They fight in spandex briefs and attend publicity events in designer suits and ties, but their faces always remain concealed. Whenever luchadors are seen in public, they are always masked. The emphasis on anonymity that began inside the ring has carried over to life outside it. When the bell rings and the loser is unmasked, only then do most luchadors reveal their name and birthplace. The only exception is after a lucha de apuestas, or match of wagers, where a masked wrestler bets his mask against another’s. To unmask a luchador during a match became shameful, an act attempted only by the lowest of rudos, lucha libre’s cartoonish villains. Promoters quickly realized that crowds loved the allure of the anonymous wrestler, and traditions developed in the sport to protect masked characters’ true identities. During the golden age of lucha, three of the sport’s greatest wrestlers-Blue Demon, El Santo, and Mil Máscaras, collectively known as the Big Three-wrestled in iconic designs that have since defined the look of lucha masks. Cotton and then spandex replaced the suffocating, uncomfortable suede, and more complex designs began to appear on the faces of the luchadors. As the mask gimmick was dying in the United States, in Mexico it began taking on a significance that now dwarfs the sport itself. He was spotted by a lucha libre promoter, who brought him to work for the league that became the Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre in the 1930s.
One origin story traces the use of the mask in Mexico back to an Irishman from Boston named John “Cyclone” MacKey, who achieved notoriety in the United States for wrestling in a mask in the southern circuits. When the cartel leader donned the Imagen mask, he drew together two subcultures in Mexico with traditions of anonymity. But Leal Flores’s two pursuits are not entirely unconnected. In a country where narcos launder their money through soccer teams and commission bands to write narcocorridos that celebrate their bloody accomplishments, lucha libre has remained almost untouched by cartels. Lucha libre has been nothing more than a side project for Leal Flores. Originally comprised of defectors from the Mexican special forces, the Zetas were hired to provide armed support for the Gulf Cartel’s narcotics operations before they split off on their own in 2010. It is believed that he got his start under Armando González, one of the founders of the Zetas. Like R.C., he is from Reynosa, but as the head of the Los Metros faction of the Gulf Cartel, he’s anything but a humble working man. Known in the underworld as Comandante Simple or El Metro 24, Flores was believed to be a leader of the powerful Gulf Cartel, which operates throughout much of northeastern Mexico. was mistaken for, Imagen III, was actually Jesús Alejandro Leal Flores.
Why do I have to change it because another person uses a name like it?” “I have been wrestling for twenty years under this name. “I work an honest job and I wrestle because it is my passion,” he told the paper.
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Identifying himself only by the initials R.C., he said he was a truck driver from the Mexican border city of Reynosa, and had never been a gangster. This Imagen slipped out just before the raid, later surfacing to speak to the Monitor, a south Texas newspaper, to clear his name. There had been a wrestler who went by Imagen at Cine El Rey, but his name was Imagen II, a name he says he took in honor of his deceased brother. In the end, the operation boiled down to a case of mistaken identity. Eventually, the FBI confirmed that its target had not even been at the theater that night. That evening, the FBI’s target had been a drug trafficker who moonlighted as a luchador, hidden by his mask and the stage name Imagen III. As it happened, the reason was not a cross-border immigration infraction but the ongoing war against Mexican drug cartels. ICE denied involvement, forcing an FBI spokesperson to blame the initial version of the story on a miscommunication within the Bureau. Officially, the FBI was there in support of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to apprehend an individual wanted on an “immigration violation.” But as the overwhelming show of force suggested, the raid had bigger stakes. Making their way to the dressing rooms, they arrested six luchadors-masked wrestlers of the Mexican sport of lucha libre-who had come north to perform in a showcase. Working with local SWAT officers and an air support helicopter from the Texas Department of Public Safety, agents stormed the Cine El Rey, a historic downtown theater. It was April 2013 and the FBI had a unique lineup on their hands.
In a twisted parallel to the country’s long tradition of masked luchadors, Mexico’s cartel leaders have carved out their own traditions of anonymity.
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