PWInsider - WWE News, Wrestling News, WWE

So I decided to beg my wife to let me go to Mexico City to see Lucha Libre and amazingly she said yes.  She was worried about this gringo who could barely speak Spanish surviving in Mexico City with all of the horror stories.

Now a little about myself-I am a 48 year old professional who has been watching wrestling since 1972.  I have seen wrestling in several states, Puerto Rico, and always wanted to go to Japan.  I have traveled extensively around the world and as much as I want to go to Japan, it has not happened.  I would love to go on the George Mayfield trip in January 2008 but the week is during a school week (I work as an Assistant Principal in a high school in NYC).  But I finally decided to go to Mexico City particularly since the WWE were running on a Saturday booked between the Friday CMLL card at Arena Mexcio and the Sunday card at Arena Coliseo.

I arrived in Mexico on Friday after having done research on the internet.  Now if I paid attention to what people wrote on the internet, I would have been worried for my life in Mexico City.  Fortunately I have a friend who traveled to Mexico several times and I was well prepared with my New York moxy and street smarts.

Mexico City is huge-20 million people.  There are many different zones in the city.  I stayed in Zona Rosa which is where there is a great deal of nightlife.  Mexico City is full of many paradoxes.  On the one hand, it is a very religious country which is family oriented but also has a large gay community where people are comfortable with their sexuality.  I only mention this because Zona Rosa is the center of the gay community.  I did not really know that, but it did not bother me.

I began to acclimate myself with the city walking around the Zona Rosa, and then I wanted to hit Arena Mexico.  Now the metro in Mexico City is only 2 peso (.20) and is very easy to use.  Given that it was my first night in the city, I chose to take a taxi to the arena.  One note about this-hotel employees are encouraged to have you use taxis as they get a cut of the fare.  There is no need to do this unless you are coming back late at night as the metro goes everywhere.  

The taxi dropped me off right in the middle of the block where Arena Mexico is located.  It is a dilapidated looking arena that takes up the entire block.  As soon as I got out of the cab, I was besieged by scalpers wanting to see me a ticket.  I bought a 7th row ticket right next to the entrance where the wrestlers go into the ring for about 200 pesos.  One tip-no need to buy off a scalper.  One could easily buy a first row at the box office the day of as they are more expensive and most of the the locals buy cheaper seats.  

I have to say something about the feeling of seeing Arena Mexico.  It reminded me of seeing Wrigley Field or Fenway Park for the first time.  Living in New York, we take for granted the history of Yankee Stadium but that was the feeling I got from seeing Arena Mexico.  It represents the history of Lucha Libre and is considered to be the mecca of wrestling in Mexico.  Lucha Libre also has and continues to have a significant impact on the culture in Mexico which cannot be overstated.

Now there are many people who state that one should not eat street food.  My recommendation is to wait a day or two and then if you are going to eat street food, look for the stand where everyone is eating from.  I ate at several stands and my stomach was fine and the food was fantastic.  I ate one meal for less than two bucks. It is also a great cultural experience as you get to mingle with folks who are not tourists.

As I walk around the arena, there are dozens of stands selling everything from masks to bootleg DVDs.  Nothing more than 15 bucks and in some cases only a buck or two.  There are also dozens of stands selling street food.  

Walking into the arena, I am struck by the compact size.  I believe that it fits around 12,000 people but there really is not a bad seat anywhere.  The crowd is incredibly diverse with families predominating.  You see 65 year old men wearing lucha masks.  

The results of the card I went to on 7/6 were:  

Astro Boy & Sombra de Plata b Apocalipsis & Ramstein
2) Nitro, Nosferatu, Virus b Flash, Mictlan, Valiente
3) Katsuhiko Nakajima, Kensuske Sasaki, Ultimo Dragon b Arkangel, Dr. X, Texano Jr.
4) Averno, Ephesto, Mephisto b Alex Koslov, Felino, Stuka Jr.
5) Blue Panther, Heavy Metal, Sagrado b Terrible, Villano III, Villano V
6) Dr. Wagner Jr., Euforia, Ultimo Guerrero b Mistico, Negro Casas, Sombra    (taken from CMLL blog)

A couple of notes about the show.  There were rumors about Ultimo Dragon being on the card which I was hoping would be true.  Before the show he was in his suit being interviewed.  There was a separate section for rudo fans and tecnicos fans.  Each section had their fans with their their own t-shirts.

