Photo courtesy of Bolivian wrestler, Mr. Atlas
​

Lucha libre, or freestyle/exhibition wrestling in Bolivia is similar to "exhibition-style" or professional in much of Latin America, including Mexico. 

As part of this increased visibility of Mexican wrestling in the 1950s, luchadores began traveling throughout Latin America putting on events. Huracán Ramirez and Rayo de Jalisco were among those who spent time in Bolivia. They also trained new wrestlers in the cities they visited. Some early Bolivian wrestlers included: Mr. Atlas, Principe [The Prince], SI Montes, Medico Loco [Crazy Doctor], and Diablo Rojo [Red Devil].

During the 1960s lucha libre events took place in the Perez Velasco, a commercial area just outside of central La Paz, popular among working class and middle class people. Luchadores usually wrestled in a makeshift ring and set up seating in a fútbol field. The costumes during this time were not particularly flashy and almost everything was improvised. But by the mid-1970s, the Coliseo Olimpico [Olympic Coliseum], a 7500 seat sports arena, was built in the central neighborhood of San Pedro, leading to more visibility.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, interest in lucha libre waned in La Paz. But in the late 1990s, a major shift occurred when Bolivian lucha libre first appeared on television. In 1998, a group of luchadores calling themselves Furia de Titanes [Fury of Titans], who were regularly putting on shows at the Coliseo Olimpico, noticed TV personality Adolfo Paco in the audience. They approached him about beginning a lucha libre program on Asociación Televisión Boliviana (ATB) channel 9, and he agreed. The program was filmed in the Coloseo de Villa Victoria, in a more peripheral neighborhood of La Paz, and was an immediate success. In addition to large television audiences, the group began attracting long lines of people hoping to see the shows taped live. Luchadores gained notoriety and were featured in local newspapers and magazines. With the addition of several corporate sponsors, luchadores earned about $200 per event.

But this success was fleeting, because not all were highly skilled, and Paco was undiscerning. This caused bitter arguments among the wrestlers. By 1999, Furia de Titanes had split in two. Those who kept the name Furia de Titanes remained on ATB, while others adopted the name Lucha de Campeones [Champions’ Wrestling] and began wrestling on the Uno network, channel 11. The rupture ultimately resulted in smaller audiences, in response to which sponsors terminated their support and thus luchadores in both groups took home significantly less pay. Lucha de Campeones, for example, offered free entrance to their live shows to encourage larger audiences, but as a result luchadores made only 250 to 350 Bolivianos ($35-50 US) per event. In the year 2000, several luchadores complained to Paco that they had never received the health insurance he had promised them. Paco ignored their requests and in retaliation, the luchadores refused to put on their event the next Sunday. They never appeared on television again. However, the end of lucha libre on Bolivian television was quickly followed by the beginning of what might be considered the current era of Bolivian lucha libre, which includes a number of groups in La Paz: Titanes del Ring, LIDER, and Super Catch, among them. Each of these groups also include "cholitas luchadoras," otherwise known as "cholitas luchadoras" [fighting cholitas].
​

When I began doing fieldwork for my dissertation in the spring of 2011, I met several luchadores and luchadoras for interviews. Most were between 20 and 35 and almost every one of them asked me at some point if I had “face.” Using the English word within otherwise purely Spanish dialogue, “tienes face?” they were asking if I used facebook. I quickly became “friends” with all of them on the social networking site as a way to stay in touch, especially during the four months that I returned to the United States at the end of 2011.

And I quickly learned that for the luchadores of SuperCatch, facebook functioned as a way to stay in touch with many people abroad. My fellow Super Catch wrestlers saw the connections they were able to make on the internet as one of the most important ways of achieving international exposure. Whether inviting foreign luchadores to perform in La Paz or organizing their own trips to perform in Lima, Santiago, or Buenos Aires, Facebook was a primary way of connecting with different international groups of wrestlers. Often after a long afternoon of training in Don Mauricio’s ring, we would walk back to Avenida 16 de Julio and stop in one of the small restaurants for the daily special. After shoveling giant plates of silpancho, pique macho, or falso conejo into our mouths and washing them down with mocochinchi (a peach flavored drink), we would walk a block further to the small shop with several computers set up as an internet café.

For just 50 centavos an hour we would sit in a row at the computers, and everyone had a browser tab open with Facebook. Of course the luchadores would look at their Paceño friends’ pictures and send birthday wishes to cousins or schoolmates, but they spent most of their time connecting with wrestlers from other countries. All of the luchadores were members of online virtual Facebook groups of South American and international wrestlers. Occasionally these groups would have scheduled discussions, and the Super Catch luchadores always made a point to participate. Discussions ranged from the latest WWE pay-per-view program to moves wrestlers were working on. But the most important were discussions about travel and the arrival of visiting wrestlers.

