Why does puro get so much love? Why does lucha get so dismissed?

[Parties]

Blaming Mexican culture for not being "cool" enough for wrestling fans strikes me as odd in world where Lucha Underground exists, when you really can't get any more cool or hip than the style & presentation of that show. Meanwhile, the NJPW television show is a stoic, boring, overdubbed collection of second run matches where 60-year old Jim Ross is pushed as the draw.

 

But hey, Lucha Underground is probably the "wrong" kind of lucha. Sort of like Meltzer, THE EVIL TASTEMAKER~! who watches live lucha three times per week and tweets about it while doing so, liking the "wrong" guys like Volador Jr instead of the "right" guys like Virus. I'd be willing to bet Dave has watched more lucha this year than puro, and constantly praises it while doing so.

 

So let me get this straight. Some of you are whining that lucha doesn't get a chance, but then when it DOES get praised, it somehow doesn't count, because it's the "wrong kind" of lucha. Hmm. I have a million other problems with that Parties post, but it didn't exactly help the idea opined earlier in the thread that lucha fans are arrogant as fuck, an idea that I scoffed at when I read it a couple of days ago, but that I'm starting to come around on after reading some of this bullshit.

 

Obviously I'm not "blaming Mexican culture for not being cool enough". I'm saying kids on 4Chan tend to dig Japanese culture more than they do Mexican culture, and that there's a shocking amount of anti-Mexican trolling happening online right now, particularly in the last year. (To which some of you will scream, "What does that have to do with lucha?" More on that in a moment.) I personally don't find LU's presentation that cool, but I think I get what you're saying: it's fresh, and it's made to look and sound like a 2016 TV series. I would agree that NJPW is often a bit clinical for my tastes. But I think what Grimmas is saying is: in spite of all that, NJPW still gets a lot more praise/press than lucha does. Lucha Underground's ratings are pretty bad: your average WWE fan doesn't watch it and may not even know it exists. I don't think Lucha Underground is "the wrong kind of lucha" at all. I like the show. It's very hit or miss and there are aspects (the announcers, the booking) that can be outright bad, but Aztec Warfare II was one of my favorite matches of the year and I've praised many of its workers here early and often. If the show inspires new people to check out more lucha, that's cool too.

 

Meltzer's taste in wrestling sometimes aligns with mine and other times doesn't. I'm good either way, and I'm sure not the only person here or elsewhere online who makes tame jokes about his likes/dislikes. It has been a talking point online for years that Dave didn't really understand a lot about lucha, and that he had a limited view of what worked. The DVDVR writers, Bix, etc. could probably speak to where that idea came from better than I can. (In truth I'm pretty pro-Meltzer in general, and an avid subscriber for years.) Me ribbing him a bit about Volador isn't some declaration of "right" and "wrong". As I've said in 9,000 other message board posts: prefacing every subjective statement with "in my opinion" is childish and unnecessary. Of late I've only gotten Dave's opinions about CMLL from the radio shows, and yes: he often praises them as great shows, and that's probably a net positive for lucha on the whole.

 

I’m not accusing anyone on this board or in this conversation of racism, etc. (But hey: I reserve the right to do so in future!) I will without pause say that I’ve read racist stuff about lucha/luchadors on Twitter, in chat rooms, and dumber boards. I’m not blaming PWO or anyone on it for the sins of others, and didn’t in my original post. Rather I mentioned it because Grimmas is looking for pervasive reasons for why lucha doesn’t get more acclaim. Which - as I said earlier - is his question, and not the hill I wanna die on. If someone’s a blowhard with corny opinions about Jumbo Tsuruta, odds are I won’t much enjoy their love letters to Satanico either, even if they “discover” lucha. The people whose thoughts I love reading here and elsewhere tend to have diverse, eclectic tastes. That doesn’t mean that Ric Flair and John Ford aren’t also sincerely great. It means that we’re 20+ years into internet wrestling fandom, and that a lot of us wanna keep searching.

