Why does puro get so much love? Why does lucha get so dismissed?

[Grimmas]

I've been curious about this topic for a long time. Puro, by most fans, is considered the best wrestling. It's constantly praised above all other wrestling.

 

On the other hand, lucha is just ignored or mocked and gets praise only from really small circles.

 

GWE was a great example where puro dominated things and a luchador couldn't crack the top 10.

 

Does this come down to coverage from places like Dave or that lucha was developed differently, while puro was developed like American wrestling?

 

It's just very odd to me.

[Jetlag]

This feels like it has been discussed hundreds of times. The things are:

 

- alien style and presentation, hard to understand

- distribution format not meant to be actually watched, TV shows are essentially filmed houseshows, shitty production

- lack of proper coverage

- much of lucha is forgettable/lousily booked + lack of footage means low motivation to follow

- CMLL is meant to appeal to low income mexicans and not dorky foreigners (harder to appeal to comic/anime fans)

 

I'd say coverage is very important. The other day I was going through YouTube and saw a bunch of videos titled "Why japanese wrestling is better" in recommendations, tons of highlight videos made showcasing various japanese wrestlers/feuds etc. Another thing is smark sites reporting on lucha. I remember one time a promoter ran a lucha show headlined by Hijo del Santo and Parka in LA that drew about 4000+. No reports on that show whatsover. The same night there was a DGUSA show just a few streets away that drew 200 people and got a lot of coverage. This distorted view generally goes with smark oriented and non-smark oriented feds. Compare coverage of ASW in UK to coverage of FWA. Or coverage of smark oriented wXw in germany to traditionally oriented promotions like EWP. If somebody wants to get into japanese wrestling, he has a ton of entry points to get info and recs. Just look at Meltzer's 5 star list, something that was shaped by personal taste, but is considered canon by many.

 

EDIT: I think something like the GWE is not a good measuring stick. If you compare wrestler under those specific criteria some will always have an advantage or disadvantage due to booking. Non-mexican fans are used to wrestling shows being centered around a single or tag match as a main event which is supposed to be "good". Lucha shows are mostly a bunch of trios matches with the occasional short singles match sprint between. Obviously someone like Kobashi, who at points had big matches on a monthly basis will look better than Negro Casas who has a big singles match once in a blue moon. You can argue that based on stiffness, technical ability, endurance, psychological match layout Casas at his best was equal or better to Kobashi, but Kobashi can easily stump him with sheer volume.

[goc]

Nothing in lucha is harder to understand than the Japanese wrestling trope of willingly standing there and allowing your opponent to forearm you in the face or chop you repeatedly in the chest.

[Matt D]

Dylan's cultural rant from GWE results times is probably worthwhile to dredge up at this point. I think that should have been the basis of the discussion that followed and it was generally ignored.

 

Personally, as it pertains to Meltzer, I'd argue that the only aspects of lucha he cares about are ones that almost completely miss the point of it. I read what he was into in the 90s, the dives and the spots and the bumps and the quick sequences and you'd never know how great a rudo someone like Psicosis was when it came to attitude and character and interacting with his opponents and partners and the fans. You'd never get a sense of the ritual and the emotional build and payoff and the delay of gratification. I've almost never seen that in Dave's coverage. I think he's aware of it. He just takes it as a given or doesn't care. One reason why I think it's so hard for people to get into lucha is that they have to unlearn much of the traditional smark rhetoric about it first.

[Jetlag]

Nothing in lucha is harder to understand than the Japanese wrestling trope of willingly standing there and allowing your opponent to forearm you in the face or chop you repeatedly in the chest.

 

That is actually something you see in lucha too and almost anyone can understand the machismo behind this motive. Also, technically this is not an integral part of japanese wrestling because it only came up in about 2005.

[goc]

I very much dispute the idea that "almost anyone can understand the machismo behind this motive." Maybe 1 or 2 as a "machismo" thing but not when it goes on for the length of time some of those ridiculous forearm/chop exchanges do.

 

Especially when it's almost universally maligned by even the hardcore puro fans and apparently among native Japanese wrestling fans as well.

