Amid body slams, amor

By Ron Kantowski

Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2008 | 2 a.m.

It was going on 45 minutes since his match had ended via disqualification — as many pro wrestling matches are wont to do when the referee is more devious than a disgraced Illinois governor — and Rey Misterio was still signing autographs and posing for photographs at the east end of the Star of the Desert Arena in Primm late Saturday night.

His real name is Miguel Lopez Angel Diaz. But nobody calls him that.

“Rey Misterio! Rey Misterio! Rey Misterio!” shouted a fan to one of the first lucha libre Mexican wrestling stars to enjoy crossover fame in the United States. In 1992, Misterio teamed with Rey Misterio Jr. — who later changed his wrestling surname to Mysterio — to win the World Wrestling Association’s tag team championship. Rey Mysterio Jr. is actually Rey Misterio’s nephew — not his son — although there is a Rey Misterio Jr., aka El Hijo de Rey Misterio, who wrestles. It was he who teamed with his old man on Saturday night.

If it all sounds confusing, it is, but here’s all you need to know about the Rey Misterios of the professional wrestling world: They all wear Mexican wrestling masks and they all are extremely popular.

“R-E-Y-M-I-S-T-E-R-I-O” spelled out a banner in the stands, with each letter a placard held high by an enthusiastic lucha libre fan. Lucha libre is Spanish for “free wrestling,” a style of entertainment that has been around longer than Dick the Bruiser’s tights, although Saturday night was its initial foray into the state-line arena.

An announced crowd of 2,450, the majority of them Mexican-Americans, drove the 41 miles from Las Vegas on a cold and blustery night to partake in an event that was part cultural experience, part good ol’ fashioned family entertainment — albeit with a few body slams for effect. As per most attractions at the Star of the Desert, there were a few hundred free tickets to be had for those savvy enough to act early, but the other ones cost a reasonable $34 and $19. The ringside seats cost just $4 more than a souvenir lucha libre mask, which many of the bartenders were wearing. (Patrons, fearful of being put into a hammer lock, were tipping generously.)

Inside the arena, a lot of kids were wearing lucha libre masks. So were some of their dads.

Wrestlers of all sexes, shapes and sizes (many built like bartenders and sports writers) spent the better part of the evening performing the high-flying pantomimed stunts for which lucha libre is known — “it’s the Cirque du Soleil of ring sports” one of the promoters told me, only without the French Canadians. Sprinkled in with the aerial acrobatics was a healthy dose of Three Stooges-type slapstick that you may have missed, if you weren’t paying close attention, or laughed out loud at, if you were.

“Uno, dos, tres!” the ring announcer would shout in concert with the devious referee when one of the luchadores, wearing a brightly colored mask, “pinned” another luchador, also wearing a brightly colored mask, with a figure four leg lock or a banzai drop or a sit-down power bomb or one of those other spectacular finishing moves for which pro wrestling is known.

The kids loved it.

So did their dads.

Then at the end of the night, they walked tiny hand in much larger hand, down to the metal barriers that separated the wrestlers from the spectators, where Rey Misterio was signing autographs and posing for photographs.

Every kid got one.

So did every dad.

Nearby one of the Herbst Gaming executives smiled as this scene of mass adulation, the sort that Barry Bonds’ fans missed out on, unfolded.

“I knew it was going to be interesting,” said Michael Starr, executive vice president and general manager of Primm Valley Casino Resorts, who plans to bring lucha libre back in early spring. “I just didn’t know how interesting.”

Ron Kantowski can be reached at 259-4088 or at [email protected].