A leather craftsman from León changed everything
Lucha libre began on September 21, 1933 in Mexico City. One year later, on the company’s first anniversary, an American wrestler debuted as La Maravilla Enmascarada, the first masked match in Mexican wrestling history.
The mask was made by Don Antonio H. Martínez, a leather craftsman from León, Guanajuato, who took seventeen separate measurements before producing a successful goatskin design. His family's shop still makes masks today. Drawing on jaguar imagery from Mayan and Aztec iconography, Mexican mask-makers created a visual language entirely their own.
Sacred armor of the working-class hero
A lucha libre mask is custom-made for each wrestler, their alter ego, their mythology. Eagle, jaguar, skeleton, vampire, saint. The design is the identity. The mask is not a costume. It is the person.
Máscara contra Máscara, mask versus mask, is the highest-stakes match in lucha libre. The loser must remove his mask before the crowd, reveal his real name, his hometown, and his years as a professional. He is unmasked permanently. He can never wear that identity again.
Three giants, and one man buried in silver
El Santo took the silver mask in 1942. He starred in over fifty films. He briefly removed it on television on January 26, 1984. Ten days later he died. He was buried in the silver mask.
Father Sergio Gutiérrez Benítez, "Fray Tormenta", wrestled masked for twenty-three years and over 4,000 matches to fund his orphanage. He is the real person behind Nacho Libre. The EZLN Zapatistas and Pussy Riot have both adopted the mask as a symbol of resistance. A face of Lycra has become the world's sacred armor of anonymity.
