Pro-Wrestling On My Mind

Ah, the Young Lions. Such precious babies. And, more importantly, such  good boys. Trained so well. I was reminded of this at Fantastica Mania last Friday during the 4th match. It was El Desperado, Neon, and Templario vs. Los Depredadores (Volador Jr., Rugido, and Magnus). Towards the end of the match, Los Depredadores, being the bad guys, decided to start taking the masks off the other team. Of course, if you know anything about lucha libre, you know that the masks are sacred and this action is, to put it simply, a very big no-no. Of course the Young Lions are trained in how to wrestle, but they are also trained in the culture  of wrestling, so they know the importance of masks. They are also always on duty during matches to do whatever needs to be done, from collecting discarded gear, supplying cold compresses, and (attempting) to break things up when a match gets out of control. In this match, from the SECOND it looked like someone's mask was coming off, every single Young ...

The synapses were firing again on Friday during Fantastica Mania. When the fourth match entrances started and Los Depredadores came out, I was looking at Volador Jr. and thinking "Who does he remind me of...?" It hit me as we were waiting for the match to start while the referee was checking the wrestlers. Dear Reader, do you see it? Or have I completely lost my mind (or maybe my eyes are just that much worse (they are already super not great) and I need to visit the optometrist)?   

As the title says, today was Fantastica Mania Friday for me, and it certainly was fantastic! It was the last day of the 2025 series of shows with visiting luchadors from CMLL and the Tag Team Partner managed to get us second row seats. Lots of amazing wrestling, a good dose of silliness, and a fair amount of people ending up in my lap. It was a great night. I also love that NJPW finally cracked a little and basically said "This lucha stuff is too awesome. Audience, clip that (but only 60 seconds or less)." This is one of my favorite pics of the night as it very much captures the personality of my favorite golden retriever soul in a black cat body. Also, it's rare to see these two matched up, and that's a shame because they had some amazing moments together tonight. I'll post more from the show this weekend, but it's bedtime for now. Hope you also had a fantastic Friday Dear Reader!

Had a realization today. The minimal amount of Spanish I know comes from 3 sources: 1) Pro-wrestling 2) Dora the Explorer 3) Ricky Ricardo I took French in high school. My bad. Fortunately, rewatching "Lucha Underground" is a nice refresher course for the Fantastica Mania show I'll be attending at the end of the month.  Also, even though my Spanish is minimal at best, I am pretty sure at this point that Chavo Guerrero translates to "traitorous whore" in English. Such a weaselly little bastard. Great villain. Not as punchable as Eustace Winner, but close.

One of the textbook units I teach is about saying where you want to go and what you want to do when you get there ("I want to see/eat/buy/visit yada yada yada."). With Fantastica Mania coming up in February, inspiration for this topic was easy.   To be honest, I want to write "I want to watch a Mexican Death Match," but we have to keep it PG. If anyone has a recommendation of a spectacular clip from CMLL with moves that would make kids' jaws drop, share the YouTube link with me!