 

[supremebve]

OK, so I'm someone who generally loves puro, but have never been able to understand lucha. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm much more familiar/comfortable with Mexican/Spanish language presentations than I am with Japanese. I can count to five in Japanese, say hello and good bye, and pretty much nothing else. My Spanish isn't fluent, but if you were to drop me off anywhere in the Spanish speaking world, I'd probably be able to bet by comfortably. My understanding of puro is based purely on what is going on in the ring. I follow the stories they are trying to tell, the characters they are trying to convey and the matches flow in a way that makes total sense to me. The thing I don't get about lucha is that nothing seems to have any rhyme or reason. I don't understand any of the transitional elements. If one guy is kicking the shit out of the other, sometimes the other guy just takes over on offense without any discernible reason. Too often, I feel like I watch an entire match where nothing feels impactful. There is a lot of rope running, some cool arm drags and head scissors, some mat work that doesn't seem to go anywhere, and then the match ends with a complicated roll up or a move that I don't buy as a finish. I never feel that sense of drama that I get from puro, or even well done American wrestling. I've watched some lucha that I really liked, and tend to really enjoy when people bring lucha elements to puro or American wrestling. I'm willing to give lucha matches a chance, but more often than not I just don't get why a lot of highly regarded lucha matches are enjoyed as much as they are.

[El-P]

OK, so I'm someone who generally loves puro, but have never been able to understand lucha. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm much more familiar/comfortable with Mexican/Spanish language presentations than I am with Japanese. I can count to five in Japanese, say hello and good bye, and pretty much nothing else. My Spanish isn't fluent, but if you were to drop me off anywhere in the Spanish speaking world, I'd probably be able to bet by comfortably. My understanding of puro is based purely on what is going on in the ring. I follow the stories they are trying to tell, the characters they are trying to convey and the matches flow in a way that makes total sense to me. The thing I don't get about lucha is that nothing seems to have any rhyme or reason. I don't understand any of the transitional elements. If one guy is kicking the shit out of the other, sometimes the other guy just takes over on offense without any discernible reason. Too often, I feel like I watch an entire match where nothing feels impactful. There is a lot of rope running, some cool arm drags and head scissors, some mat work that doesn't seem to go anywhere, and then the match ends with a complicated roll up or a move that I don't buy as a finish. I never feel that sense of drama that I get from puro, or even well done American wrestling. I've watched some lucha that I really liked, and tend to really enjoy when people bring lucha elements to puro or American wrestling. I'm willing to give lucha matches a chance, but more often than not I just don't get why a lot of highly regarded lucha matches are enjoyed as much as they are.

 

This.

 

Pretty much.

 

I've been a fan for more than 25 years now.

 

Never really *got* lucha libre. And never ever got *into* it.

 

Probably never will at this point.

 

Don't care anymore.

 

LU rules though.

 

(not Lucha)

 

I know.

 

And

 

?

[raul]

 

this is extremely me

[Jmare007]

OK, so I'm someone who generally loves puro, but have never been able to understand lucha. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm much more familiar/comfortable with Mexican/Spanish language presentations than I am with Japanese. I can count to five in Japanese, say hello and good bye, and pretty much nothing else. My Spanish isn't fluent, but if you were to drop me off anywhere in the Spanish speaking world, I'd probably be able to bet by comfortably. My understanding of puro is based purely on what is going on in the ring. I follow the stories they are trying to tell, the characters they are trying to convey and the matches flow in a way that makes total sense to me. The thing I don't get about lucha is that nothing seems to have any rhyme or reason. I don't understand any of the transitional elements. If one guy is kicking the shit out of the other, sometimes the other guy just takes over on offense without any discernible reason. Too often, I feel like I watch an entire match where nothing feels impactful. There is a lot of rope running, some cool arm drags and head scissors, some mat work that doesn't seem to go anywhere, and then the match ends with a complicated roll up or a move that I don't buy as a finish. I never feel that sense of drama that I get from puro, or even well done American wrestling. I've watched some lucha that I really liked, and tend to really enjoy when people bring lucha elements to puro or American wrestling. I'm willing to give lucha matches a chance, but more often than not I just don't get why a lot of highly regarded lucha matches are enjoyed as much as they are.

 

 

This sums it up for me. Though I can still enjoy the hell out of some of the regarded classics from lucha, for the most part I just don't care enough about it to continue to seek for it. Like, I appreciate what I'm watching but very rarely do I feel emotionally invested in it.

 

Part of the deal for me is the commentary, I even made a thread about it. Lucha commentary is fucking unbearable and takes me out completely of most matches. It's hard as fuck to suspend disbelief and buy into the drama when the play-by-play feels completely phony, forced and uninspired. In my case it's a detriment that Spanish is my first language and an advantage that I don't know anything about Japanese, the over the top screaming still feels genuine and passionate to the point it adds to the action I'm watching.