 

Any time xenophobia comes up, there are people who feign dismissive outrage. To even raise the possibility of bigotry is to them shocking and beyond the pale, be it in the classroom or in your tavern of choice. (The line that raised ire here was the first sentence of my post, one that in about six diverging paragraphs tried to delve into how I feel about lucha and how I’ve seen it discussed over the years.) This conversation has been had in the Military-Industrial Suplex thread. Some people think that questions of culture and power are inescapable, and worth examining in almost all art and human behavior. Other people want their hobbies (i.e. wrestling) to be an escape from such questions: “Now wrestling has to be about ____, too? Stop reading _____ into everything!” (I’d call it their desire for a “safe space”, were I gently ribbing what some of them critique about college campuses).

 

And yes Stro, to address one particular question you posed: I do think we all – myself included – live in a world of conscious biases that create unconscious biases. What we call “our own personal taste” is clearly influenced by a hundred different things, some of which are ugly, and some which are largely unknown to us, even when we think we’re forming our own opinion. I’m not saying “You lucha-hating bigots” are the problem: I’m saying that all of us have a responsibility to confront our own prejudices, and that the only way I think we can truly do so is to discuss them more openly than they have been in the past. In all sincerity: thank you for reading what I had to say. To cite Goc: no heel turn intended.

[Cap]

Egad, some of this got off the rails.

 

I want to double back a touch to those questions Dylan asked because I think the answer to both SHOULD be "yes" without question, but they seem to be at the heart of the thread. They inform both why it was started and why it has woven on and off the trail a bit.

 

There seem to be two distinctions that keep getting conflated for a variety of reasons

 

1. Why is a certain style (here, lucha) not covered in the same way as puro/why does it not occupy the same space in digital wrestling communities (a very worthwhile question that probably does have a complex answer and we will also probably never full pin down) vs why do certain people not watch lucha and carry the banner for it (not a particularly interesting question and one that more or less boils down to taste). The former is what I think the thread was started about. The latter is how much of the discussion (argument) has gone and i think that is more of a grammatical thing than people being careless. Speaking for myself I talked about it in terms of why lucha might be harder to click with and even though I was thinking in terms of populations, discourses, stalwart wrestling outlets etc) grammatically that easily gets interpreted as an individual issue, "why can't these people get into it".

 

and, not unrelated

 

2. To what extent are people who have assumed - officially or not - positions of influence in wrestling centered communities responsible for watching, being knowledgeable about, speaking with some earnestness about lucha (or any style) vs to what extent anyone who is speaking about lucha in wrestling communities should take their background with the style and the spirit of the conversation seriously vs to what extent those people should be required to like or praise lucha vs to what extent everyone should feel obligated to watch lucha or styles they aren't interested in or know they aren't into. This one is a little more all over, but it seems important to me. The first one is an interesting question. The last two are more or less nonsense, but some of the responses seem to assume that is what people are asking.

 

Not to pick on Parv, because I know he has watched a lot of lucha and I have seen him articulate his opinions on it clearly, but I think if at the heart of much of this the conflation of a personal, well informed conviction about a style to account for a question about patterns of coverage and presence in online communities.

[fishbaugh]

Here are some questions - is it possible to investigate why a certain style, wrestler, et. isn't as popular as another style, wrestler, et. without f condescension? Is it ever relevant to look at cultural, social, political, or contextual issues to explore these questions?

 

It is certainly relevant, and a discussion I'd enjoy following. But it seems doomed to failure, as the average wrestling fan isn't equipped to participate in any meaningful way. Take me for example -- I have some strong feelings on many of the things brought up in posts in this thread and the Military Industrial Suplex threads, but I almost never engage. Why? I lack the knowledge, language, frameworks, etc. to add anything of value to a discussion on cultural imperialism, as long as that discussion is going on between people who have a serious interest (if not an education) in the topic. What benefit is there in adding my half-baked and ignorant of the subject matter opinions to the discussion? Would anyone be blamed for either ignoring me out of hand, or talking down to me that I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about? There is an obvious solution -- inform myself, study up on the subject, seek out conflicting viewpoints, etc. But social justice thought leadership isn't something I have a desire to jump into, so I just keep out and glean what I can from what I do read.

[Matt D]

If nothing else, you can learn more personally through your attempt to engage.

