Something a Little Different...

So as many of you know, this blog is about lucha libre and its influence on American wrestling. Well for this week's post, I going to take a break from the happenings of the wrestling world to talk about something else. A movie I saw last weekend that relates to Mexican wrestling.

"Read some books" or "Get that corn out of my face" are some of the memorable lines from the movie Nacho Libre. Now you may be asking yourself, what does this have to do with lucha libre. Well it all has to deal with lucha libre, well at least some of it.

For those you haven't seen the movie or it's been a while since you have seen the movie, here is a summary of the movie (courtesy of imdb.com).

Now that you have either refreshed yourself of the movie's plot or now know what it is about, let talk about it. On the surface, the movie might seem like it just another comedy made for kids. Well that might be so, but you really have to look into it and see the influence that lucha libre has on it.

One of the things I would like to point out is the sacristy of the mask. In one of the matches, Ignacio and his partner are scheduled to fight two midgets that look like lions, at least that's how I see them. During the match, one of the lion people attempt to take off Ignacio's mask but he fights back. Now, maybe the primary reason why Ignacio is trying to keep his mask on is because he doesn't want his identity revealed to the orphans and the church, but maybe the underlying reason is because of the tradition of lucha libre.

In the lucha libre culture, when a wrestler wears a mask, it is basically a part of him. It is a part of his identity. He is known for the mask and many fans will either recognize him or wear it because they like him and/or the mask.

So, when Ignacio was fighting off the lion person, again I really don't know what to call him or it, he really was trying protect his identity of a tradition wrestler rather than just protecting his identity from the church. He is someone who has wanted to be a luchador his whole life, and was trying to respect the culture of the sport by protecting one of the most sacred things, the identity of a mask luchador.

Well that concludes this blog post for the week, but if anyone out there knows what those lion people are called, please send me a comment because I really would like to know who or what they are. Thank you.

-Christopher J. Valverde

Follow me on Twitter: @xfactor7806



Photos courtesy of Comingsoon.net and Stomptokyo.com