Lucha Libre

There is a free biweekly magazine here called Bay Vallarta. It always has lots of information about new restaurants, events in town, music, etc. In the last edition, there was a contest. There was a Mexican wrestling match coming up. It is called Lucha Libre hear. The event was happening at the Demonio Blanco Arena in El Pitallal. The contest was to answer the question, “Who is Demonio Blanco and why is the Pitallal arena named after him?” I tried looking on Google but had no luck so I took a guess. My guess was that the Demonio Blanco was a Lucha Libre fighter and the Pitallal arena was named for him since he is from Pitallal. I was correct and won a free ticket to the match. Harold decided to enter, too, figuring they might not have given out all the prizes. He won, too.
On the day of the match, we picked up Luis, Melissa and Rudy. Monika decided to stay home and visit with her mom instead of going. In typical Mexican fashion the 6 o’clock start of the match was a little delayed. We waited outside with the other fans until ticket sales began, enjoying a beer from the local deposito while we hung around on the sidewalk. There was a vendor selling T-shirts, wrestling magazines and wrestling masks. Of course, the kids had to try them on and get one. We also bought one for our grandson Joshua. In Lucha Libre, all the fighters wear masks or paint their faces. Pretty soon the ticket window opened so we got the tickets and went inside to wait for the big event
The Demonio Blanco Arena is a fairly small place. We had our choice of downstairs ringside, or up in the balcony. The kids wanted to sit up in the balcony so we did. The even actually started around 7. First there was the introduction of the Demonio Blanco himself. He was there enjoying the festivities and had VIP seating.
This Lucha Libre even was sort of like farm league baseball. The first match was definitely beginners. The matches are pretty similar to WWF. The fighters knew all the moves, but they were still working on their timing. It was comical. The second match was tag team. Just like WWF, there was the good guys and the bad guys. Naturally the bad guys cheated while the refs were busy scolding the good guys for some minor infraction.
The third match was a woman’s tag team event. The crowd was getting more and more into the fights as the event went on. Could it be the guy coming around selling cold beer? The final event we watched was the more polished tag teams. The Chivas were the good guys and the crowd loved them. Their costumes were great, it must be really hot wrestling in a full faced goat mask. This match even featured bashing each other with folding chairs and fighting outside the ring. Too bad we couldn’t hang around lng enough for the final match which featured midgets.
We all had a really good time. The kids loved it even though it was less polished than the stuff on TV. If you ever have a chance to catch the Lucha Libre, go for it.
Be sure to look at our Webshots pictures of this cultural experience at http://community.webshots.com/album/328178253spLlEs