Tope Guerrilla | Saturday Mornings on a Sunday Night
Silly gimmicks, go together like, WWE and jacked up oily dudes. Every holiday season, there is a Santa Claus. There are a fun gimmick match and overall fun cheesiness. There are silly characters that get even more hammed up for the kids. I’ve always felt that silly characters have been for the kiddos. While wrestling around the world has plenty of them, they got nothing on Mexico.
I have a very specific memory that I remember from when I was 8 years old. I was in the Arena Juba in Reynosa, Tamaulipas. It was my first time there, I had seen Lucha Libre in other spaces in the city but it was my first time in this one. It was basically a gigantic metal warehouse type building. Dirt floor, the exception being the ringside area. There were vendors along the entrance of the building selling t shirts, masks, toys food, and the one item that stuck me the most. Was the fact that they had superhero masks. I thought, why are they selling these? Superheroes aren’t luchadors. The other thing I had noticed. Was all the batman masks where selling like crazy. This was a Sunday night, which is known to be a family night in Lucha Libre. So, there were kids everywhere. All the kids in Batman gear, meanwhile I was with the rudos waiting for Cibernetico to come to tear it up. As a kid, I didn’t know the match cards, my uncle would tell me, “were going to wrestling!” and I would be pumped. He would tell me on the way who was going to be there. All I knew was that my favorite rudo was going to be there and Lucha Libre was awesome. So, when I say, that it was weird when every child there was wearing Batman masks, it was bonkers. Then that’s when I heard the classic batman theme begin to blast in the arena. Or at least a terrible mid-2000s techno remix.
There he was. Looking like a straight up action figure. Literally. Remember those weird like “Ice Adventure Batman” figures that gave Batman those crazy suits that were never in the show, but they glowed in the dark so you didn’t care and you kept buying them, and then you realize you can start a Batman stable the size of the NOW in the late ’90s for your figure fed.
That’s what he looked like. White suit, airbrushed muscles, big batman symbol, cape, he had small plastic batarang gimmicks that he gave kids. And so, did the other batman, and the third Batman, and the mini Batman. it was a quartet of Batmans. At a Lucha show on a Sunday night. You cannot make this up.
Batman, Batman Jr., Super Batman, and mini Super-Batman. (I’m pretty sure that was their names.) I may be wrong, (I’m probably wrong), but there was definitely 4 Batmans. They wrestled 4 other dudes, I don’t know who, everyone was chanting the “na na na na’ bit from the old theme song. It was bonkers. The only other person to get bigger pops were the main eventers in Zorro and Cibernetico. if you wondering, I totally got a batman mask afterward. Looking back it was also overpriced.
So, how is there so many Batmans in Reynosa, Mexico? I’m not an expert in copyright law. But the rules in Mexico are different. For example, I remember growing up seeing AAA and CMLL and they used popular music, mostly from the 80s and 90s. La Parka uses Thriller by Michael Jackson, Cibernetico uses Seek and Destroy by Metallica, it blew my mind! So am I surprised that there are Batmans. Not really. As I got older, I found out there are Spider-men, Power Rangers, name a character, it exists in Lucha form. There has been Ninja Turtles that have wrestled all around the world. One of them got beat up by Alberton del Rio. That’s a true story.
There are is a legit Mighty Mouse that wrestles in CMLL as a legend that is deeply respected. He tags with a Pinnochio character and a large kid doll. They have been at it 30+ years and are still a draw. Of course, all these types of characters are draws for the kids. Most don’t go past their local scenes, but it doesn’t matter. A lot of wrestling fans use the example of real-life ssuperheroesto explain our love for wrestling. So, you can imagine, for a kid, when an ACTUAL SUPERHERO SHOWS UP AND DOES A TOPE SUICIDA AND HIGH FIVES YOU AND TELLS YOU YOURE AWESOME, it can be quite a big deal.
It is one of the reasons I love Lucha Libre so much. Because it can be a very serious sport, that is very much about gladiators inside a ring fighting for prizes, personal revenge. It can also be about of bunch of silly characters. It can be wrestlers bloody, tired and giving it their all, or it can be 4 grown men dressed as turtles that cannot get up BECAUSE TURTLES CAN’T GET UP OFF THEIR BACKS! You think Mick Foley as Santa Claus is cool (yeah it is, but that’s not the point) I’ve seen a dude in a full green hairy body suit and terrible makeup steal gifts from another luchador I can only describe as Sexy Santa Clause only to beaten up by Mini Super Batman.
Wrestling is the best.
Foco Picks:
Super Muñeco, Super Pinocho y Super Ratón vs. El Gallego, Rocky Santana y Mr. Cóndor | CMLL 11/20/18
Batman & Robin vs. Mongol Chino & Principe Hispano | Plaza de Toros Monumental, Monterrey, 1991)
