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The World of Lucha Libre: Secrets, Revelations, and Mexican National Identity
The World of Lucha Libre is an insider’s account of lucha libre, the popular Mexican form of professional wrestling. Heather Levi spent more than a year immersed in the world of wrestling in Mexico City. Not only did she observe live events and interview wrestlers, referees, officials, promoters, and reporters; she also apprenticed with a retired luchador (wrestler). Drawing on her insider’s perspective, she explores lucha libre as a cultural performance, an occupational subculture, and a set of symbols that circulate through Mexican culture and politics. Levi argues that the broad appeal of lucha libre lies in its capacity to stage contradictions at the heart of Mexican national identity: between the rural and the urban, tradition and modernity, ritual and parody, machismo and feminism, politics and spectacle.
Levi considers lucha libre in light of scholarship about sport, modernization, and the formation of the Mexican nation-state, and in connection to professional wrestling in the United States. She examines the role of secrecy in wrestling, the relationship between wrestlers and the characters they embody, and the meanings of the masks worn by luchadors. She discusses male wrestlers who perform masculine roles, those who cross-dress and perform feminine roles, and female wrestlers who wrestle each other. Investigating the relationship between lucha libre and the mass media, she highlights the history of the sport’s engagement with television: it was televised briefly in the early 1950s, but not again until 1991. Finally, Levi traces the circulation of lucha libre symbols in avant-garde artistic movements and its appropriation in left-wing political discourse. The World of Lucha Libre shows how a sport imported from the United States in the 1930s came to be an iconic symbol of Mexican cultural authenticity.
- GenresNonfictionSports
290 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 26, 2021
I read this as a layperson with interest in the subject but little knowledge so my comments come from that angle and with awareness that it is an academic text.
It was, in general, a very well written and easy to read book, in my opinion. There was a vibrancy of description that was compelling and the human elements (quoted interviews, stories etc) added to this. It covers a range of different social themes around the subject and, while certain areas were more interesting to me personally, it did feel like you were getting quite a full view. In terms of my desire to read a text that gave an overview and was an enjoyable read; well, it certainly fulfilled that!
The main downside, for me, was how dated it felt. I believe the fieldwork was completed in the late 90s and, although there are a couple of follow up trips and updating epilogues, I was left wanting a bit more in terms of things being brought up to date. Obviously every piece of research has its boundaries but I think that, because Levi was focusing on connections with society/change/the impact of television on the sport, this gap between field work and publication (and my reading!) did become noticeable.
It was, in general, a very well written and easy to read book, in my opinion. There was a vibrancy of description that was compelling and the human elements (quoted interviews, stories etc) added to this. It covers a range of different social themes around the subject and, while certain areas were more interesting to me personally, it did feel like you were getting quite a full view. In terms of my desire to read a text that gave an overview and was an enjoyable read; well, it certainly fulfilled that!
The main downside, for me, was how dated it felt. I believe the fieldwork was completed in the late 90s and, although there are a couple of follow up trips and updating epilogues, I was left wanting a bit more in terms of things being brought up to date. Obviously every piece of research has its boundaries but I think that, because Levi was focusing on connections with society/change/the impact of television on the sport, this gap between field work and publication (and my reading!) did become noticeable.
March 23, 2017
This book is just VEXINGLY inconsistent good and interesting points are side by side with bafflingly disjunctive citations, arguments and points. I wanted this to be a good book and to learn more about a style of wrestling that gets under theorized in academic contexts and has never (in my humble opinion) been integrated well into American Professional Wrestling which has such a divergent set of performance tropes and standards. Letting the work breathe by not wrapping everything up in a centralized metaphor (lucha = parody of the running of the Mexican state) and just providing an enjoyable ethnography with strong insight (which would also be helped by idk not having a disturbing gap between research and publication as the book seems solidly stuck in the era of the fieldwork almost a decade before publication) would have been far more satisfying.
April 15, 2010
Lucha libre is more complicated than I thought it was.
April 22, 2013
Absolutely phenomenal read. Not only a great introspection into this fascinating sport, but a great analysis of how lucha libre symbolizes politics and mexican social issues. Highly recommended!
November 25, 2025
The three territories where professional wrestling has traditionally best thrived are the United States, Mexico, and Japan. Each nation has their own preferred flavor of wrestling, and their own history of the sport and its story of how it grew up organically there.
