A wrestling match during a Lucha Vavoom show at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles, California on February 11, 2022 ( AFP / VALERIE MACON )
Veronica Yune has barely finished undressing in the air, head down, when two muscular masked wrestlers, Sexi and Mexi, appear in the ring, preparing to do battle with the villainous Dirty Sanchez.
After more than two years of forced unemployment due to the pandemic, the artist-athletes of the show “Lucha Vavoom”, a unique mix of Mexican wrestling and burlesque show as only Los Angeles could produce, are finally back on the boards.
And they exult. “I have the blood pulsing in my veins!” exclaims Serafina, perched on stilts covered with a huge bell skirt from which the presenters of the evening emerge.
“We are alive!”, shouts the dancer as she steps onto the stage for this Valentine’s Day evening under the sign of “Impossible loves”.
It is true that Lucha Vavoom is a show itself born out of a love story.
Burlesque aerial artist Veronica Yune during a Lucha Vavoom performance at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles, California on February 11, 2022 ( AFP / VALERIE MACON )
More than twenty years ago, the American Liz Fairbairn dropped everything to follow a wrestler she had met on a set to Mexico. The relationship didn’t last but Liz caught the wrestling bug and took it home to California.
Feeling she needed a little something extra to bring the show to the taste of Los Angeles, she teamed up with a burlesque troupe to marry sensuality with action.
“We thought that if we attracted the public with the burlesque side, they would see wrestling at the same time and that they would like it. And that’s what happened”, explains the founder of Lucha Vavoom.
This unique touch has built up a loyal clientele and the Mayan Theater, with its 1,700 seats in downtown Los Angeles, is sold out at every performance.
– “The magic of the character” –
The arrival of the pandemic suddenly put the whole troop on the mat, depriving it of a show.
“I was training at home, to be ready when it came time to resume,” explains Veronica Yune, while a dresser adjusts an extravagant pink wig on her head.
Artist Catalina de la Rosa prepares backstage during a Lucha Vavoom performance at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles, California on February 11, 2022 ( AFP / VALERIE MACON )
“I dreamed a lot of the performances of Lucha Vavoom at the start of the confinement”, remembers Serafina, for whom “it is an honor to go back on this stage”.
Behind the scenes before the show begins, clouds of lacquer mix with the glitter; wrestlers coat themselves with oil alongside creepy lingerie dancers stretching.
Dressing and preparation can take up to three hours for some artists.
During the closure of performance halls caused by the pandemic, most had to work on other projects, often without an audience. “It was super tough,” sighs Taya Valkyrie, a former wrestler with WWE, the biggest professional wrestling company in the world.
“The spectators are part of the show, they are the ones who give me energy, and I give it back to them, it’s an interaction”, explains the sculptural Canadian, before draping herself in a black cape reminiscent of that of a bullfighter.
In homage to Mexico, where she devoted herself to lucha libre for five years, she easily switches from her native English to Spanish, but she is the only wrestler in the troop to fight without a mask, one of the emblematic accessories of the lucha libre.
“It’s magic,” says El Chupacabra, whose costume is inspired by the reptilian monster from Mexican folklore that attacks flocks and chicken coops. “It’s the magic of the character that I embody that counts for people”, assures the athlete, who will face the duo of “Crazy Chickens” this evening.
A wrestling match during a Lucha Vavoom show at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles, California on February 11, 2022 ( AFP / VALERIE MACON )
Like their colleagues who refuse to reveal their age or their real identity, the “Crazy Chickens” are so immersed in their role that the feathered wrestlers are content to cackle to answer questions from AFP.
But already, Dirty Sanchez, one of the public’s favorite “bad guys”, has seized the microphone to galvanize the spectators: “I’m going to hurt some people tonight”, yells the paunchy colossus.
“Between Dirty Sanchez and the Crazy Chickens, I don’t know which are my favorites,” enthuses Clix, a fan who traveled from neighboring Arizona to see the show.
“It’s the seventh time I’ve attended the show. Two years without Lucha Vavoom was hell, but now I’m back in paradise,” he says.