll try to
figure it out. Okay. I thought about a tandem, but no,
I thought that's you're gonna lose some listeners if you
do a Tuesday Thursday wrestling combo. Yeah. Yeah, um, if
you want to know more about Mexican wrestling. Type in
(37:28):
Mexican wrestling in the search bar at how stuff works
dot com. There's also Mexican wrestling masks for thumbs if
you want to do lut libret thumb wrestling there. Yeah,
I gotta get some of them. Um. You can probably
find those just about anywhere on the internet. Sure. Um,
but you want to type in Mexican wrestling and search
bar at how stuff works dot com, which brings up
Chuck Josh no listener mail. Today, We're gonna do what
(37:52):
we rarely do, which is just ask you to help
support us, not financially. It remains free, but uh, 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 that
it helps out our iTunes rankings out I believe. Yeah,
(38:16):
we always feel like we have Beggar's bowls out when
we're doing this right now. We almost never do. It
beats a pledge drive. It definitely does, Chuck, and also
we would like to announce that our 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
(38:38):
you should know. Search it on iTunes, subscribe to it.
And we have our little game show that we do
it's fun, and our little short one minute things we
did for Discovery and Science channels. Your interstitials. Yep, there's
a bunch of video of us. I don't know why
anybody would want to watch it. Hey, you never know. Um,
(38:58):
there's a lot of sick people out there. If you
you can also search um how stuff works or stuff
you should know video podcast RSS if you don't use iTunes, um,
and that there's a whole RSS page of all of
the ones that are published and it will be updated
every time we published stuffs. So back with listener mail
next time, I promise, So I guess until then, Um,
(39:21):
if you want to send us a good listener mail,
we're wide open, man, I mean we are wide open
right now? Are empty? Yeah? Um? 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
(39:41):
Knock Our Socks Off on Twitter, s y s K.
Podcast on Facebook, Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know,
or via email at Stuff Podcast at how stuff works
dot com. Be sure to check out our name to
your podcast. Stuff from the Future. Join Houstework staff as
(40:03):
we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow,
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