Mullett Arena, Tempe
3rd December, 2022

Our interest in pro wrestling comes and goes. But we’ve always enjoyed the Mexican version, lucha libre. This reached its peak during the glorious run of Lucha Underground, from 2014-18, a glorious mash-up of berserk storytelling and insane action, which ran on Robert Rodriguez’s channel, El Rey. Back before we cut the cable, we’d sometimes watch the two main Mexican wrestling companies, AAA or CMLL, on Spanish-language, with Chris desperately trying to offer a running translation (my knowledge of the language remains at the “Donde esta la biblioteca?” level). We attended our share of local lucha shows, where I was often the whitest person in the room. Awkward, when the American villain is using an ICE gimmick, and yelling at the crowd that they should be mowing his lawn.

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Back in 2000, in the final printed issue of Trash City, I wrote about a strange form of entertainment which has been spawned out of Boston. Kaiju Big Battel was the unholy spawn resulting from a late-night booty call between pro wrestling and Japanese superhero/monster shows. We fell in love with it immediately, naturally. On our bucket list is getting to see one of their shows live. It hasn’t happened yet, due to KBB largely sticking to the East Coast for shows. This is for obvious logistical reasons: transporting giant dust bunnies, silver potatoes and all the other characters is not a trivial task.

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