SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) –The high-flying acrobatics of Mexican wrestling have been delighting people for decades. The dancing, the masks, and the events are becoming more and more common here in the Bay Area. Events that began with crowds of just a few dozen have turned into weekly contests with thousands of fans.
It’s not an uncommon sight here in the Bay Area: Hispanic heritage on display — the outfits, the dancing.
And Lucha Libre.
Instantly recognizable are the dancing, masks and slams. While Lucha Libre events like this draw hundreds of people to the center of San Francisco these days, that wasn’t always the case.
To find out how this iconic form of wrestling came here to the Bay Area, look no further than San Jose local Jesus Cruz.
“I noticed there wasn’t a Lucha Libre scene in the Bay Area, so I put out some flyers, ‘if you ever wrestled in Mexico before, call me,'” Cruz said.
He tapped into a massive market as hundreds of thousands of Mexicans were already living in the Bay Area in the early 2000s. Many of them wrestled in Mexico.
“I got up to 50 phone calls, and people say I used to wrestle in Guadalajara, in Mexico City, in Tijuana,” Cruz said.
It was not only an opportunity to wrestle, but for many people who came to the Bay Area from Mexico, it was a way to feel more at home.
“It made me feel great because there’s a lot of people with different backgrounds,” Cruz said. “People come here chasing the American dream, and they’re very hardworking people.”
The crowds grew from 50 to 500. Cruz still works with a squad today in south-central San Jose, and they’re as lively as ever.
These guys train multiple times a week as many of them have day jobs, which can get taken away by one bad slam.
“When I find these people here from Mexico, a lot of these people have jobs like construction,” Cruz said. “In wrestling, you can get injured. If you’re injured, you can’t work.”
But they practice anyway for years, including Mexico legend Rockero Diablo who moved to the Bay Area to specifically work in Lucha Libre. Diablo was working with American wrestlers before he got the call from Cruz to practice in San Jose.
Diablo says for more than 30 years, he’s been involved. He was on TV back in Mexico and wrestled people from all over the world.
The Mexican legend feels fulfilled working in Mexico and now in the U.S. He is now teaching new generations of luchadores in San Jose — those who have never wrestled in Mexico.
“One thing he is very proud to teach his students is regardless if you are in the ring, always at the end of the show, if a fan approaches you be humble, be respectful,” Diablo said.
“For eight months, I was sleeping in the bathrooms at shopping plazas just because I didn’t want to give up on my dream of wrestling,” said another wrestler who goes by the name Rcade.
“While I’m getting ready, I’m nervous, but the second I put my mask on, I’m in the zone,” said Rcade. “I’m in a whole other mindset. I don’t worry how I would think. ‘What would Rcade do in this battle?”’
Rcade is from Gilroy, and this is all he ever wanted to do.