I often would finish sending emails to friends in the U.S. and exhausting everything I could think of to look at on Facebook long before they finished their conversations with Peruvian, Mexican, and Spanish wrestlers. Sometimes I was relieved to be asked to translate an English language message that someone received from a U.S. wrestler just because it gave me something to do. We would stay at the internet shop sometimes for almost two hours, as I silently whined in my head that it was already 9pm and I just wanted to go home and sleep. But I slowly understood the importance of these interactions. For just 0.50 Bolivianos an hour (about $0.07) the luchadores were actively participating in what they saw as an international “community” of which they wanted to be a part. 

This global networking online can be understood as a kind of imagined cosmopolitanism in which the SuperCatch luchadores’ desires to connect with other wrestlers overcome spatial constraints, allowing them to feel a sense of “worldliness through engagement, in whatever form, with the world’s goods and lifestyles” (Schein 1999:359).  Here, the “lifestyle” of international wrestling legitimacy was practiced using the internet and membership in international groups. Shein draws on Anderson, using the notion of imagining to demonstrate the ways participants in cosmopolitanism may not necessarily meet face-to-face, but nonetheless fashion communities that are just as genuine as those created by people who share physical space. Though it is possible no all participants in these facebook interactions saw this form of sociality as a community, the SuperCatch luchadores were precisely interested in participating in what they understood as a community. They felt that being part of online communities would grant them more legitimacy than would simply being a part of local lucha libre circles. In many ways, they valued their international connections more highly, because they saw them as legitimizing, while they understood the local as degrading.

As Schein point outs, it is electronic media that allows this sort of “supralocal transmission” to occur. The interactive nature of the internet (even if it was infuriatingly slow at times), allowed for a horizontal exchange that unlike media of television and film, “brings into possibility an imagining of community on the scale of the globe” (Schein 1999:359). Within these new communities identifications may be refashioned. For the luchadores, their involvement with wrestlers outside of Bolivia allowed them to see themselves and the group as part of “international lucha libre” despite the fact that they rarely if ever traveled to perform outside of Bolivia, and visits by foreign wrestling groups were only occasional. These connections allowed them to imagine the eradication of economic exclusions, and restrictions imposed by state borders that their own particular citizenship determined. Yet, even as cosmopolitan exchange allowed for the imagining of mobility, it was also conditioned by the endurance of relative physical immobility (Schein 1999:269) that the luchadores knew was part of their reality. Appadurai writes that “Fantasy is now a social practice” (1996:7) and many people long for horizontality described by Anderson (Appadurai 1983:7), without global differentials of power and wealth (Schein 1999:369). For the luchadores, these differentials were manifested in their desire for legitimacy.

Yet legitimacy continued to be fleeting for the Super Catch luchadores. Clearly the reputation of Bolivian lucha libre among wrestlers outside of Bolivia was part of a global dynamic in which Bolivia either appeared invisible or was understood as derivative of better established wrestling traditions in Mexico or the United States. As Rocky Aliaga, a Bolivian who now wrestles professionally in Spain explained to me, people in other countries only knew what they saw of Bolivian lucha libre on the internet. “Aqui llega informacion de monstruos, momias, hombrelobos...En Bolivia hay talento y nuevos valores, pero sin dar oportunidad. Cada una lucha hasta tres veces para no dar oportunidad a jóvenes. Por eso se disfrazan de monstruos” [Here they find information about monsters, mummies, wolfmen…In Bolivia there is talent and new values, but without opportunity. Each match of three falls doesn’t give the opportunity to young wrestlers. That’s why they costume themselves as monsters]. Rocky confirms here what those luchadores still in Bolivia suspect: that in the larger world of exhibition wrestling they are seen either as a joke or as underdeveloped. But the luchadores often attribute this formation to the local dynamics of clowning rather than global processes

