Mexican wrestlers thrill public at historic Metro station

MEXICO CITY — Tinieblas, one of many grandmasters of Mexican wrestling, looked on from a stage over the weekend as lucha libre wrestlers positioned on a free roar for spectators at the initiate air plaza of Metro Insurgentes.

The younger males donned studded collars, devil horns, masks and —for certain— tight pants as they hurled insults, kicked every other in the chest and swung legs admire pendulums around opponents. The high-risk theatrics had been grand more harmful than when Tinieblas began his wrestling profession in 1971, however the inviting cheers and jeers of the crowd sounded the identical.

Taking wrestling to the streets on a day of leisure struck Tinieblas as intellectual, since some fans lack the time or financial means to glimpse a match in an arena.

“Straight away, with the lucha libre that they’re seeing, they purge their disappointment, their sadness — so many things,” he acknowledged from late a golden screen with black mesh over his face. Tinieblas, who’s 80, conceals his identification despite the indisputable fact that he’s retired from wrestling. His wrestling moniker means “darkness.”

“Lucha libre is a therapy. As a change of yelling at the missis after they arrangement home, or at the mum-in-legislation, they arrangement aloof. They already yelled at the wrestlers,” he added with a laugh.

The present on the concrete esplanade of 1 of Mexico City’s first Metro stations used to be positioned on by an arts foundation known as LuchArte to commemorate 50 years of the metropolis’s heavily trafficked subway design.

This particular pronounce is ringed with concrete walls intended to evoke pre-Hispanic structure, with the metropolis’s tallest place of work towers looming interior eyeshot of the nefarious of the sunken plaza. The colorless plaza served as a bleak backdrop for a shootout scene in the 1990 science fiction film “Full Prefer,” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“I mediate that with out the Metro, the metropolis might possibly maybe maybe be chaos,” LuchArte founder Iliana So told the crowd before the wrestling began on Saturday.

Annual ridership of the Mexico City subway design tops 1.6 billion in a sprawling metropolitan space with 22 million inhabitants. The lines span 140 miles (226 kilometers), making the capital’s subway one of many most intensive urban rail networks in the sector.

Love riding the Metro, indulging in a lucha libre wrestling match is a quintessentially Mexican passion. It be the 2nd most-followed sport in the nation, after soccer.

“Mexicans identify with lucha libre because Mexican tradition is terribly vivid,” acknowledged So, alluding to the out of the ordinary colors of the wrestlers’ costumes as neatly as their aptitude for the dramatic.

The bravado on present over the weekend incorporated a five-lady match stuffed with grunts, slaps, chest pumps, body locks and flips. An Aztec princess in fishnet stockings took on the depraved women with the support of a microscopic of person whose hits and punches drove the crowd wild.

“C’mon microscopic one!” cheered a spectator as younger folk chanted “All over again, all over again!” at any time when the blonde lady with dwarfism entered the ring.

Retired police officer José Carlos Ehlers says he jumped at the opportunity to take grasp of a free roar. He brought his 5-year-dilapidated grandaughter Melani, decked out in a glittery pink cape and wrestling screen. A sunlight hours match in a procure space gave the impression admire a formidable sell, since crime in the metropolis middle has made nighttime visits to the arenas there more daunting.

Soundless, Ehlers has taken Melani, who herself aspires to be a wrestler, to arenas at evening. Passion for wrestling runs in the family: Ehlers’ mother carted him and his seven brothers to 3 reside fits per week at some level of his childhood.

“It be share of our folklore,” concluded the grandfather.