Category: Mexico

Today I woke up, ate breakfast at the hostel and then went on a free walking tour. The tour took us all around the city looking at the old cathedrals, churches, other old buildings, and the market.

Of all the places I went and would go in Mexico, Oaxaca would be by and far my favorite little old city. Unlike most of the cities in Mexico I can honestly say it is nice. The colors are brilliant, the streets clean, the weather a little bit cooler, and the people generally nicer and calmer.

It’s important to note that absolutely every day of the year the people of Oaxaca gather somewhere in the city to have some kind of celebration. They will all tell you, “Oh Senor! You are so lucky to have arrived just in time for _____ celebration.” It is a lie and a sham. You are not lucky, there is one every day. I saw 2 enormous celebrations and lots of weddings that would parade down the streets during my time in Oaxaca. When do the people of Oaxaca work? Good question.

On the tour we also tried some of the foods and I saw this sign advertising a Lucha Libre advertisement that I immediately realized that the movie “Nacho Libre,” was actually based on fact(I would later rewatch Nacho Libre to realize the entire movie was actually shot in Oaxaca.) Upon seeing the ad I knew I had to go and see it for myself.

So after the walking tour I messaged my friend Maria who had helped watch my motorcycle while I went to work for a month. I begged her to not make me go to something so chaotic alone and to my surprise she agreed to go. I figured it would be something pretty cheesy and awful to have to go to for someone who lived there.

I don’t know what I was expecting from the lucha libre, but whatever I was expecting, it was nothing like that. Upon arriving on the moto I was certain I had put the address in wrong because it was just a block of houses. But upon seeing a cart with a bunch of wrestling masks for sale I figured I actually was in the right spot. Maria showed up and we walked through a sketchy door, paid 200 pesos per person and walked straight into someone’s backyard strewn with trashy chairs and a big wrestling square in the middle.

So we walked in, sat down, ordered 2 coronas, and people watched as people started to file in and fill the seats.

Eventually an announcer started talking in Spanish and 2 old fat dudes just kind of rolled in and started fighting on the stage. The first few matches were awful. It was incredibly strange. Dudes with huge beer bellies just kind of half-assed smacking each other.

But as the night went on the fights got much more dramatic and the moves much more impressive. I actually really got into it and as the Mexican locals shouted, “DURO!, DURO!” I was yelling “DURO!” as well.

They seemed to have no problem flipping off the stage a clear 8 feet onto a group of other wrestlers.

In the last match of 7 or so fighters it was just nonstop chaos. We kept having to jump up out of the chairs as one of them would throw another across the chairs and then start smashing him with the chairs. Another fighter smashed an entire crate of glass bottles over another’s head, many of the bottles breaking.

Eventually they somehow decided that “El Zombie,” lost the match and as he was not a fighter wearing a mask he had to cut his hair. So they shaved his head in front of the crowd. It was a little lame of an ending, but people began to file out and I headed home for some much needed rest.