The self-described American patriot leaps into the ring amid blaring music and loud boos from an overwhelmingly Latino audience, who hold aloft signs in Spanish supporting his masked Mexican opponents.
"My name is RJ Brewer and I'm from Phoenix, Arizona," the wrestler proclaims, in a video of a recent match provided by the promoter. Taunts inside the arena get louder.
The wrestler proceeds to rail against Mexican beer and to demand that people speak English. Then he points to the message painted on the backside of his red trunks: "SB1070" — a reference to Arizona's controversial immigration law. The crowd, some wearing masks of their favorite Mexican wrestlers, shrieks even louder.
When his masked opponent in a red cape appears, the crowd erupts into cheers.
Lucha libre — or "free wrestling" in Spanish — is a brand of Mexican wrestling that dates to the 1930s. The sport came north to the United States along with Mexican immigrants, and over the years it has spawned clubs in U.S. cities with large Latino communities.
As promoters target growing Mexican immigrant and Mexican-American markets, they and their wrestlers' fictional personas have begun to adopt a more overtly political storyline revolving around immigration. It's akin to what U.S. wrestling promoters did in the 1980s and 1990s, when they took on race and the Cold War, but with one key twist — now the American is the bad guy.
"It's something that we've been building in our TV shows and we've gotten a lot of positive reaction to it," said Steve Ship, CEO of Lucha Libre USA, which this week is launching a "Masked Warriors" tour. "So we are bringing it right to our audience."
Arizona's immigration law requires all immigrants in the state to obtain or carry immigration registration papers and requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question people's immigration status if there is a reasonable suspicion they're in the country illegally. The law is being challenged by the federal government and has sparked protests by Latino advocates around the country. READ MORE
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