Over the course of my year of training as a luchadora, Edgar consistently used the feminine form of clowns, “payasas,” when referring to wrestlers that he felt had a low skill level. For several of the SuperCatch luchadores, the cholitas stood in as emblematic of the “problem.” In September of 2011, while in the United States for a few months, I posted some pictures of cholitas luchadoras from Titanes del Ring on facebook. Two days later, I noticed that Edgar had written in the comments section, “Por que muestras estas payasas de El Alto si tu hablaste con los mejores luchadores de Bolivia y los más antiguos? Si hasta criticabas a estos bueyes por que los promocionas? Hay grandes profesionales que puedes mostrar como LFX, Halcones del Ring, Super Catch…Que mal!” [Why do you show these female clowns from El Alto if you have talked with the best and oldest Bolivian wrestlers? Until you criticize these oxen, why do you promote them? There are great professionals you can show like LFX, Halcones del Ring, Super Catch…How awful!]. Anarkista, a luchador from GLLP in Santa Cruz, Bolivia agreed, “Bien dicho.... Sabemos que hay mejores luchadores que estas cosas.” [Well said…We know there are better wrestlers than these things]. I eventually removed the pictures, but the conversation they had evoked stuck with me. As a foreigner, putting pictures of the cholitas luchadoras on a website only exacerbated the “problem” male luchadores were working so hard to “correct.” To Edgar and Anarkista I was reinforcing the image of Bolivian lucha libre that they were constantly working against in front of an international audience. The luchadoras were the most visible example of Bolivian lucha libre outside of the country, but as Edgar explained to me many times, to the wrestlers of Super Catch they were not representative of the true talent within Bolivia. Thus, facebook became both a subject of study and an (accidental) methodological tool for further understanding the ways that imagined cosmopolitanism was at work among my wrestling partners.

The end of lucha libre on Bolivian television was quickly followed by the beginning of what might be considered the current era of Bolivian lucha libre, which Roberto characterized as the “aparicion de los luchadores enanos y por supuesto la lucha de cholitas” [the appearance of midget wrestlers, and of course the cholitas’ wrestling]. The most visible group promoting both “midget wrestlers” and the cholitas luchadoras has been Titanes del Ring [Titans of the Ring], which Roberto says existed under a different name prior to when they added these two spectacles to their events. When I began my fieldwork Titanes del Ring was the only group with a set schedule and permanent venue. The group consistently attracted hundreds of audience members each Sunday at their show in the Multifuncional de la Ceja de El Alto (the multifunctional arena located in the Ceja market area of El Alto). They also were the first to cater to tourists, with the help of local tourism company Secretos Andenos [Andean Secrets].

In 2009, when I first met LIDER wrestlers, the group was managed by Kid Simonini and Jaider Lee, the sons of Medico Loco. They performed in a much smaller arena in the neighborhood of Villa Victoria, a working class area sometimes referred to as Villa Balazos (Bullet Town) given its high crime rates. They did not have a permanent weekly schedule, and the wrestlers often traveled to put on shows in nearby small altiplano towns. They did not market themselves to tourists specifically, and when I attended their shows I was the only visibly non-Bolivian in the audience. However, by the time I left La Paz at the end of 2012, the group was starting to work more like Titanes del Ring with shows every Sunday in the Coloseo 12 de Octubre in El Alto, and several different tour companies helping them to attract foreign tourists to their shows. However, while Titanes del Ring usually garnered between 150-200 foreign tourists per week, LIDER only had about 20.

Lucha Fuerza Extrema (LFX) was another group, started in 2005 by the sons of Sombra Vengadora: Sombra Jr., and Vampiro Uno. During the time of my fieldwork, LFX was a growing group, focused on “extreme” wrestling, in which they used items like chairs, tables, ladders, light bulbs, thumb tacks, and anything else that was breakable or hard enough to hit with. Like the schedule of LIDER when I first began fieldwork, LFX performed sporadically and at different locations around La Paz and El Alto. Roberto attributed their lack of events to internal arguments.

Super Catch is the fourth lucha libre group in La Paz and the one with which I worked most closely. The group was formed in 2010, and I joined them in January of 2012. Between January and November of that year I trained with them a few times a week, appeared on local and national television talk shows about 15 times to promote the group, and wrestled in 5 live events.  Much of my dissertation is based on what I learned learned from that experience.

Each of these groups—LIDER, LFX, Super Catch, and Titanes del Ring—perform in the coloseos of La Paz and El Alto, though some more regularly than others. These venues, sometimes called arenas, do not appear like gynasiums of the United States. They are made almost entirely from concrete and are covered by a roof, but there is space between the tops of the walls and roof structure. The buildings are drafty and cold, especially after dark. Audience members who sit along the wall on concrete bleachers or on plastic chairs around the ring, usually wear heavy coats and sometimes bring a blanket to cover their legs.

For most of my time in La Paz Super Catch wrestlers moved around different venues, putting on shows once or twice per month—usually on a Friday night. Some venues, like the Coloseo de Villa Victoria (the same location where most LIDER shows took place from 2009-2011) were quite large and well known, but the group also put on shows in neighborhood parks or recreation centers. At the time I was finishing fieldwork, Super Catch was trying to negotiate for their events to be televised on the local television station, Palenque TV, in weekly shows under the name Tigres del Ring. 