[fishbaugh]

I can already see how the above reads like "white guy is pissed that people don't let him get away with saying whatever he wants in every situation", but I really didn't mean it to read that way! It is more than it is exhausting trying to keep up with what the current definition of words are, and where the bleeding edge of topics are at. I am not dismissing the concept of a pansexual -- I'm just asking for a few minutes to process a concept that is entirely foreign to me. And when I don't immediately embrace something, maybe it isn't because I'm full of hate, but more because it is new and I need to fit it into the hundreds of other frameworks I process information through.

 

All that said, get the fuck out of here acting like lucha being from Mexico isn't a factor in why it gets less coverage and discussion. I don't think it is a primary factor, or a conscious factor very often, but it is there. I go to lucha shows in L.A. and I'm normally the only white guy in the audience. Part of that is certainly that lucha is a niche fandom for white guys in the U.S., but part of it is that the show is in Cudahy and that's not a place white guys hang at. This seems self-evident.

[cpst]

All that said, get the fuck out of here acting like lucha being from Mexico isn't a factor in why it gets less coverage and discussion. I don't think it is a primary factor, or a conscious factor very often, but it is there. I go to lucha shows in L.A. and I'm normally the only white guy in the audience. Part of that is certainly that lucha is a niche fandom for white guys in the U.S., but part of it is that the show is in Cudahy and that's not a place white guys hang at. This seems self-evident.

The simple racism argument doesn't have much explanatory power because it doesn't predict the things about Mexican culture that are enjoyed by wider American society. I'm a foreigner who's been living in California for about 10 years now. I find that the white people I know love Mexican food (and go out of their way to find 'authentic' Mexican food) but have no love for Mexican music at all. There might be an explanation for both of these things in terms of racism, but the same boilerplate argument of "racism, therefore…" clearly can't explain both opposite opinions about Mexican culture.

[stro]

What the fuck does 4chan have to do with apathy for lucha? Why are we using what "kids on 4chan" think about anything as a barometer for this, or any, discussion?

[fishbaugh]

 

All that said, get the fuck out of here acting like lucha being from Mexico isn't a factor in why it gets less coverage and discussion. I don't think it is a primary factor, or a conscious factor very often, but it is there. I go to lucha shows in L.A. and I'm normally the only white guy in the audience. Part of that is certainly that lucha is a niche fandom for white guys in the U.S., but part of it is that the show is in Cudahy and that's not a place white guys hang at. This seems self-evident.

The simple racism argument doesn't have much explanatory power because it doesn't predict the things about Mexican culture that are enjoyed by wider American society. I'm a foreigner who's been living in California for about 10 years now. I find that the white people I know love Mexican food (and go out of their way to find 'authentic' Mexican food) but have no love for Mexican music at all. There might be an explanation for both of these things in terms of racism, but the same boilerplate argument of "racism, therefore…" clearly can't explain both opposite opinions about Mexican culture.

 

 

Of course it isn't that simple -- and I'm guilty of it myself. I'll wait in line with any other waxed bearded, rolled denim and chambray shirted white guy to have a carnitas plate from a food truck in front of the Broad, but if I hear horns and an accordion blaring from a 96 Mazda B-Series, I'll roll my eyes along with everyone else in line. I don't think race is the ONLY issue, but we are all guilty of racial discrimination and to hide from it gets us nowhere. I have Mexican family members and grew up in a community that was at least half Hispanic, and I struggle with the foreign-ness of the culture contstantly. My point is that this is a nuanced and difficult to parse issue, but to those who think they can dismiss the racial element because they are too enlightened to be racist -- check yourself.

[stro]

What the fuck, now we have check your priv type posts over...people not liking a style of wrestling? What is this place? I thought it was like a fun off shoot of DVDVR where the smart people bailed to, but this is some of the most pedantic, naval gazing, ridiculous discussions I've seen. Is it really so hard to believe people might not like lucha because the style is silly and goofy and not like pretty much every other style of wrestling in the world instead of it having to be some time of racial thing?

 

This is pro wrestling. Not everything is informed by racial, cultural, economic, or political thoughts. It's grown adults play fighting in tights. It ain't that serious. Lucha is musical theater to puro's movies. A lot of people think musical theater is stupid and silly, too. Perhaps they have some hidden seething rage for theater nerds or singers or gay people or 7/8 timing. Or maybe they just want to watch a god damn movie instead.