 

I tried my best during the GWE project to watch and like lucha but was only able to follow 5 guys, and even though they all did well in my ballot and I really enjoyed their work (specially Casas) I haven't even tried to look for more of their matches or delve into current lucha.

[jushin muta liger]

I guess I'll call myself a converted Lucha fan as I felt the same way with Lucha with the "I don't get it" mentality. But I think what changed it with me was that I got attached a wrestler (La Sombra) and I figured out that the drama in traditional Lucha is in the babyface comeback in the 2nd fall and the third fall altogether most of the times. Modern Lucha, in their own way, has the same principles as American or Puro wrestling but just separated in falls.

 

First fall- get heat on the babyface

Second fall - babyface comeback

Third fall - build the drama, hope spots, have your false finishes and then do the finish.

 

To me that's not much difference than any other wrestling right now in terms of philosophy. The moves are a lot different but it's still wrestling. Maybe I'm over simplifying it but that's how I view it.

[WingedEagle]

OK, so I'm someone who generally loves puro, but have never been able to understand lucha. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm much more familiar/comfortable with Mexican/Spanish language presentations than I am with Japanese. I can count to five in Japanese, say hello and good bye, and pretty much nothing else. My Spanish isn't fluent, but if you were to drop me off anywhere in the Spanish speaking world, I'd probably be able to bet by comfortably. My understanding of puro is based purely on what is going on in the ring. I follow the stories they are trying to tell, the characters they are trying to convey and the matches flow in a way that makes total sense to me. The thing I don't get about lucha is that nothing seems to have any rhyme or reason. I don't understand any of the transitional elements. If one guy is kicking the shit out of the other, sometimes the other guy just takes over on offense without any discernible reason. Too often, I feel like I watch an entire match where nothing feels impactful. There is a lot of rope running, some cool arm drags and head scissors, some mat work that doesn't seem to go anywhere, and then the match ends with a complicated roll up or a move that I don't buy as a finish. I never feel that sense of drama that I get from puro, or even well done American wrestling. I've watched some lucha that I really liked, and tend to really enjoy when people bring lucha elements to puro or American wrestling. I'm willing to give lucha matches a chance, but more often than not I just don't get why a lot of highly regarded lucha matches are enjoyed as much as they are.

 

Cosigning most of this. When it hits, like most pro wrestling, lucha is great. But very often it looks as though everyone is literally going through the motions to put on a performance display that substantially, if not completely, seems devoid of intensity, competitiveness and an effort to inflict physical damage to an opponent. There are obviously exceptions as to presentation and style, but too often it simply seems much more collaborative than I want from wrestling.

[Matt D]

I guess I'll call myself a converted Lucha fan as I felt the same way with Lucha with the "I don't get it" mentality. But I think what changed it with me was that I got attached a wrestler (La Sombra) and I figured out that the drama in traditional Lucha is in the babyface comeback in the 2nd fall and the third fall altogether most of the times. Modern Lucha, in their own way, has the same principles as American or Puro wrestling but just separated in falls.

 

First fall- get heat on the babyface

Second fall - babyface comeback

Third fall - build the drama, hope spots, have your false finishes and then do the finish.

 

To me that's not much difference than any other wrestling right now in terms of philosophy. The moves are a lot different but it's still wrestling. Maybe I'm over simplifying it but that's how I view it.

I wrote a lot of words on trios matches last November. I'm sure anyone interested in this has read it but I'll repost again for the heck of it:

 

 

 

I had a hard time with lucha. I had enjoyed the process of the DVDVR AWA 80s set so much that I wanted to get right on board with lucha even though I was extremely unfamiliar with it, and I struggled through the first few discs on the set. By the time I hit disc 5, I started to feel like I had a little sense of what I was watching, enough so that I wanted to spin off and start writing things up for Segunda Caida. The #1 rule I had, however, was not to just jump to the best stuff. Why watch the best stuff before you have an understanding of what you're watching? When you do that, you don't have an accurate baseline, or your baseline becomes MS-1 vs Sangre Chicana. I wanted to watch a number of different situations from a number of different years, and I tried to avoid singles matches until I understood more of what built up to them.

I tried to take an analytical approach. I watched matches, I took notes, and I started to look for patterns. In doing so, I figured out some things about at least the CMLL style of lucha. (And even then I admit that I lose some context with my language gaps, but you can learn a lot, in general, from patterns in how the matches are worked).