On my first day of training, when Edgar asked if I’d rather my traje have pants or a pollera, I immediately knew pants made more sense. Perhaps they would not provide the visual beauty of a pollera swirling through the air, but they certainly would be easier to wrestle in. And Edgar was not the only person who suggested I wrestle in a pollera. The LIDER luchadoras, Juanita and Benita were constantly trying to get me into one. On a Friday afternoon while we sipped coffee at a stall in Mercado Lanza, the two giggled trying to decide what color pollera would look best on me. Juanita was wearing a blue sparkly shawl and Benita’s was white. They took turns holding them up to my fact to see what color would look nice on a gringa. Even at my dissertation defense, I was asked why I didn’t wear a pollera to wrestle. 

during my dissertation defense, I explain-oh so eloquently-why I do not wear a pollera to wrestle 

My answer, simply, is that I have no right to wear a pollera. The pollera is often considered to be the most visible symbol of Bolivian indigeneity, which is not just a racial category, but a class-based subjectivity and a political identification. The pollera has a long history, from being institutionalized dress for hacienda workers to a visible symbol of working-class women’s political protest throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. Wearing the pollera is not just a clothing choice, but is a performance of identification with these histories and contemporary associations. As a gringa with no stake in any of these categories associated with the pollera, it seemed that for me to wrestle in one would appear as a farce.

Sure, seeing a gringa in a pollera might be just as amusing for Bolivians as the “cholitas luchadoras” are for the foreigners that flock to their shows. But that doesn’t mean that I have a right to wear one. As Jaya Bedi writes so eloquently, “The political context in which cultural symbols exist is important. Cultural appropriation happens — and the unquestioned sense of entitlement that white Americans display towards the artifacts and rituals of people of color exists too. All ‘appropriation’ is not merely an example of cultural sharing, an exchange between friends that takes place on a level playing field.”

And I think my position is actually strengthened by the time I did wear a pollera (outside of the ring). When I appeared at Shirley’s party in a pollera and Gonz shouted “cholita punk.” My friends were amused because my representation was ironic. As I write in my dissertation (I think it’s still in there, but Cholita Punk was sadly cut), “Irony often functions as a ‘frame shifting’ mechanism (Coulson 2001) in order to express humor. When I entered the party wearing a pollera, Gonz shouting ‘cholita punk’ shifted the frame from the representation of cholitas as traditional and thoroughly Bolivian icons, to something integrated with the international youth culture of punk rock. Even my own laughter at wearing the pollera and braids played on the disjuncture of a U.S. gringa in clothing with cultural meaning in the Andes. And most certainly, when Luis suggested I wrestle, irony was used to disrupt the usual interpretation of a mujer de pollera.”

Now there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging the ways cholitas are no longer merely a form of local subject, but now are globally active citizens (I have 2 chapters on that). But the point remains that for a gringa to appear in public (versus the private party) in a pollera most certainly degrades the rich history of the skirt and the complex ways of identifying employed by the women who wear them daily. And we must not forget that ways of identifying are not neutral. The “chola,” the mujer de pollera, the indígena are marginalized and historically stigmatized categories in Bolivia. And the “Bolivian woman” in general is discriminated against all over the hemisphere, from Buenos Aires to Phoenix. 

Again I refer to Bedi, who writes, “If the use of the bindi by mainstream pop stars made it easier for South Asian women to wear it, I’d be all for its proliferation — but it doesn’t. They lend the bindi an aura of cool that a Desi woman simply can’t compete with, often with the privilege of automatic acceptance in a society when many non-white women must fight for it.” To paraphrase her, what makes a white woman’s use of the pollera problematic is the fact that a gringa wearing one is guaranteed to be better received than if a Bolivian woman were to step out of the house rocking one. On me, it would be a bold new look (sure to catch lots of stares, but no one’s going to shew me away from a fancy restaurant). On a Bolivian woman it’s yet another marker of her Otherness. A symbol of her failure at whiteness, at cosmopolitanism, to participate in a global citizenship. 

Dina, Juanita, and Claudina (from LIDER) show off their bad, cosmopolitan selves

Of course the cholitas luchadoras work hard to combat this image of the mujer de pollera as local not global, stigmatized not empowered, marginalized not powerful. And they have made excellent advances. But we’re not there yet. Despite the mujeres de pollera that have been elected or appointed to high profile government positions, it is still an Other form of dress. One worth celebrating. But not yet ready to be paraded in public as the funny thing the gringa’s wearing. Maybe some day…..but for now my beautiful pollera will stay in a closet in Illinois. 

One of the peer reviewers for my JLACA article suggested that I include more information about what “elite” Paceños think of lucha libre. I didn’t think this fit well into the article, but I do think the general public’s reactions to lucha libre are something interesting to be considered. This is part one of a short series on middle class interpretations of lucha libre.

