Make no mistake about it! This is the coolest time to be a wrestling fan. We have cable TV and VCRs to directly feed us our sweet megadoses of international wrestling action today. WWF RAW with their light shows aren't your trip? No problem! Lucha libre on Galavision is at your fingertips. Don't dig lucha libre style? Japanese videotapes are an easy find! There is lots of good pro wrestling action available, no matter what your style preference may be.
But remember a few decades back, when most of us hardcore fanatics viewed many wrestling heroes indirectly? That was when the U.S. was riddled with scores of regional wrestling empires, but no kingpin promotion that reached the entire country. With our TV antennas grasping only the most local wrestling shows, we experienced the foreign wrestling stars (and by foreign stars I mean any wrestler who worked outside of our state) through Victory Sports magazines and word of mouth. We saw gory photos of the fire-throwing Sheik butchering his opponent half a country away, or listened to the kid who just moved down the block from New Jersey, boasting about seeing Bruno Sammartino defend the WWWF title. Most of us had at least a few wrestlers who we saw only in tabloids or heard through tales, yet they juiced our imaginations to build a hep wrestling empire in our minds.
Blue Demon was one such distant wrestling hero of mine. I never actually saw him wrestle until 1980, well past his prime, but his aura shaped the wrestling fanatic in me since my first months as a proud mark, back when I drank up the L.A. TV action on KCOP-13 nearly every Saturday night in 1972. His death this past December brought back a trail of fond memories.
My first lessons in sorting out charisma and technical wrestling came from the local Chicano kids at my school. I was ten and had just bought my first wrestling magazines, several issue of Lucha Libre featuring Mexico's proudest flexing their physiques on the cover, backed by neon bright backdrops. My gringo buddies scoffed at the magazine as there were no pics of Freddie Blassie or John Tolos. But the kids who recently moved from Mexico missed their heroes back home, and fingered through the magazines with me. The supernatural masks of Tinieblas and El Santo floored me, and I would remark, "Now these guys are cool! These must be Mexico's top dogs!" The kids would shrug, and say "Yeah, those guys are good," not wanting to burst my bubble, yet emphasizing, "but Blue Demon, Ray Mendoza those guys are great wrestlers!"
And the father of the Villanos and this Blue Demon guy, they now grabbed my curiosity. I saw Ray Mendoza in the main event of my first live match and immediately understood his appeal, but who was Blue Demon?
I finally scored an issue of Lucha Libre that had a feature on Blue Demon. I had seen Míl Máscaras and El Sicodelico on TV. I had seen the photo features of Santo and other masked superstars.
And here was Blue Demon, a wrestler wearing mask and cape similar to his nemesis Santo, hep as all hell, yet there was something different about Blue Demon. The spectacular lucha libre ring gear was there, but his acorn brown complexion and tough physique hinted that the guy under the mask wasn't concerned with retaining an El Santo grace or a Mil Máscaras physique. It's not that there was no physique on Blue Demon. It just looked like this guy's muscles were built for gusto, not just for the ladies. His chiseled hands alone looked like they had their own workout routine, which immediately reminded me of the action figures plugged on TV with features like "kung-fu iron death grip."
But my favorite Blue Demon moment played out as one of the best pro wrestling memories I shared with my father. To tell this anecdote vividly, I must first scribble you a sketch of Dad. Dr. RJS Brown had an illustrious career as a nuclear physicist that spanned over thirty years. Fifteen years after retirement, he still practices his craft as a consultant to University of Bologna in Italy. He played classical piano, fancied folk music, studied Spanish, dabbled a bit with Russian, and began studying Italian in his seventies. He is the pop-culture's stereotypical scientist complete with beard, moustache, and spectacles.
If I were to compare him to a pro wrestler, Mick Foley immediately comes to mind. Dad shattered his hip in a fall last May. After major surgery and a slow and painful path to recovery, the bottle of pain pills in his medicine cabinet has been popped open on only a few occasions. Yep, my pop has a higher threshold of pain than I previously gave him credit for!
When I discovered the joys of watching pro wrestling in 1972, my Dad was not overly enthused. He preferred Beethoven over Blassie, folk dancing over the annual 22-Man Battle Royal, but he would occasionally indulge me by sitting in on some televised matches, especially when they were narrated in Spanish by Miguel Alonso on KMEX-34 and even suggested that we head down to the Olympic Auditorium one evening to take in the matches.
October of 1973. Dad took Mom and I to Mexico City as part of a working vacation. While we stayed at a Marriott, ate mostly in the restaurants that fellow tourists frequented, saw the same pyramids and festivities that most Americanos took in, Dad & Mom wanted to throw in a few days and nights of the Mexico City that tourists traditionally avoid. We strolled the open air markets with their plucked chickens strung up just above the platter of skinned pigs' heads ready for the basting, a jarring culture shock for this city boy used to seeing his red meat wrapped neatly in cellophane!
So we came across a small carnival one evening, not unlike those in the United States, with their sleepy ticket takers, wild-eyed vendors, wild- eyed yellow neon, fluorescent cotton candy, and grinding rides desperately in need of oil, a wrench, and a key replacement part or two.
But the thing I always loved most about carnivals were the game booths. Despite multiple warnings by well meaning family members, I held tight to the notion that sheer skill could win you the giant stuffed lion that hanged high in the carnival barker's booth.
So imagine my elation when I came across a dart throwing vendor, who flagged down the only gringo family on the grounds, shouting that all you needed to do was pop three balloons to win your choice of two prizes: the statue of Blue Demon or the statue of El Santo!
I scrambled for my pesos and centavos to hand over to the gentleman, all the while stammering "bitchin', Blue Demon, So cool!" I began tossing round after round of darts, some missing, some hitting, but none popping. My lack of poise, power and aim kept me off the pitcher's mound in Little League, but could Lucha Libre inspire me to thrust a dart swifter than a baseball? Not likely. Dart after dart flew toward the balloons, but after eight straight rounds and all the balloons still standing in bloom on the wall, it looked like all the Blue Demon statues would stay home at the carnival.
"Mas fuerza!" cried the booth operator, meaning "More force!" He had a childlike grin on his face, and lo and behold, he was actually cheering me on to nab my trophy!
Down to my final round of coins, I shrugged and thought "no Blue Demon," but I figured one more round couldn't ...
And then Dad laid a few pesos of his own on the table. It doesn't take a nuclear physicist to figure that carnival balloons are under inflated, but it helps to have a nuclear physicist to figure the physics of demolishing the pop-resistant balloon. Sad sacks like myself, innocent to the ways of the snickering carny, would shell out buck after buck to try in vain to capture a Blue Demon statue, never figuring that a semi-flaccid balloon just won't pop for any fool.
Cool and calculated, Poppa popped one balloon, the next, and the third. No build up, no tension, you would swear it was a feat he performed every day. When the third sluggish balloon gave way with a dull pop, the two cats grinning the widest were the carnival man and I. He handed me my newly acquired treasure, which I embraced as if I was holding my first born for the first time!
I would lay odds that nearly all of the Santo and Blue Demon statues that stood in the carnival booth that night in 1973 are now just Ozymandius hunks of rubble laying low in a landfill somewhere not far from the city they resided in.
But at least one of the Blue Demon figures remains intact, and it stands proudly in my home to this day. A chipped chunk of nose is its only imperfection, just like the Great Sphinx of Egypt, and it retains the bright nuclear colors that it wore the day my father won it. It definitely stands out in my stock of family treasures like the old Victrola, my great grandfather's watch, and a restored portrait of my grandmother with her sisters in their childhood. Many would think it simply a campy collectible, but my Blue Demon statue stands for much more than just a funky conversation piece.
Blue Demon, descanse en paz. I never met you face to face, yet you were a key player in my fondest memory of strolling through Mexico City with my folks.
