Around the perimeter of the arena is a section of seats separated from the rest of the arena by chain link fencing. Behind this barrier the crowd jumps up and down, chanting and banging cow bells and drums. What these seats lack, other than even a shred of civility or reserve, is the up close and personal relationship the attendees in the front of the barriers have with the Luchadors. These big boys know how to work a crowd. At one point one of the "bad guys" ran up the aisle I was seated next to and threw himself into the lap of a spectator. A good guy, dressed in shiny red and blue ring attire followed him. It appeared the lap sitter was taunting the blue and red one, perhaps suggesting that he could not touch him as he was intertwined with a paying customer. I had to assume this as it was all in Spanish and I couldn't understand a word. The red and blue one returned to the ring followed by the bad guy who, as he passed me, grabbed my shoulder and shouted something in Spanish. I have no idea what it was, I couldn't understand a word. It was all in good fun, the cute security guy that had been crouched on the floor by the aisle through the entire proceeding looked at me grinned and we both laughed.On another occasion a wrestler was sent careening across the floor outside the ring. He brushed by my legs. The guy sitting on the other side of the aisle had just enough time to jump out of his chair before the tights wearing behemoth made contact with his now unoccupied seat. The group of men seated next to me seemed to be acquainted with both the staff and several of the wrestlers judging from the familiar looks exchanged between them.
On a trip to the restroom prior to the event I saw a man standing outside a door off to the left. He was wearing a melon colored mask, melon colored tights and a matching tee shirt. Little did I know that he would play a part in my slightly early departure from the arena that evening. It was the final match. He entered the ring sans tee shirt, with the "bad guy" contingent. This group also included the hunky "jungle boy" mentioned in my previous post. The match began and quickly became chaotic, Bodies were flying both in and out of the ring. I have a photo on my phone of Melon Man attempting to demask one of the other wrestlers, the ultimate in humiliation in the Luche Libre world. I am not entirely certain of what happened but Melon Man somehow propelled the wrestler he had attempted to demask backward, directly into me. I had no time to react as I saw a huge back headed in my direction. These men are trained performers, they are not out to hurt each other, the contact itself wasn't the problem but somehow he hit me in such a that my glasses flew up and off to the side of my head. The wrestlers continued to wrestle. I looked at my glasses. They were badly askew. The cute security guy looked over at me. His face dropped. He motioned over a woman wearing an apron with pockets in it. I thought perhaps she had tools in the pocket and was going to fix my glasses. I brought my hand to my head and when I brought it down there was blood on my fingers. Apparently the metal nose bridge of my glasses had cut me in the middle of my forehead as they were knocked off me. She enlisted one of the men sitting next to me to communicate, through limited English and gestures, that she needed me to close my eyes as she spritzed me with antiseptic and applied a butterfly bandage. As I went to the restroom to survey the damage to my face I passed by what I assume, from his extremely well developed physique, was one of the Luchadors from a previous match, now out of his trunks and wearing his street clothes. Of course I couldn't be sure, the masks provide quite a bit of anonymity.
I decided, bent glasses in hand, that I had had enough of the spectacle and that it was time to leave. I wouldn't have been able to see clearly anyway. My departure was slightly delayed as I had to wait for one of the Luchadors, prone on the floor directly in my path, to get up and reenter the fray in the ring. I Ubered back to the guesthouse and bed.
All turned out well. The wound was minor, a kindly optician in a tiny storefront shop bent my glasses back into shape the next morning for free and I got a great story.
Did I ever tell you about the time I got smacked down by a Mexican wrestler in Guadalajara?
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