Let's start with this. Here's what you don't need to know about lucha.

In trios matches, there are captains.

To win a fall, either the captain has to get pinned/submitted or the other two members of the team have to.

If someone is knocked out of the ring or dives out, a partner can replace him.

Babyfaces are tecnicos. Heels are Rudos. It's not exactly a 1 to 1 correlation.

A backbreaker is called a quebradora.

A tope con giro is some sort of flippy spinny dive thing.

The first fall is the primera. The second fall is the segunda. The third fall is the tercera.

That's what someone does not need to know about lucha. Why? Because you know that stuff already and it doesn't really matter all that much. Mike Tenay told us all that years ago as if it was all that mattered. It's not important on a real narrative level and you know it anyway.

Here's what you need to know about trios matches:

Trios matches have a point. Almost everything done in a trios match has a purpose. Almost every trios match has an internal narrative, some central theme that it's pushing forward. Usually that's a feud between two wrestlers, though CMLL's booking or lack there of means not always. Sometimes they're the captains, sometimes they're not. All of the wrestlers are generally paired up against each other in the beginning, though those pairings can shift. The match will almost always end with a refocusing towards the key pairing.

That's what late match dives are for, by the way. Dives, in trios terceras, are generally to clear the ring and set up the last exchange between the key players, to put the exclamation point on the match. The dives aren't the end. They're a means to the end. This actually inverts the standard southern tag formula which usually ends with a hot tag and everyone in the ring as things break down. Then in the unfocused chaos, either the babyfaces triumph or the heels do something underhanded to win. Lucha trios matches are generally the opposite of that with things becoming refocused after a fairly chaotic tercera.

That brings things back to structure. This style is about build and payoff. The tercera, as I just mentioned, is about a build to the dives and that last exchange. In a lot of ways, the rest of the match is the build to the tercera. There are only a few ways these matches are generally structured and once you understand these patterns, understanding lucha becomes a lot easier.

A ) The tecnicos and the rudos start out the match in a feeling out process with pairings, matwork, and fast exchanges. The tecnicos have a general advantage. Eventually, the rudos have enough and opportunistically swarm the ring starting the beatdown. Or the tecnicos can win the first fall and that swarming starts in the segunda.

Or

B ) The rudos ambush the tecnicos from the get go and immediately start the beatdown.

That's pretty much it. The beatdown is your heat and works one of two ways. Either A ) all of the rudos are in the ring at once and they churn through the tecnicos using a numbers game, with the tecnicos cycling in. Rarely do you have it so that the tecnicos are shown to be all recovered at once. They won't be waiting on the apron but instead they'll convalesce on the floor (Volador had a match this last weekend where he was hanging out on the apron for way too long during his partner getting beat down 2 on 1 and it drove me nuts because you never see it). The more over tecnicos will know to fight back a bit but ultimately keep getting overwhelmed. Or B ) after taking the advantage, one rudo stays in the ring for the most part, beating on one tecnico. So long as this happens, they can play more face-in-peril style. The rudos will cycle in and occasionally, after a long beating, a tecnico might roll out and another will take the heat.

These matches are about broad momentum shifts. They are about the mandate of heaven shifting. So whether the rudos started the beatdown in the primera or the segunda, generally in the subsequent fall, the tecnicos will come back. This is usually due to the rudos going to a well once too often, getting too cocky, or through basic miscommunication. Often times, it'll be through one tecnico dodging or reversing a move in the ring and the other two flying in, or brawling on the outside, and will often involve a revenge spot, whether that is a posting or mask ripping or whatever, some quick shine, and then a tying up of the falls (unless the tecnicos were already ahead, in which case move on to the next paragraph).

This usually leads to a reset where everyone pairs off again, one at a time. This involves a lot of quick, logical cut offs, a chance for everyone to show off their offense, and usually some more tecnico shine as they fight against the odds. All of that builds back to the dives and then to the finish, usually between the two luchadores most focused, and with some ending that will bridge to whatever (usually similar) match they are running the next week, and occasionally to an eventual singles match.

That's not every trios match, but if you come in with that framework, that model, as a tool for understanding what you're seeing, to see how it fits and how it matches and what the variation is, then it's much harder to get lost.

You can do the same thing with wager matches or title matches.

[dkookypunk43]

I never really got the appeal of lucha because to me it looks more like choreographed dance than an actual fight unless you get into the brawls. Lucha to me is impressive but I don't get that same sense of gratification from it as I get from well done puro or American wrestling. It's just not for me and I understand that and I try to look at it from an open mind every time I watch a touted match.

