Lucha Libre - a night of pure entertainment!

As we are from Belgium, we are not that known with the term Lucha Libre...

Apparently it is a Mexican name for professional wrestling! Interesting!

The most popular place to see it is in the Arena of Mexico City, but you can find it almost everywhere here in Mexico.

Mexican wrestling is characterized by colorful masks, rapid sequences of holds and maneuvers and also high-flying" maneuvers. The wearing of masks has developed special significance, and matches are sometimes contested in which the loser must permanently remove his mask. Tag team wrestling is especially prevalent in lucha libre, particularly matches with three-member teams, called trios. That's the one we saw! For us it's a bit of a theater show, but the way the Mexicans get in to it, that's why you have to go! They scream like their lives depend on it and cheer like a maniac when the right team won. Incredible!

Normally the best evening is Friday. Then the most Mexicans take their night out. We couldn't make it on Friday, so we went Sunday instead. We were lucky because it was the day before a national Holiday therefore there were a lot more people, so the experience was like on a Friday night. Vendors came through the rows selling everything from Corona beers to nachos con queso to sandwiches to lucha libre masks. You won't get hungry or thirsty here! We tried a Cubana for the first time: it's a sort of Michelada, a mixed beverage with beer, lemon juice, ice cubes, salt, spices and Worcestershire sauce (leave the last one out if you can!) in a salt/sugar/chili-rimmed cup. It costed us 90 MXN for 1 liter, but you can find it much cheaper on the street (around 50 MXN). We've accompanied it with nachos con queso and jalapenos peppers for 35 MXN. For the total night out we've spend 225 MXN (about 10 euros). Cheap if you compare it to European standards.

You can not enter with a professional camera, but they don't say anything if you enter with your cellphone...

So here are a couple of shots: