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Mondo Lucha A Go-Go: The Bizarre and Honorable World of Wild Mexican Wrestling by Dan Madigan
dantastic's review
4.0
Much like Sherlock Holmes and movies starring Elvis, Mexican wrestling is one of those things I like the idea of more than the execution.
Mondo Lucha A Go-Go is a coffee table book about the bizarre world of Mexican wrestling, or lucha libre, as it is called. This book was primarily an impulse buy after reading the exquisite Hoodtown by Christa Faust. Still, it kept my attention.
Madigan gives a good overview of lucha libre history and details many of the more influential characters, like El Santo, Blue Demon, El Solitario, Mil Mascaras, and many others. The book is packed with pictures, both color and black and white. The most fascinating to me were the movie posters. I love that the Mexican wrestlers starred in movies with their masks on.
Mondo Lucha A Go-Go is a coffee table book about the bizarre world of Mexican wrestling, or lucha libre, as it is called. This book was primarily an impulse buy after reading the exquisite Hoodtown by Christa Faust. Still, it kept my attention.
Madigan gives a good overview of lucha libre history and details many of the more influential characters, like El Santo, Blue Demon, El Solitario, Mil Mascaras, and many others. The book is packed with pictures, both color and black and white. The most fascinating to me were the movie posters. I love that the Mexican wrestlers starred in movies with their masks on.
patrickwreed's review
3.0
It's a frustrating book, because it could have been far better with minimal work.
It looks fantastic - glossy full colour photos, stunning reproduction of Lucha Libre movie posters, lobby cards and comics - and the sections on Lucha cinema are well-researched, informative, and clearly coming from a place of passion.
What is disappointing is how much the book would have benefited from a good editor. Much of the history included is good entry level material (I would have liked to see more on Lucha's origins pre-EMLL, and the impacts of repressive governments on the genre, though this has been written about elsewhere), that's let down by repetition and by simple mistakes. We're told that Psicosis is also known as Psychosis in the US twice in as many pages, while Black Shadow has almost his entire biography repeated, and some sections trail off into just a list of names.
In terms of mistakes, some are grammatical or typographical, some are evidence of either an insufficiently observant editor, or one not knowledgeable about wrestling - how else do you explain describing a Mexican Surfboard as an example of a "high-flying move", or the Michinoku Driver (also misspelled in the book, incidentally) as being a variation of a crossface? In the same section as these cock-ups, El Santo/El Hijo del Santo get their finishing moves listed twice under different names - either writer, editor or both, unclear that they were just repeating two different descriptions of one move, rather than unique names for two different moves.
Those mistakes, and the constant repetition either of key moments (aside from what I mentioned earlier, Mil Mascaras' origin was repeated at least twice) or of throwaway comments makes it a frustrating read, as does what often comes across as a fairly scattershot understanding of wrestling history outside of the bigger Lucha names. Some major names get barely a mention, while a section on the lack of Luchadores in the US during the 80s is really only a meandering exploration of the WWF's own masked wrestlers of that decade, with no mention of other American promotions or territories. Mil Mascaras - a figure much cited elsewhere in the book - was a regular fixture in Texas and California throughout the decade (as were several other Luchadores), as well as making regular appearances for the WWF, which doesn't support that sections central premise at all. There is something to be said about the US having different attitudes towards masked wrestlers than Mexico, but it's an argument that this book fails to coherently make.
It would be a good introduction to Lucha Libre for anyone with a passing interest, particularly if more on the cultural and aesthetic side than looking to explore the history of the sport, but there are better books out there on the same topic (though few as nice to look at as this one).
It looks fantastic - glossy full colour photos, stunning reproduction of Lucha Libre movie posters, lobby cards and comics - and the sections on Lucha cinema are well-researched, informative, and clearly coming from a place of passion.
What is disappointing is how much the book would have benefited from a good editor. Much of the history included is good entry level material (I would have liked to see more on Lucha's origins pre-EMLL, and the impacts of repressive governments on the genre, though this has been written about elsewhere), that's let down by repetition and by simple mistakes. We're told that Psicosis is also known as Psychosis in the US twice in as many pages, while Black Shadow has almost his entire biography repeated, and some sections trail off into just a list of names.
