Fighting the good fight: How Lucha wrestling is challenging the status quo

The curious glances by passers-by start to border on bemusement when a man sporting a fedora and black mask emerges from the blue lights inside the Resistance gallery. “Don’t use the toilet after nine they can get a bit sticky” is his light-hearted introduction. As the spectators are filed in, a less than euphemistic shape is drawn on your wrist to indicate that for tonight you are entering a new world. No art, graffiti or comedy night in London has quite replicated the dynamic vibrancy of Lycra-wrapped athletes flying off the top rope and slapping into the canvas of a wrestling ring.

Lucha Britannia is the largest wrestling school in Europe, and hosts a hybrid of many wrestling styles. Founder Garry Vanderhorne started the events in 2007 motivated by a need for a wrestling product in Britain. In the west the wrestling market is dominated by the WWE. He wanted to combine America’s love for story-lines and characters with Mexican wrestling‘s high octane aerial combat. And just like that Lucha Britannia was born.

“Lucha Britannia is all about my love of Mexican masks and Lucha libre wrestling” Vanderhorne tells The Independent. ”Lucha is flamboyant and acrobatic but doesn’t often make sense in a story telling way, whereas American wrestling is very much story based and character based. You have four corners of the world doing the same art, but with their own takes. I was like ‘you know what, I can combine these elements’. ”

Whether you watch on in awe or complete and utter bafflement, one thing Lucha provides is an unwavering distraction. Every detail of the fight is choreographed and every move requires meticulous rehearsal to ensure the pre-determined result of the bout is delivered with flair and drama. You watch Lucha for the same reasons you watch a movie, reality TV or football. Its escapism appeal rivals any other entertainment product.

The first fight of the evening is a six-man ‘chaos match’, in which characters of various size and moral allegiance engage in high-flying combat all at once. One is dressed in a peacock costume complete with gleaming train. He’s joined by ‘Jerry Bakewell’, a Yorkshireman who enters the ring to ‘Do I Wanna Know’ by the Arctic Monkeys, and is probably more at home in the heavyweight division. As is ‘Fug’, a cockney powerhouse whose persona would have been void without the prominent West Ham United emblem tattooed on his chest.

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“You can’t just be a very good athlete, you have to be a dancer, storyteller, actor, stuntman, create empathy with the crowd, have personality, a good costume, pace and delivery” Gary continues. “The main reason people come to wrestling is for entertainment and enjoyment, to see something that takes them out of the real world like a good movie. The story-lines are often long and complex, but sometimes we do more insular stories, a story of the good guy vs the cheat or bully."

The narratives of oppressor vs the oppressed all derive from Gary and co-founder Greg Burridge. These stories all take place in the ‘RetroFutureVerse’, a dystopian future where the American government have taken over and Lucha goes to war with the establishment only to be defeated. As a result, fighters must perfect their skill underground whilst wearing masks to conceal their identity. The inspiration for all of this? George. W. Bush and now Donald Trump.

“Originally we started Lucha Britannia in what we thought was during the worst presidency of all time: George. W. Bush. How wrong we were. It was all done as a reaction to what Bush’s father had said about full spectrum dominance. On the night Trump won the election, we had a Trump character come in to try and shut the whole thing down and one of our female wrestlers - La Diablesa Rosa - came in and kicked his ass.”

Then there are the most important people: the fighters. The last fight of the evening was between ‘Triffidos’, a plant character whose sole mission is to defeat the human race before the planet is destroyed, and ‘Cassius’, a glitter-wearing ball of eccentricity with diva-like mannerisms. Imagine Louis Spence but with more serotonin, and that’s Cassius. Wrestling has given him a purpose in life that nothing else could.

“My character is me times a hundred. When I walked into wrestling first I was really shy, and the way I moved was very flamboyant. But this is something I always tried to hide because otherwise I’d get picked on, so my trainer said ‘why don’t you just be you? Wear pink, wear glitter’. I was so scared to do that but the crowd cheered so loud for me. All the things I used to get bullied for were things people now liked about me.”

Cassius’ opponent is far bigger, but he uses his agility to leap from the top turnbuckle, wrap his legs around his neck and propel him towards the canvas. Moves like these required nine months of training before entering the ring for a live event. One false step or late move can prove disastrous for a professional wrestler.

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“One year the match started and during the very first move my opponent threw me and I tore the ligaments in my AC. I tried to lift my arm up and I couldn’t move it. I knew I had the whole 20 minute match to go. I was gorilla pressed, I was thrown and I was in agony but I had to complete the fight. When you have a crowd watching you don’t want to let them down.”

Why is the pain worth it? For Cassius the broken bones and the bruises the next morning are a symbol of acceptance. It’s a community of misfits who have found a home where they can be who they want and do what they want without the judgement of society, and amidst admiration from the fans.

“I feel like Lucha and wrestling gives you a bit extra that a lot of people don’t get. Coming to wrestling, learning moves and being in the community, you get that extra confidence. When the crowd are shouting my name you get an adrenaline rush, and you walk down the street a bit taller, prouder and with a little extra love for life. It was a crowd at a wrestling show that taught me how to love who I am because they told me it’s ok to be me.”

When you witness the spectacle first hand, it isn’t just the fighter getting the kick out of it. Within the crowd are regulars who seem to feel this sense of belonging in equal measure. Cassius stands up from the canvas to clothesline his opponent into the corner as a chorus of “Lucha, Lucha , Lucha” grows in decibels. Cassius goes for the pin…”1…2…Ahhh”. His opponent kicks out. Cassius looks to the ceiling in despair before climbing the top rope, ready to go airborne once more.