 

For me CMLL isn't very accessible outside its core audience and have no intentions of expanding to a broader audience. That's why I have always enjoyed AAA a bit better. What I will say is that Elite is doing a fantastic job making lucha feel more like a fight than dance.

[JerryvonKramer]

For me it boils down to the fact that Lucha mostly sucks.

[Log]

For me it boils down to the fact that Lucha mostly sucks.

Everything mostly sucks. By that criteria, you shouldn't like movies, music, wrestling, anything.

[sek69]

In the 90s when the internet started to boom, it also happened to coincide with a time when Japanese wrestling was really fucking good. Anyone who had any kind of following at the time was raving about the amazing matches they were seeing and it got everyone interested.

 

Combine that with the fact that we're just now starting to get footage of lucha from before 2000 (the good stuff at least), it's no wonder it never got as popular.

[GOTNW]

For me it boils down to the fact that Lucha mostly sucks.

I can't hear you the noise of you praising shitty indy workrate wrestling is drowning out whatever constructive point you could possibly make.

[Al]

I think it's as simple as the American and Japanese wrestling worlds interacting far more than American and Mexican wrestling. There's a long history of wrestlers like Brisco, Race, the Funks, Thesz and others going to Japan. Mexico never got the NWA heavyweight champion.

[Sean Liska]

Meltzer at least recently has started to really enjoy CMLL and tweet about the Friday night shows when there's a great match. That's the best chance lucha has of making in-roads in hardcore fan circles. It took me like 20 years to figure out lucha so I get where people come from but it's sad that so few people get to enjoy the magic of a Negro Casas.

[Grimmas]

For me it boils down to the fact that Lucha mostly sucks.

Just a utterly ridiculous statement. Unless you want to say that about all wrestling.

[fxnj]

I'm not sure how true it is to say lucha gets ignored considering the big AAA and CMLL matches have gotten plenty of publicity on English speaking websites in recent years. People definitely seem to at least be open to checking it out. What doesn't get much pimping are the throwaway CMLL 6-mans, and it's entirely fair to chalk that up to style preferences for the reasons stated in this thread

[Superstar Sleeze]

OK, so I'm someone who generally loves puro, but have never been able to understand lucha. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm much more familiar/comfortable with Mexican/Spanish language presentations than I am with Japanese. I can count to five in Japanese, say hello and good bye, and pretty much nothing else. My Spanish isn't fluent, but if you were to drop me off anywhere in the Spanish speaking world, I'd probably be able to bet by comfortably. My understanding of puro is based purely on what is going on in the ring. I follow the stories they are trying to tell, the characters they are trying to convey and the matches flow in a way that makes total sense to me. The thing I don't get about lucha is that nothing seems to have any rhyme or reason. I don't understand any of the transitional elements. If one guy is kicking the shit out of the other, sometimes the other guy just takes over on offense without any discernible reason. Too often, I feel like I watch an entire match where nothing feels impactful. There is a lot of rope running, some cool arm drags and head scissors, some mat work that doesn't seem to go anywhere, and then the match ends with a complicated roll up or a move that I don't buy as a finish. I never feel that sense of drama that I get from puro, or even well done American wrestling. I've watched some lucha that I really liked, and tend to really enjoy when people bring lucha elements to puro or American wrestling. I'm willing to give lucha matches a chance, but more often than not I just don't get why a lot of highly regarded lucha matches are enjoyed as much as they are.

Nailed my feelings. I'm open to Lucha. So I rather spend my time watching American and Japanese wrestling. One day I'll get to Lucha

[Eduardo]

Probably about a dozen or more reasons, starting at people coming in with preconceived notions on what pro wrestling is and not willing to meet lucha libre where it's at and what it is. Style, language, people like Konnan talking about how there's "no psychology", weird ideas people have about countries (both Japan and Mexico), online discourse and narratives, WCW Nitro, accessibility to footage, bending over backwards to make sense of American and Japanese wrestling but not doing the same for Mexican wrestling, and a bit more all plays into this. Probably some similar reasons why film fans know the works of Kon Ichikawa, Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, Mikio Naruse, and more, and can't name any Emilio "El Indio" Fernandez films from Mexico, and only know Gabriel Figueroa from his American work.

[cad]

I was going to say something similar to that, except with no film references and I'd also have added something about the scarcity of one on one matches.