In terms of mistakes, some are grammatical or typographical, some are evidence of either an insufficiently observant editor, or one not knowledgeable about wrestling - how else do you explain describing a Mexican Surfboard as an example of a "high-flying move", or the Michinoku Driver (also misspelled in the book, incidentally) as being a variation of a crossface? In the same section as these cock-ups, El Santo/El Hijo del Santo get their finishing moves listed twice under different names - either writer, editor or both, unclear that they were just repeating two different descriptions of one move, rather than unique names for two different moves.
Those mistakes, and the constant repetition either of key moments (aside from what I mentioned earlier, Mil Mascaras' origin was repeated at least twice) or of throwaway comments makes it a frustrating read, as does what often comes across as a fairly scattershot understanding of wrestling history outside of the bigger Lucha names. Some major names get barely a mention, while a section on the lack of Luchadores in the US during the 80s is really only a meandering exploration of the WWF's own masked wrestlers of that decade, with no mention of other American promotions or territories. Mil Mascaras - a figure much cited elsewhere in the book - was a regular fixture in Texas and California throughout the decade (as were several other Luchadores), as well as making regular appearances for the WWF, which doesn't support that sections central premise at all. There is something to be said about the US having different attitudes towards masked wrestlers than Mexico, but it's an argument that this book fails to coherently make.
It would be a good introduction to Lucha Libre for anyone with a passing interest, particularly if more on the cultural and aesthetic side than looking to explore the history of the sport, but there are better books out there on the same topic (though few as nice to look at as this one).
colleenaf's review
3.0
All true lovers of bad movies have to respect the role luchadores have played in the history of film. You haven't seen camp until you've seen the silver masked legend EL SANTO wrestle vampires to the ground and single handedly beat up a bunch of lepers (yes that's right, lepers). And who can ignore the equally revered BLUE DEMON in such films as "Blue Demon vs The Infernal Spiders" and the classic "Blue Demon vs The Infernal Brains". The man was good with infernal things I guess.
Now a love of bad movies was not the right reason to pick up this book, a rather detailed account of the history of lucha libre mexican wrestling with more of a focus on the blood-baths than on the glued on werewolf hair. The book in general took too personal an approach to the subject, the author being incredibly aware of himself. If this were marketed as a personal memoir about an American finding a love for the luchadore world I would have been more forgiving, but marketed as a history I was truly disapointed.
There were fantastic moments, such as learning the origin of the masks including the first mask maker. There also were enough old movie posters to satisy my bad-movie intentions and I did enjoy the personal lives of the legends of the sport, Santo and Blue Demon being given their own large sections. Did you know El Santo NEVER took over his mask in public during his career? And when he finally unmasked himself on a television show he died one week later? *insert DUNT DUNT DUNNNNN! here*
One thing I have to give this book credit for is the fantastic photographs. Eye-catching from afar, I was approached by more folks while reading this book than probably any other I've carried around. Single ladies out there, forget going to the bars, just walk around with this book open and surely you'll get hit on...though I can't promise the kind of fella that will be doling the hitting.
If you are a luchadore fan, you might want to check this out, but if you are new to the world of the sport this book isn't going to entice you to buy a mask and join the screaming crowds.
Now a love of bad movies was not the right reason to pick up this book, a rather detailed account of the history of lucha libre mexican wrestling with more of a focus on the blood-baths than on the glued on werewolf hair. The book in general took too personal an approach to the subject, the author being incredibly aware of himself. If this were marketed as a personal memoir about an American finding a love for the luchadore world I would have been more forgiving, but marketed as a history I was truly disapointed.
There were fantastic moments, such as learning the origin of the masks including the first mask maker. There also were enough old movie posters to satisy my bad-movie intentions and I did enjoy the personal lives of the legends of the sport, Santo and Blue Demon being given their own large sections. Did you know El Santo NEVER took over his mask in public during his career? And when he finally unmasked himself on a television show he died one week later? *insert DUNT DUNT DUNNNNN! here*
One thing I have to give this book credit for is the fantastic photographs. Eye-catching from afar, I was approached by more folks while reading this book than probably any other I've carried around. Single ladies out there, forget going to the bars, just walk around with this book open and surely you'll get hit on...though I can't promise the kind of fella that will be doling the hitting.
If you are a luchadore fan, you might want to check this out, but if you are new to the world of the sport this book isn't going to entice you to buy a mask and join the screaming crowds.
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