The luchadoras are “un orgullo Paceño en La Paz y El Alto” [A Paceño pride in La Paz and El Alto] David, a local LGBT activist told me. “Es una pasion de multitudes…la gente burguesa y popular” [It’s a passion of the multitudes. The elite and popular classes]. It was not exactly my experience that they were the “passion” of middle class people, but they were certainly within the realm of popular discussion topic. As I wrote about here, one night at a party I put on a pollera and braided my hair. Gonz was the only one there who knew my secret, so when Luis, shouted “Tienes que luchar! Como las cholitas en la lucha libre” I was caught off guard. Amidst much laughter we all started pretending to wrestle.

To my friends at the party, the luchadoras are something of a joke that carries classed inflection. Like a monster truck rally or square dance might be viewed by urban elites in the United States, lucha libre is not disparaged outright, but seen with a certain sense of dismissal or ironic appreciation. Here they express an understanding of the preference for the genres of excess that has often been classed. As Linda Williams explains of film genres, those that have a particularly low cultural status—horror, pornography, and melodrama—are ones in which “the body of the spectator is caught up in an almost involuntary mimicry of the emotion or sensation of the body on the screen” (1991:4). These films, rather than appealing to elite classes as “high art” are seen to be for the less educated, less “cultured” masses. 

And indeed, lucha libre combines aspects of all three of these film types. The enacted violence of the ring reflects the gratuitous violence of horror films. The intimate contact of bodies, and sometimes explicit sexually charged scenarios can be read as pornographic (see Messner, et. al 2003, Rahilly 2005). And several scholars have pointed to the melodramatic nature of the extreme good and evil portrayed in exhibition wrestling (Jenkins 2007, Levi 2008). Thus, for many of my friends lucha libre lies squarely within the bounds of that which is not to be appreciated—at least on an artistic or serious level. 

However, like North American young people, young Paceños sometimes have ironic appreciation for degraded cultural symbols like lucha libre. Irony often functions as a “frame shifting” mechanism (Coulson 2001) in order to express humor. When I entered the party wearing a pollera, Gonz shouting “cholita punk” shifted the frame from the representation of cholitas as traditional and thoroughly Bolivian icons, to something integrated with the international youth culture of punk rock. Even my own laughter at wearing the pollera and braids played on the disjuncture of a U.S. gringa in clothing with cultural meaning in the Andes. And most certainly, when Luis suggested I wrestle, irony was used to disrupt the usual interpretation of a mujer de pollera.

Coulson, Seana
2001  Semantic Leaps: Frame-shifting and Conceptual Blending in Meaning Construction. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Jenkins, Henry
2007  The Wow Climax: Tracing the Emotional Impact of Popular Culture. New York: New York University Press.

Levi, Heather
2008  The World of Lucha Libre: Secrets, Revelations, and Mexican National Identity. Durham: Duke University Press.

Messner, Michael A,, Margaret Carlisle Duncan, and Cheryl Cooky
2003 Silence, Sports Bras, And Wrestling Porn : Women in Televised Sports News and Highlights Shows. Journal of Sport and Social Issues 27:38-51.

Rahilly, Lucia
2005  Is RAW War?: Professional Wrestling as Popular S/M Narrative. In Steel Chair to the Head: The Pleasure and Pain of Professional Wrestling. Nicholas Sammond, ed.  Durham: Duke University Press.

Williams, Linda
2001  Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess. Film Quarterly 44(4):2-13.

_ Last week I went to Yapacaní in the Santa Cruz department to meet the godson of one of my oldest and best anthro friends. She was flying back to Denver, and I had a 20 hour bus back to La Paz, so she handed over the book she had just finished, The Glass Castle. It was far from my favorite book ever, but at the end the narrator describes a moment in which she felt as if she had arrived. I started thinking about what it might mean for an anthropologist to arrive.

_Yesterday, I read over some reviewer comments on an article I am trying to publish, and felt like I was getting close. Is publishing in a well regarded journal arriving? Is getting a post-doc? Any job? Is it getting a tenure track position? Or when you finally get tenure? In the academic world, what is the moment when you feel legitimate?

Those specific moments are probably further off for me than I’d like to think, but recently, I’ve had a few that felt like arrivals. In mid-June, I was told several times that my Spanish is “perfect.” Edwin told me for the third time last week that I don’t count as a gringa. But I think a moment that was particularly and personally an arrival for me was after getting back to La Paz last Thursday.