[Grimmas]

To think the way Americans view Mexico and Japan has nothing to do with this is ridiculous

[fxnj]

What the fuck does 4chan have to do with apathy for lucha? Why are we using what "kids on 4chan" think about anything as a barometer for this, or any, discussion?

Agreed. The site is hilarious to browse, but taking it seriously and using troll posts on it as indicative of the rest of the online community is pretty far out there. This thread has gone way off the rails.

[fishbaugh]

You have every right to not enjoy lucha -- I'm far closer in my views of it to you and Parv than to the hardcores. But I'm also willing to admit that race is a real issue in the world, and that it may play a role in why lucha isn't viewed as accessible while puro is, at least from an American point of view. But I'm also willing to admit that race may -- JUST MAY -- sneak into my thought process. This doesn't feel like a radical position.

[stro]

To think that somehow 4chan represents what wrestling fans think about Mexico and lucha is ridiculous. To think that someone not liking a style of wrestling is because of racism is ridiculous. Also, not liking mariachi music is not racist. Just like it isn't racist to not enjoy country music. Some things speak to you. Others don't. To try to break it down into check boxes of this means this and that means that is absolutely ridiculous and intellectually dishonest to begin with.

 

Not being interested in a culture is not racism. Understand that on this message board dedicated to fake fighting, this discussion has come to people calling others ignorant racists and bigots for not liking a style of faking fighting that they like. And the idea that someone can just not care for lucha is now not even being entertained without some at least low level racism and bigotry being part of the reason.

[cpst]

Here are some questions - is it possible to investigate why a certain style, wrestler, et. isn't as popular as another style, wrestler, et. without f condescension? Is it ever relevant to look at cultural, social, political, or contextual issues to explore these questions?

I think it is possible in theory, but I admit I haven't seen a great example of it on this board. The arguments have way too little detail and tend to fail when you realize that they also apply to other contexts where the conclusions are false.

 

Also, it's probably much easier to analyze the motivations of biases of someone like Meltzer who has decades of published material than random message board posters who you know nothing about.

[Grimmas]

Question when you first looked into wrestling from outside America did you watch Puro or Lucha?

[cad]

What the fuck, now we have check your priv type posts over...people not liking a style of wrestling? What is this place? I thought it was like a fun off shoot of DVDVR where the smart people bailed to, but this is some of the most pedantic, naval gazing, ridiculous discussions I've seen. Is it really so hard to believe people might not like lucha because the style is silly and goofy and not like pretty much every other style of wrestling in the world instead of it having to be some time of racial thing?

 

This is pro wrestling. Not everything is informed by racial, cultural, economic, or political thoughts. It's grown adults play fighting in tights. It ain't that serious. Lucha is musical theater to puro's movies. A lot of people think musical theater is stupid and silly, too. Perhaps they have some hidden seething rage for theater nerds or singers or gay people or 7/8 timing. Or maybe they just want to watch a god damn movie instead.

If you start from a point of "Puro is true wrestling, lucha is too different to be taken seriously" then obviously it loses. By definition it loses. But Japan's wrestling isn't any truer or more pure than anywhere else's. I could just as easily say that Mexico is the standard and judge everywhere else by how similar it is.

 

Also I'm not sure if the UK's style is closer to Japan's than it is to Mexico's, but that's probably for someone who knows the stuff from the UK more than I do.

[cpst]

Question when you first looked into wrestling from outside America did you watch Puro or Lucha?

I remember seeing lucha (which was probably CMLL) on TV when I was a kid, but I didn't enjoy it at all. I got into puro later when I was in my teens, largely because of New Japan juniors.

[stro]

Question when you first looked into wrestling from outside America did you watch Puro or Lucha?

Puro, because the crossover between American/Canadian wrestling and Japanese wrestling has always been more pronounced than that of American/Canadian/Mexican wrestling, and you were much more likely to see a random Japanese wrestler on WCW or WWF than a lucha guy until 1996. Even then, it was always much easier to get tapes from Japan than through Mexico. I assure you, it had nothing to do with me thinking Mexico was poor and dirty and unworthy of my time.

 

Sorry that I hate arm drags, not Mexicans. If only I could fit into this much deeper philosophical/racial box that non-lucha fans have to go into here.

