As a one-time TV writer for WWE SMACKDOWN!, Dan Madigan has made a nice living in the world of professional wrestling, helping make household names of The Rock, Kane and Mick Foley. However, his true interests lie south of the border, with the masked men of Mexico, so lovingly detailed in MONDO LUCHA A GO-GO: THE BIZARRE & HONORABLE WORLD OF WILD MEXICAN WRESTLING.
Even those of us not indoctrinated into the subculture of lucha libre wrestling can appreciate what Madigan has done here, because it’s easy to understand the sport’s appeal. It’s like watching superheroes duke it out before your very eyes, live, rather than on a screen or on the page.
Like many, Madigan was introduced to the sport via catching a UHF movie starring Santo, lucha libre’s most famous superstar. After he indulges in a little childhood nostalgia, Madigan gets into the sport’s history, created by a businessman named Don Salvador Lutteroth — described as a combination of Don King and Walt Disney – in the early 1930s.
This segues into short biographies of the wrestlers themselves, from the big boys of Santo and The Blue Demon to lesser-known personalities (at least to me) like The Black Shadow and Dr. Wagner. And if it’s midgets you seek, yep, they’re covered here, too.
And, of course, so are the masks. I was interested to get the dish on the masks, as they make lucha libre so unique. I learned that the reason they came into being was out of necessity, so that wrestlers on a losing streak or contractually obligated elsewhere could appear anonymous as someone new. The built-in mystique aroused the curiosity of audiences, and gave birth to a sensational sport still celebrated today.
For the die-hard fan, the fact-filled text and supplemental articles should offer much on which to gnaw. But for the casual reader, MONDO LUCHA’s true delights lie in its colorful, festive presentation, as the book is filled with terrific old movie posters, photographs, comic-book covers and other memorabilia. –Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• SEE NO EVIL by Dan Madigan