Alex Koslov, who I believe has wrestled in California, is way over with the fans.  The headline match was a great deal of fun.  As good a reaction as Mistico got, Dr. Wagner was just as over.  He is fantastic and knows how to work a crowd.  Every step he makes is measured and nothing is wasted.  He reminded me of Flair in his prime in the way he worked the match and crowd along with the reaction he received.  He also beat the living daylights out of Mistico.  

I was a bit confused by that.  Mistico did few of his acrobatic moves which I guess has to do with his shoulder injury.  Yet he took a beating from Wagner outside the ring.  The match ended with Wagner team winning and Mistico being stretchered out.

It was also great seeing Ultimo Dragon again.  The last time I saw him live was at Madison Square Garden when he debuted with the WWE.  His match was a fast paced match and he looked great.   

The following day after visiting the Zocalo with its the street markets, and Plaza Garibaldi (where tons of people gather to hear mariachi music, I was off to see WWE.  WWE was appearing at Palacio de los Desportes .  I ended up with a grouchy cab driver who was pissed at the traffic (trust me, you have never seen anything so bad) and he was going on his way to Pueblo and I was getting nervous.  It turns out that the venue is pretty far out toward the outskirts of the city.  

I got out of the cab and immediately bought a ringside seat from a scalper for cost.  The venue, quite frankly, might have been the ugliest large arena I have ever seen from the outside. It looked like there were hundreds of pyramids on the roof.  I walked around the arena and there were stands selling everything from t-shirts to bootleg WWE tapes and food.

I mentioned bootlegs several times.  Put it this way, no entertainment company is going to make any serious money in Mexico.  Bootleg DVD, tapes, cds are sold everywhere in Mexico City.  You go outside the Metro and there are stands all over selling them.  I got a kick seeing WWE bootlegs being sold in front of the venue they were appearing at.

The venue was a large arena and only a couple of years old.  Clearly there were more middle class people there based on the prices of the tickets which were high for Mexico City (65 bucks and down) but the place was only 3/4 filled. 

The card was a typical house show.  I have to admit, I find WWE house shows to be boring and this really was no different.  The Cade/Murdock vs. London/Kendrick match was the best part of the first part of the card.  But some of the guys just seemed to be going through the motion particularly in the Val Venus/William Regal match.  The crowd was fairly animated particularly with the pyro stuff but the first part was ah, nothing memorable.

The second part of the card began with Jeff Hardy/Gene Snitsky and Snitsky is just a lumbering monster who really does not seem to know how to wrestle.  Then the main event happened with Lashley, Mysterio, and Cena vs. King Booker, Orton, and Umaga.  This was a fun match in that the guys really enjoyed working the six man and were feeding off of the energy of the crowd.  Mysterio got a monster response but surprisingly Cena may have been more over.  Absolutely no boos and whenever he made a move the crowd went nuts.

One thing about Mysterio.  You can see how he still looks very tentative in the ring although he did all of his moves.  But it was clearly smart of the WWE to put him in a six man tag so he can work at a slower pace.

On Sunday, I went to the History of Anthropology and Chaupeltic Park.  Afterwards I was going to Arena Coliseo to see CMLL again.  I took the Metro to the Languillo stop and had to walk about 7 blocks to the arena.  The area is in a working class part of Mexico City, the type of neighborhood the guide books tell you to avoid.  I had no problems at all.  Although I got lost I was able to get assistance in finding the arena which is in the middle of a residential neighborhood with people living in apartments on both sides of the arena.

I bought a 5th row ticket and went in.  The only thing I could say is if God was to design a wrestling arena, Arena Coliseo would be it.  It is a small arena in the shape of a coliseum where every seat in the house is excellent.  There are three sections.  The second and third section of the arena is fenced off.  Just a great sight.

Dos Caras Jr. won the title but this was a secondary television taping and many of the stars from Friday night were not on the card.  I got a kick out of seeing mini-Halloween and mini-Damian 666.  Mark Jindrak was also there as Marco Corleone doing a Rick Rude type of character with the swivel which got a great reaction every time, he did it.  Again, it was a lot of fun and the arena is an amazing place to see a wrestling show.

I highly recommend going to Mexico City to visit and certainly to see Lucha Libre.  If you are planning to go here are a couple of tips:  

My family and I will be returning in February as I loved visiting Mexico City due to the great hospitality of its citizens.  If you have any questions, email me at AGerst1574@aol.com.