The Tito’s guys were having a party, and I came along with some other friends. For some unknown reason, half way through the night we all ended up wearing costumes, composed of random clothing items lying around. Jack ended up wearing a nightgown and a mouse mask. One woman dressed herself as a bride, another as a bumble bee. But the hostess found the real treasure for me: a pollera. I took off my ripped jeans wore it with my plain black t shirt and my converse shoes. As I started dividing my hair into a center part, Andres started telling me I needed trenzas. “Ya estoy intentando hacerlas.” I talked to Edwin about how one attempts to sit in a pollera. I told Gonz it wasn’t poofy enough and he told me that “real” cholas wear five at a time (I think that was a bit of an exaggeration). In the ultimate statement of poetic irony, Luis--who knows nothing about my research--suggested I start wrestling as a cholita luchadora. But my favorite response was Gonz looking up from his drink and shouting “Mira, es cholita punk!” Yes, I had arrived. 

_ Suddenly it all makes sense. Today was the ethnographer’s dream. I returned to the “site” that was the beginning. The rough sketch that will hopefully become some sort of masterpiece of a dissertation. The shaky first attempt and understanding something. Anything.

That is, Edgar asked if I wanted to go to the Multifuncional to see the show and try to work out a deal with Mr. Atlas. And with all the police mutiny going on around here I almost canceled on him and stayed home today. But when he called to tell me he’d be ten minutes late, I pulled on the thick down coat, and headed out the door.

_ I’ve made central to my thesis his suggestion that the luchadoras of Titanes del Ring are “payasas.” And I’ve been thinking about it as a gendered derogation. But tonight, as I sat on the cold concrete bench, surrounded by women in polleras and seven year olds screaming at the rudos that they are maricones, I understood what he he’s been talking about all this time.

Every match was far more show than lucha. He was right that I should pay attention to the way the luchadores interacted with the audiences. The cholitas arrived in the arena dancing (sometimes with the gringos in the front row), waving, smiling, being cute. The luchadores either greeted people with waves , walking all the way around the ring, or insulted the audience immediately. Throughout the matches they often stopped to interact with the audience. When Cobade jumped on the corner ropes in the middle of the match, the little girl next to me yelled “maricon” over and over. “Tu papá es un maricon. Yo soy hombre.” He responded. Yes, indeed, I need to beef up my interaction and acting.

But the wrestling itself, the claves, the cayes, the castigos, were less than impressive. I have yet to do any quantitative analysis on the subject, and perhaps my very central role biases me, but I would venture to say that my own matches have about twice as many actual wrestling moves per minute as the Titanes del Ring matches. And to me, this made them slow and boring. Certainly there was more humor involved. And the audience was given ample opportunity to shout, throw things, generally become “part” of the act. Perhaps in Super Catch matches they are more spectators than contributors.

_ But the word “clown” was the obvious descriptor for much of what I was seeing. It very much was clear in a match featuring Jenifer Dos Caras in which, before the actual wrestling began, she repeatedly fell on the floor laughing. This reminded me of Goffman’s analysis clowning, and “the use of entire body as a playful gesticulative device” as a way to indicate a lack of seriousness and childlike demeanor. Jean-Martin Charcot, a nineteenth century neurologist, pioneered work on hysteria, suggesting that the second phase of the condition was “clownism.” As Didi-Huberman (2003:147) explains, this reference to clowning was used to delegitimate so-called hysterical women.

And the very gendered history of all this added to my assumption that Edgar’s statements belied sexism, and a dismissal of the possible contribution of women to lucha libre. But tonight I understood where the sentiment was coming from and it seemed to have little to do with gender. After the first three matches he asked “Como te parece?” But didn’t quite give me a chance to answer. “Son malas, no?” And I agreed. They were funny. Lots of humorous yells at the audience, bodily comedy, and goofy antics. But the actual wrestling wasn’t convincing. The claves weren’t done with skill. “Falta mucha technica” says Edgar.

But Titanes del Ring garners an audience. Edgar and I guessed there were around 500 people there. With about 150 tourists paying 50 Bs. a person. And maybe that’s the key. Maybe the actual wrestling doesn’t matter. Maybe its all about the comedy. Last year, plenty of audience members told me the reason they attend shows is that it makes them laugh. Maybe its something like the “oasis” Veronica Palenque is striving for. But I can see how, even if this is what Bolivian audiences want, Edgar and his colleagues hope for something more. Something they can be proud of as technicos and luchadores trying to advance their sport.

In the end discussions with Mr. Atlas went nowhere and we rode the minibus back to el centro discussing what we liked and what we didn’t. There was a good jump from the top rope. Mr. Atlas had a few nice moves. And the skeleton character, Mortis, definitely has some dance moves. And I suppose the good part is, I’m feeling more confident about my own abilities. I didn’t see a single attempt at tijeras tonight. And the plan is to learn los tijeras dobles this week.

