Introduction

Fig. 1: Christ Chavez, Inside Arturo García’s Five Star Mexican Bakery in El Paso, 2021. El Paso, Texas, Texas Highways.

In March 2021, Roberto José Andrade Franco published an article for Texas

Highways magazine entitled, ‘How Lucha Libre’s Mexican Style of Wrestling Unites

Two Countries’.1 The piece opens with an image of Arturo García (1944-), also known

as Flama Roja, the legendary lucha libre rudo, or Mexican professional freestyle

wrestling villain (Fig. 1). García wrestled from 1966 until 1994, traveling to arenas

throughout Mexico, but now owns the Five Star Mexican Bakery in El Paso, Texas,

decorating the walls of his business with the relics of his career. García faces the

camera, standing in front of lighted bread cases, racks with trays of Mexican pan

dulce, and a wall of photos in the frame with a prized collection of masks belonging

1 Roberto José Andrade Franco, ‘How Lucha Libre’s Mexican Style of Wrestling Unites Two Countries’, Texas Highways, March 2021 <https://texashighways.com/culture/how-luchalibre-mexican-style-wrestling-unites-two-countries/> [accessed 5 August 2021].

to his vanquished opponents.

Roja’s interview also draws attention to the physical reminders of his

effectiveness as a villain. He explains, ‘If you’re representing a rudo, you must be

bad. Not just against the wrestler but also against the people. So that the people

feel it. Why do you think I got stabbed?’2 García’s memory of his career remains

sharp. Wrestling and theater historian Eero Laine describes injuries as part of an

identity and brand in professional wrestling, ‘a means of marketing and permanent

marks on the body’.3 Driving Laine’s point, Flama Roja is a marketing tool for the

bakery decades after his wrestling retirement. The bakery holds, not only a collection

of relics, but the wrestler himself as a draw. When luchadores carry the physical

reminders of their careers, their bodies become archives, with many able to pair the

injury with the opponent and specific match long after the event. Seeing the image

of García in front of his collection, in the past immensely adept in his gold mask and

red bodysuit at playing a villain but now living a relatively quiet life, sparked the

question of what other physical remains, aside from masks, might exist from lucha

libre kept in private collections and what might they say about the people who keep

them.

Lucha Libre, which translates to ‘free fight’, is one of Mexico’s most popular

domestic entertainments and cultural exports. Traditional lucha libre pits técnicos, or

clean fighters, against rudos, or heels, in matches that feature fast-paced acrobatics

and bright, colorful costumes. The full-coverage masks luchadores use in the ring

have become icons for lucha libre as a whole and even Mexican identity in global

contexts, from food items to video game characters.4 In 2018, the Mexican federal

2 Roberto José Andrade Franco. 3 Eero Laine, Professional Wrestling and the Commercial Stage (Milton, UNITED KINGDOM: Taylor & Francis Group, 2019), p. 80 <http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rcauk/detail. action?docID=5981742> [accessed 13 May 2021]. 4 ‘About Gran Luchito - Our Story - Authentic Mexican Made By You’, Gran Luchito <https:// gran.luchito.com/our-story/> [accessed 10 August 2021]; ‘Masked Republic Reveals the “Project: Mask” Video Game at Comic-Con@Home’, Lucha Central, 2021 <https:// luchacentral.com/masked-republic-reveals-the-project-mask-video-game-at-comicconhome/> [accessed 10 August 2021].

government named lucha libre an official intangible cultural heritage of Mexico City.5

Nevertheless, though Mexico City has become lucha libre’s chief capital, one of its

foundational sites lies at the crossing between El Paso, Texas in the United States

and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua in Mexico. Lucha libre’s history, from the professional

wrestling networks that first inspired its expansion across borders to the present-

day wrestlers navigating their careers, is a narrative that engages with cultural

and socio-economic politics, access on the U.S.-Mexico border, the labor behind

performance, and cultural ties that defy international boundaries within materiality.

On the 27th of August 2021, the El Paso Museum of History opened Lucha

Libre: Stories from the Ring, an exhibition detailing lucha libre’s local connections on

both sides of the border. The exhibition featured several different types of objects

from a plethora of local talent, including long-trained capes from drag wrestler

Cassandro, masks, boots, and costumes from female wrestler Dulce Tormenta/Sweet

Storm and her luchador brothers, promotional posters featuring local figures who

went on to become stars in Mexico, and work from the longtime photographer for

K.O. Magazine, Ignacio Morales ‘Moralitos’ Gutierrez, among other items.6 I noticed

that many of the objects included in the exhibition were on loan from either the

performers’ or their families’ collections, displaying artifacts and objects from retired

and practicing wrestlers, or in some cases, objects connected to retired personae

from wrestlers who have moved on to new characters. At this point in the research,

I had already outlined my subjects for the case study, unaware that their costumes

would be available for close viewing. As this resource became available, it added a

new perspective.

Engaging with performance through exhibitions, given its ephemerality,

presents a challenge that offers several approaches. As described by Susan Bennett,

5 Secretaría de Cultura de la Ciudad de México, ‘Declaran a la Lucha Libre Mexicana Patrimonio Cultural Intangible de la Ciudad de México’, Secretaría de Cultura de la Ciudad de México <https://www.cultura.cdmx.gob.mx/comunicacion/nota/0667-18> [accessed 23 October 2021]. 6 Norma Hartell, Lucha Libre: Stories from the Ring (El Paso, Texas, 2021), El Paso Museum of History.