[Dylan Waco]

 

 

Question when you first looked into wrestling from outside America did you watch Puro or Lucha?

Puro, because the crossover between American/Canadian wrestling and Japanese wrestling has always been more pronounced than that of American/Canadian/Mexican wrestling, and you were much more likely to see a random Japanese wrestler on WCW or WWF than a lucha guy until 1996. Even then, it was always much easier to get tapes from Japan than through Mexico. I assure you, it had nothing to do with me thinking Mexico was poor and dirty and unworthy of my time.

 

Sorry that I hate arm drags, not Mexicans. If only I could fit into this much deeper philosophical/racial box that non-lucha fans have to go into here.

Mascaras probably a bigger star stateside than any "puro" worker before 96.

[stro]

 

 

Question when you first looked into wrestling from outside America did you watch Puro or Lucha?

Puro, because the crossover between American/Canadian wrestling and Japanese wrestling has always been more pronounced than that of American/Canadian/Mexican wrestling, and you were much more likely to see a random Japanese wrestler on WCW or WWF than a lucha guy until 1996. Even then, it was always much easier to get tapes from Japan than through Mexico. I assure you, it had nothing to do with me thinking Mexico was poor and dirty and unworthy of my time.

 

Sorry that I hate arm drags, not Mexicans. If only I could fit into this much deeper philosophical/racial box that non-lucha fans have to go into here.

Mascaras probably a bigger star stateside than any "puro" worker before 96.

 

I didn't say anything about star level. I said you were more likely to see guys from Japan on shows than guys from Mexico. It sure was a lot easier to get tapes of Kawada/Misawa than Mil Mascaras matches from the 70s in 1996.

[JerryvonKramer]

Possible reasons for lucha penetration being limited in the US:

 

1. Mil Mascaras. I mentioned him before because I wonder if he had a vested interest in keeping himself as a special attraction by keeping other luchadores off the cards. Dos Caras would come in as his tag partner. They worked the various tag tournaments in the NWA including in Georgia, Crockett and Florida. As well as in the RWTL in Japan. Mil worked MSG too. Masked luchadore in New York other than Mil seem to be low card or even jobber fakes -- see Slaughter cobra clutch challenge deal. Mascaras also had Apter on lock down, so the mags featured him a lot compared to other Mexicans, somewhat similar to Moolah and the other women.

 

2. The territory that most featured luchadores, LA under Mike LaBelle, was one of the first to die and be taken over by Vince. LA became one of the first expansion towns and a Hogan stronghold thereafter. Vince had zero interest in maintaining any lucha elements on LA cards, so the primary Mexican - US crossover point aside from Mascaras was severed.

 

----

 

Over on the Japanese side meanwhile in WWF you have the Inoki - Ali connection as well as President Shinma. NJPW workers come in regularly on WWF house shows, for example Yatsu. Also workers like Prof Tanaka, Mr Saito and Mr Fuji were put over as major heels on the main roster.

 

In NWA land, every territory had a Mr Fuji equivalent, and Saito himself traveled widely. Jumbo Tsuruta had runs, including most memorably in the AWA. The NWA champion would travel to Japan also. Mr Baba had a policy of ensuring his up and comers spent a year or so plying their trade in US territories.

[stro]

No, Jerry. Only racism could be behind this!

[cpst]

In NWA land, every territory had a Mr Fuji equivalent, and Saito himself traveled widely.

That raises a good question: why weren't there more racist "evil Mexican" characters in Texas wrestling? Wrestling certainly wasn't progressive when it came to Japan and the Middle East. Maybe there were and I just don't know of them?

[JerryvonKramer]

 

In NWA land, every territory had a Mr Fuji equivalent, and Saito himself traveled widely.

That raises a good question: why weren't there more racist "evil Mexican" characters in Texas wrestling? Wrestling certainly wasn't progressive when it came to Japan and the Middle East. Maybe there were and I just don't know of them?

World war 2 is all

[JerryvonKramer]

Also I feel like there were El Bandito style Mexican heels in Texas territories. Think of heel Guerreros.

 

And there were babyfaces like Jose Lothario, but they just didn't work like luchadores.