14 May 2011

The first time I took a minibus to Villa Victoria, a working-class neighborhood of La Paz, Bolivia, I left my camera at home. Though I was attending something of a spectacle there, I had been warned by several people not to take anything of value. A little nervous about going to a place more commonly known as “Villa Balazos” [Gunshot Neighborhood], I begged R to come along with me. We were headed for the Coliseo, but neither of us knew exactly where it was to be found. After consulting with almost every other bus rider, we hopped off at a corner and walked up the hill two blocks. Still not really knowing where to go, we stopped in a tienda and R asked the way again. We made a right turn, and then followed the sound of “Eye of the Tiger” down the street, where we found a long line of Bolivians waiting in the cold outside a gate. It was early winter, and at almost 4000 meters above sea level very little was worth waiting outside in the cold.

I was still trying to get over a bit of a head cold (the kind that never really seems to go away in the Andes), so I was relieved when we were eventually let into the Coliseo, a large barren sports arena. However, as one quickly learns in highland Bolivia, going inside never really does much to warm you up. There’s no indoor heating, and in such a large, concrete space, there is little difference in temperature. At least inside, the walls block the wind. The arena—about the side of a high school basketball court in the US—had massive concrete bleachers on one side. We entered from this direction and went down two levels to sit down. Now the cold was permeating my body both from the air and up from the concrete bleachers through my but.

In the center of the floor was a six-sided amateur-looking wrestling ring. Used to a simple four-sided ring I wondered if there was an advantage to having two extra sides, or if there was some more practical reason LIDER (Luchadores Independientes de Enorme Riesgo) had decided on six. Perhaps that just happened to be the ring they had a chance to buy. In the midst of my contemplation, Carlos approached us and we shook hands. He and R discussed a bloggers’ conference they had both attended recently. Having been convinced for several months that Carlos was angry with me, I was tentative about what to say. Of course, I am often annoyed by him, but have tried to maintain some semblance of a friendship for research purposes. Carlos and I exchanged quick updates, since we hadn’t seen each other in two years, and then he was on his way, back down to the floor to presumably do something important backstage.

The show, billed as a “family event,” was set to start at 7pm, but at 8:15 we were still patiently waiting in the stands. Around 8:30, Ali Farak, a bearded Bolivian man with a slight frame dressed in a white track suit emerged from behind the curtain leading to backstage. He jumped into the ring as the official referee of the event, and the evening’s matches began.

The first fight was between two men; one in a shiny gold spandex outfit with red embellishments, and the other in a Native North American appearing costume. R referred to him as “el Apache” several times, but he also seemed to often use “Apache” often when asking about Native North Americans in general.

After Apache achieved a decisive win, and another 15 minute break in the action, two more characters emerged from behind the curtain. Hombre Lobo [Wolfman] and the Momia [Mummy] came out to do their usual head-butting style of wrestling. The highlight of this was their frequent forays into the bleachers where kids would jump up and run away with high pitched screams echoing. What impressed me most was the parents. Working class Aymara men in Starter jackets that had originally been owned by US high school students in the early 1990s, and women wearing cotton polleras and thick sweaters, would grab the child’s hand and run away from Hombre Lobo along with them.

The other match that seemed directly created for the children in the audience was between Batman and Bob Esponga [Sponge Bob Square Pants]. Batman, in this pair, played the rudo, cheating several times, and pushing kids away who tried to get his autograph. Bob Esponga, dressed in a giant yellow spongy square that looked like an expensive Halloween costume, waved at the kids and gave a few hugs on his way to the ring. Batman eventually won the match, thanks to his unjust moves, but the kids’ hearts were won by Bob instead.

This highlight of the evening for me, however, was a match between luchadoras. Benita and Carmen Rojas entered the ring and hugged, obviously showing signs of friendship. However, the Farak started pulling their braids so that it seemed as if the other luchadora had done it. They eventually started wrestling. The matched turned into a 6 person brawl with 3 luchadoras on one side and Juanita with some other men on the other side. As Carlos reported in his blog,

Carmen Rojas enfrento a Benita, no hubo ganador pues en la contienda se involucraron el Hijo de Alí Farak, Sub Zero, y después de las exageradas trifulcas ingreso Juanita al Ring de 6 postes con el objetivo de colocar orden pero las cosas cambiaron pues al final se hizo un desafio de “tres contra tres” entre varones y mujeres que será develado el sábado 21 de mayo en el Coliseo de Villa Victoria.

Carmen Rojas faced Benita, but there was no winner in the contest because it involved the son of Ali Farak, Sub Zero, and after exaggerated scuffles Juanita entered the 6 posted ring with the aim of restoring order. But things changed and in the end it became a challenge of "three against three" between men and women to be unveiled on Saturday May 21 at the Coliseo de Villa Victoria.