In Mexico, the game is “lucha libre.” That’s the variety where men in skintight colorful silk masks, capes, and boots do battle in front of fans who gather everywhere from coliseums to local gymnasia to see them do mock battle. In lucha libre, the good guys are called técnicos, while the bad guys are called rudos. As in American pro wrestling, the outcomes of the matches are usually coordinated in advance, but athletic skill is still required to play the game.
Also as in American wrestling, a complex form of theatrical kayfabe is applied to the sport. Everyone knows certain aspects of the game are prearranged and yet paradoxically to acknowledge this obvious fact is somehow the worst sin.
Scholar Heather Levy does a very good job of getting into the world of lucha libre, its history and its ground level workings on a day to day basis in Mexico. She even gets in the ring herself, in order to explore the nuts and bolts—the holds, pins, dirty moves—of the Mexican wrestling game.
Her main takeaway appears to be that lucha libre, while seemingly a ridiculous and kitschy affair, is still a significant part of Mexican pop culture and history. Everyone from politicians to performance artists has coopted certain aspects not just of its aesthetics but its rituals for their own purposes.
As in America, Mexican intellectuals have seen parallels between the theater of the ring and that of the political realm. The charades and rigging and backroom haggling that go on when planning a wrestling match’s outcome mirror the prearranged nature of much of Mexican politics.
Mixed in with the analysis are more ground-level and humanizing profiles of the people involved in the industry. We meet the mask makers and costumers—including the son of the man who invented the luchador mask—as well as the jobbers and local circuit wrestlers. As in any industry, the real lifeblood of the business is not the superstars who fill up the stadia, but the yeoman pros who work hard for little pay.
“The World of Lucha Libre” is scholarly, followed by endnotes, and can be dry at times, but I have read much more leaden and lifeless tomes. And while semiotician snoozers like Roland Barthes are referenced, Levy thankfully keeps her feet well-planted on the ground, focusing more on the flesh than the theory. That’s a good thing, as while I’m inured to boring academic writing at this point, it would be a shame to see a subject as fun as this one get the life choked out of it. Recommended, with photos.
In Mexico, the game is “lucha libre.” That’s the variety where men in skintight colorful silk masks, capes, and boots do battle in front of fans who gather everywhere from coliseums to local gymnasia to see them do mock battle. In lucha libre, the good guys are called técnicos, while the bad guys are called rudos. As in American pro wrestling, the outcomes of the matches are usually coordinated in advance, but athletic skill is still required to play the game.
Also as in American wrestling, a complex form of theatrical kayfabe is applied to the sport. Everyone knows certain aspects of the game are prearranged and yet paradoxically to acknowledge this obvious fact is somehow the worst sin.
Scholar Heather Levy does a very good job of getting into the world of lucha libre, its history and its ground level workings on a day to day basis in Mexico. She even gets in the ring herself, in order to explore the nuts and bolts—the holds, pins, dirty moves—of the Mexican wrestling game.
Her main takeaway appears to be that lucha libre, while seemingly a ridiculous and kitschy affair, is still a significant part of Mexican pop culture and history. Everyone from politicians to performance artists has coopted certain aspects not just of its aesthetics but its rituals for their own purposes.
As in America, Mexican intellectuals have seen parallels between the theater of the ring and that of the political realm. The charades and rigging and backroom haggling that go on when planning a wrestling match’s outcome mirror the prearranged nature of much of Mexican politics.
Mixed in with the analysis are more ground-level and humanizing profiles of the people involved in the industry. We meet the mask makers and costumers—including the son of the man who invented the luchador mask—as well as the jobbers and local circuit wrestlers. As in any industry, the real lifeblood of the business is not the superstars who fill up the stadia, but the yeoman pros who work hard for little pay.
“The World of Lucha Libre” is scholarly, followed by endnotes, and can be dry at times, but I have read much more leaden and lifeless tomes. And while semiotician snoozers like Roland Barthes are referenced, Levy thankfully keeps her feet well-planted on the ground, focusing more on the flesh than the theory. That’s a good thing, as while I’m inured to boring academic writing at this point, it would be a shame to see a subject as fun as this one get the life choked out of it. Recommended, with photos.
August 23, 2022
The first academic text about pro wrestling to not totally miss the point, get lost in a kayfabe hall of mirrors or be cringe (the worst thing an academic can be!!)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews