The world of women’s wrestling in Mexico is rife with contradictions. During a lucha, or a fight, a coterie of nearly naked women dance and wave in the stands. They are entertainment for the mostly male audience: fans who egg them on, buy them drinks, and ask for kisses in return. Simultaneously, in the ring below, women wrestlers kick, punch, and tackle one another. They scream and yell and pull each other’s hair. They fly through the air and land on top of each other’s bodies. The audience claps and groans, shouts and roars.
Mexico is one of the world capitals of wrestling, and the sport — called Lucha Libre — is a cultural sensation. Historically, men have dominated the lucha but, over time, women have carved out their own space in the ring, winning the hearts of fans and inspiring future generations of luchadoras.
In Mexico, I sat down with three women wrestlers at vastly different stages in their careers: Valientita, 21, is the daughter of longtime celebrity wrestler El Valiente, and has only just begun to train. She has not yet "debuted" as a professional wrestler, but lives, breathes, and dreams of the lucha. Princess Sugehit, 37, has been wrestling since she was 15, when she would sneak away to train while her parents thought she was at volleyball practice. And Dalys, "The Caribbean," 43, is the current World Women’s Champion, and the oldest practicing woman wrestler in Mexico: She didn’t begin her career as a professional wrestler until age 35, after she had already raised two daughters. She showed up to our interview with a black eye from training the day before.
Shondaland: How did you become interested in wrestling?
Dalys: I grew up in Panama, but we would travel to Mexico for wrestling matches. My father was a wrestling promoter and all of us in our family were huge fans. And I was a tough kid, a tomboy. I was inclined toward extreme sports: karate, kung-fu. It wasn’t a far leap to wrestling.
Princess Sugehit: I always knew that wrestling existed — it’s one of the most popular sports in my hometown. But I thought that only men wrestled. The one time I saw women in the ring, it caught my attention. From then on, I was hooked.
Valientita: My father is a professional wrestler, El Valiente, and I grew up in this world. I was practically born in the ring. For all of us who grew up inside Lucha Libre, all the children of wrestlers, it was our dream to one day become wrestlers ourselves. We ate, slept, and dreamt of wrestling.
SL: Valientita, having recently started to train, what has surprised you the most about wrestling?
V: It’s been surprising to realize how easy the pros make it look. People say that it’s all an act, that wrestlers don’t actually hit each other. I wish there were an open day of training so that the public could see how hard it actually is.
PS: It’s a high performance sport. It requires constant preparation and training. It’s our job to make the performance look easy. You watch it and you think, "I could do that." Well, try it. See if you can.
SL: Do your families support your choice of profession?
PS: As a teenager, I had to sneak away from home to go to the gym. I would tell my parents that I was going to volleyball practice. I thought that they would take me out of wrestling if they found out. Eventually they realized what I was actually doing, and they saw how happy I was. They accepted it, though to this day they don’t love it. My mom gets upset when she sees a match. She’ll be there watching wrestlers hit her daughter and she’ll be pacing around, practically trying to climb into the ring to hit them back.
V: For a long time, my father didn’t let me train. He insisted that I finish high school and start a career before I begin wrestling. Now my family supports me. There is some pressure because my father is an excellent professional wrestler, and people are always going to compare me to him. It’s a responsibility that I carry, but it’s also an opportunity for me to be so good that people have to realize that it’s not only men who can wrestle.
D: A moment arrives when you make your own decisions. You decide what it is that you’re going to do. My parents also didn’t let me pursue wrestling, so my start was different from my colleagues’. I began wrestling when I was older, at age 35, after raising children. But I had always wanted to be a wrestler, and here I am.
SL: How has the audience responded to you as women in the ring?
D: There are a lot of fans who come especially to see us. They miss us when we’re not there.
PS: Yes, they come to see what we women can do. And they are calling for more opportunities for women wrestlers.
D: But it’s also still lacking. We still have to fight for our place and for the same opportunities as men.
SL: What about the other male wrestlers? How have they reacted to your presence in the Lucha?
PS: They’re very jealous. They think we’re taking space that should be for them, and they want it all for themselves. It’s a man's sport. It’s a macho sport. For them to see a woman in the ring and sometimes doing the moves better than they do? They’re not happy about it. And the more we fight for our place, the more they’re going to be upset. But this attitude is what we’ve always fought against and will continue to fight against. They’re stronger, maybe they’ve got more skill, but I think that we women wrestle with more love and passion. And at the end of the day, we are winning our place.
SL: Tell me more about the differences you see in how women and men wrestle.
PS: When someone prohibits you from doing something, it only makes you want to do it with more passion, love, effort, persistence. These men have always had the opportunity to be in this sport. It’s more feasible for them. It costs us more. That’s the big difference: It’s harder for us to be here.
D: They don’t accept us. And they’re never going to accept us. But it doesn’t matter, [because] here we are.
SL: What advice would you give to a woman who dreams of becoming a professional wrestler?
D: Do it! They should prepare themselves well, train well, because it’s not a game. You can’t do it if you’re going to be casual about it. You can hurt yourself. But, if you’re willing to put in the effort to achieve your dreams, you can do it.
V: Everything in the end is a question of how you push yourself. There will be obstacles, but you have to learn that the rocks on the path only create more steps. You can’t lose momentum. And this is true not only in wrestling but in every aspect of your life. It’s how you have to be. And if you’re good at it, you must also help others with all your heart.
SL: What has been the biggest challenge that you have had to face?
V: My greatest obstacle has been my own mind. Your mind can play tricks on you, and you are the one who has to control it and even dominate it.
There are people who say, "You’re not good at this; this isn’t for you; you’re a woman and you shouldn’t be here." And you are the one who has to decide, "Yes, I want to do it. Yes, I can do it."
D: People come to the ring and shout plenty of ugly things about my body, but I’m not a runway model, am I? I’m an athlete. That’s why my body is the way it is.
SL: What is your ultimate goal as a wrestler?
V: I have it set in my head that I want to be the best female wrestler in the world. That’s my crazy dream. And I know I can do it. I believe I have the ability and the discipline. But I think each one of us also has to excel in our own way. Not to say, "I’m going to be the best that there is," but instead, "I’m going to be better today than I was yesterday and I’m going to continue to improve each day." That’s my mentality.
SL: It’s such a physical occupation, there must be a limit to how long you can wrestle. Do you think about your life after wrestling?
PS: My body has now endured 21 years of hits. I don’t know how long it will last. Sometimes you leave a match and your body is completely covered with bruises. But then you recover and you forget about it. Because this is wrestling. You forget everything.
D: I never think about it. My daughter tells me that she’s not going to have children until I retire, and I say, "Well, who knows when that will be." She’s going to be waiting.
I’ve never wanted to do anything else. Imagine it: You train and train because you love wrestling so much. Then you add in the crowd, the adrenaline it gives you. You see how the people respond to you, how excited they become. They hold up a mirror to you and your excitement, and you feel their energy. It’s not a myth. It’s an inspiration. It’s magic.
This interview has been translated from Spanish. It has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Destry Maria Sibley is a Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storyteller based in New York and Mexico City.
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