It eventually ended with Juanita saying how much better she was than the others, and she’d show them next week. One of the other luchadoras eventually took the microphone and appealed to the audience: “Somos con el publico! Somos mujeres de polleras y somos con ustedes!” [We are with the audience! We are women of the pollera and we are with you!]

Exhibition wrestling is a phenomenon that has grown in different ways in disparate regions. It began in US army barracks, quickly being picked up by promoters, and expanded across the US. A few decades later, Mexico City had adopted its own more acrobatic style. From there it spread across Latin America, and to other regions, with Argentina, Japan, and Brazil being among the most prominent examples. Bolivia, conversely, is not a prominent world example of lucha libre. Though lucha libre is a popular pastime in cities like La Paz, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz, it has not been televised since 2001. Indeed even Bolivians see it as derrivative of other countries´ lucha libre. One fan told me “[lucha libre] is passion in Mexico, religion in Japan, and a joke in the United States, and here [in Bolivia] unfortunately, it suffers horrible stagnation and lacks creativity…It lacks vision of promoters, and the scripts, and stories, and characters are plagiarized from Mexico and the United States. Even the international lucha libre website, Superluchas, recently published a guest blog alleging that fans are tired of all the wrestling companies in Bolivia because they lack personality and plagiarize names, masks, and teams.

And yet, the lucha libre of La Paz and El Alto has something that can´t be found elsewhere. It is, as one fan says, “obviously our contribution to the world of wrestling.” And that is the Cholitas Luchadoras. One might even suggest that this is not only Bolivia's contribution to the “world of wrestling” but also to the world at large, given the fact that Bolivia is a country that does not have a well-developed international image. In contrast to neighbor Perú’s annual 2 million tourists, Bolivia garners only 300,000. It lacks iconic places and events other Latin American countires boast, such as Perú’s Macchu Picchu, Guatamala's Chichen Itzu, and Brazilian Carnivale. It is landlocked and has the poorest economy in South America. The indigenous president, Evo Morales, is one of the most vocal speakers in the world on issues like climate change and indigenous rights. Yet, he is often portrayed as simply a Hugo Chavez minion. As one traveler told me "No one even knows where Bolivia is. The only thing it’s known for is maybe the cocaine." Indeed Morales´s recent challenge of coca´s inclusion in the United Nations 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the capital city La Paz´s reputation for clandestine cocaine bars, clearly belies the country’s embarassed assocation with drug abuse and proud (for some) association with coca cultivation. 

But the Cholitas Luchadoras are becoming another visible symbol of Bolivia. Cholitas, the diminutive of cholas, are already a central figure on postcards throughout the region. More an essentialization than a real “identity” (see Weismantel’s Cholas and Pishtacos), cholas are often envisioned as the traditional mothers of the nation, thought to be rural indigenous women, stuck in time (see Gill’s Precarious Dependencies). The luchadoras are only one of the most recent incarnations of the chola character, joining young women dancing in parades and festivals, dessert brand ambassadors in upscale La Paz supermarkets, and politically active drag performers. 

The luchadoras, however, have received far more attention than these other cholita incarnations. The Guardian has covered them in online video segments, and even newsmedia from Venezuela and Chile have given them attention. At a recent lucha libre event in La Paz a renowned Chilean journalist and his young producer trolled the audience asking opinions about lucha libre. When I reluctantly agreed to answer their questions, they repeatedly pressured me to talk about what I thought of the luchadoras. 

So the audience´s and even broader Paceño population´s suggestions that the luchadoras are the "pride" of La Paz may reflect their desire for international recognition. But this is not just because cholitas are "traditional" and unique to the Andes. The icon of the chola is deeply endowed with characteristics seen as part of Paceño identity….

Today marks the 4 year anniversary of the day I read this.

That's right, for 4 years i dreamed of the day I might see the "cholas" wrestling. I hoped to see the power of revolution in performance. I anticipated moralization of gender and race. I expected the power of the pollera would be manifest in the ring.

On sunday, I took a little tourist bus to la Ceja en El Alto, paid my 80 Bs., shivered, and watched. My previous hopes were not quite realized. Now, don't get me wrong, i am not entirely disappointed. But what I found was more tourist spectacle than local phenomenon (and I wonder if half the local phenomenon is coming to see the crazy gring@s watch the event). And most of women's empowerment seemed to come from demasculinizing men: pulling down their pants, forcing them to wear skirts, etc. Of course, the men retaliated, at times by kissing them (what's that say about sexual violence?).

So the luchadoras are not quite the feminists i had hoped (though, this does not surprise me entirely). but i've also found a lovely little anarchist feminist group. Now, I just have to figure out how this all fits together...