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